It might be kind of early on in the blog for a post about something philosophical and seemingly political like this, but this blog is about real life and real stuff. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious. So, I have a confession to make:

I actually haven’t been a huge fan of the term “expat” and have up until now avoided (meaning: never) calling myself one.

Yet here I am starting a blog with the term in the title. So maybe fitting for a first post after all!

“Expat” sounds like ex-patriot to me, as if that would be someone who is not patriotic anymore or does not like their country of origin. This could not be further from the truth – I did not move abroad because of any dislike for my country!

As it turns out, to be an “expatriate” is not as serious as it sounds. It just means to live in a foreign country on a temporary or permanent basis. The conscious intention to stay would lean more toward the term “immigrant”, with which I somehow have also not identified myself, either.

My intention was never to move to another country permanently, as is more often the case than not. After having spent a year abroad in Germany during my studies in the States, I realized how rich German culture is in music (my major) and wished to spend more time here, get a conservatory education with a world-renowned teacher without taking on (an even bigger mountain of) debt, and “just see” how far I could go and where it would take me.

For a long time I was pretty much rolling with the punches. Maybe that is all we can really do anyway, but with a career goal to be a professional musician, giving it your all and seeing what happens after that IS the reality for a long time. You eventually are able see if it will work out or not, if your hard work will bear fruits, or if you will get enough luck to pull through in the end. Things ended up turning out pretty well for me, for which I am very grateful!

That being said, I realize with the situation how it is in the world today, this is a privilege that I have had – to choose to live in another country for strictly professional “live-the-dream” opportunities, not because of religious or political persecution, war, famine, poverty, etc. Yet, I am a foreigner just like any other immigrant, expat, non-German, etc. Someone who needs to go through the rigorous and at times demeaning visa process, gets denied bank accounts, can’t vote for more than very local elections, and has to learn another language, culture, system, etc in order to navigate through and succeed in daily life.

In other words, stuff you don’t think twice about most of the time if you are in your own country, but stuff that you are forced to think about and are confronted with often while living as an expat.

So why does this all matter?

People love labels. It helps us to make sense of the world, assess potential dangers, and judge without really knowing. For some reason, when I think of an “expat” I think of some older guy sitting at a bar somewhere in Asia, by himself, sipping a soda with a straw (gasp), not fitting in. An image I probably have from some Vietnam-era war movie. Also an image with which I can’t/don’t/won’t relate too, but maybe it’s just the “not fitting in” part that rubs me the wrong way.

The point is that no one feels like their main identity is that of an “outsider” – they may feel like an outsider but think of themselves as themselves, an individual with likes and dislikes, a job to do, goals, relationships, etc. No one fits in a box or can be reduced to a label, even if that label fits one part of their being.

Some people here may look at me as being “strange” or “foreign” or “different” – weird for me to think, even after being here this long, but I’ve seen “the look”. Living in another country turns the tables. How many times have you thought the same of someone different than you and then realized they are drinking coffee in their car just like you do? Or trying to keep a high-energy toddler under control in public, just like you do?

So next time you meet a foreigner, just remember they are an expat living in another culture, just like you would be if you moved abroad! And for you fellow expats, don’t shy away from the natives! You also need to find and develop your own expat identity and how that jives in the country you are living in. You have a few options, though, so consider your audience and what you feel comfortable with:

1. Go for broke (own where you are from, talk about it openly but avoid too many grass-is-greener comparisons, play devil’s advocate, hold actual discussions about your culture/government/lifestyle, play up the differences and even use the shock factor á la “we do not eat horse meat where I’m from, eeeewww!”, etc.)
2. Find similarities (kid has trouble sleeping too? got sneezed on on the subway yesterday too? love the new season of Grey’s Anatomy? can’t stop eating those new sour Haribos either?)
3. Ask for non-cultural advice (where did you get your hedge trimmer / hair cut / car / diaper bag?)
4. Don’t shy away from other foreigners. Not only may they have funny stories or insights to help you with the natives, you will probably have more in common with them than you think (I recently bonded with another young mother from Lebanon by swapping stories from our experiences at the foreigner’s office).