NGL, not asking for a friend. Given the current trends in US politics, it seems prudent to at least look into it.
Most of the online content on the topic seems to be by immigration attorneys hustling ultra rich people. I’m not ultra rich. I have a job in tech, could work remotely, also have enough assets to not desperately need money if the cost of living were low enough.
I am a native English speaker, fluent enough in Spanish to survive in a Spanish speaking country. I am old, male, cis, hetero, basically asexual at this point. I am outgoing, comfortable among strangers.
What’s good and bad about where you live? Would it be OK for a outsider, newcomer?
First of all, stop using word “expat” when you’re talking of immigrants but from “better countries”
Ive usually seen “Expat” defined as someone working in another country, but explicitly with the intent to be there temporarily and leave once their time at that job ends, rather than moving there with an intent to stay and join that society. Which, granted, doesnt seem to be what OP is actually talking about in this case.
Yea, I always thought an “expat” was someone who was temporarily sent to another country to work for their company there.
It’s short for “expatriate.” I’m not saying it isn’t used in the way you described, but that’s not the original meaning.
What OP is talking about has been a thing since the 90s and even 80s and earlier with ex-military.
Move to a cheap country where your pension/disability/passive income/whatever makes you wealthy.
Originally places liked it because it was an influx in cash. But then it became too popular and they were gentrifying places to the point locals couldn’t afford to live and these leeches never worked.
It became big again with the internet when people became able to work and American job while overseas remotely. But by now most American companies just won’t pay American wages. If they wanted someone overseas they’d pay them the low wage they always do.
With those younger people they added the “temporary” because they say they’ll move back someday.
What you’re talking about (if the job is in that country) would be a migrant worker.
But they also don’t like that label, they think they’re better than it.
Hard agree, expat as a term only exists because white people wanted to separate themselves from those they deem ”lesser immigrants”
I moved to Japan from Sweden, I only call my self an immigrant because that’s what I am
I always understood that you refer to yourself and your fellow countrymen abroad as expats. You use the word immigrant when referring to others.
Yes, this is exactly how I would define it.
I also don’t think it imparts a general pro/anti integration with locals (not to say some assholes aren’t out there).
If I was thinking of immigrating elsewhere, I’d want to be near a few other people from my country who’ve been there longer than me, if only to make the transition easier and to get help with any issues specific to people from the same place.
I’d love to see countries mark “expat” as an option on forms…
Just as a trap to filter them all out.
It was literally in the last couple of weeks that I first came across this. I thought it just meant ‘a person living in a country in which isn’t their home country’ regardless of origin, etc. The only thing I thought of it is that it wasn’t necessarily permanent whereas immigrant to me had permanence. It’s wild that, to me, it seems to have come out of nowhere.
I always saw expats as something between immigrants and tourists. They aren’t trying to switch countries and they aren’t just on vacation. There’s plenty of good reasons for this category, like being sent somewhere by your employer. This naturally creates a community of foreigners who aren’t necessarily worried about fitting in as a new citizen or permanent resident would be.
But yeah, this idea that Western countries have expats instead of emigrants is weird.
Depends how they behave. If they behave like “Expats”, who don’t care about integrating into our society, don’t care about learning the local language even after years, they are not welcome.
If they integrate seamless (and this does not imply giving up their identity, just to make sure), and become a good member of this society, be welcome.
i barely integrate now as an american; mostly because of my neuro-divergence makes it easy for people to misread me due my intonation and body language and the number episodes of misunderstanding happened MUCH MORE frequently when i visited my potential new home country as a tourist over the last 40ish years.
i automatically qualify for citizenship for the country and i wonder what it’s going to be like if i have to live there because i have both legal and cultural claim to the country; but i’m very much american plus an american that always seems arrogant and callous to everyone no matter how much he tries.
You would literally lose your job and social life in the US if you said this in America about immigrants lol
Welcome to EU! Prepare for a cultural shift:
Considering that everyone on lemmy is 30+ communist tech worker, it’s probably a welcome change
Speaking more specifically about Poland, depending on how you measure, we might have the most rapidly secularizing society in the world Some Americans (catholic fundamentalists) seem to think that you can just barge in, snatch a tradwife and plot of land and live like it’s 50s, but these people are straight up delusional. Introducing ban on abortion, for example, erased full quarter of support for the party that did it (40% ish to 30% ish overnight) and caused largest protests since dissolution of Soviet Union. There are conservative women, but these tend to be 60+
In tech job market specifically, the bubble has ended (like everywhere else i guess), but if you’re a senior or able to keep your current job you’ll be fine (not sure how you’d get residence permit then). You’d need to lean Polish as a practical matter, because while lots of people do speak decent English, many don’t (esp. 50+ and in small towns) and many official matters can be done in Polish only. Like everywhere else, there’s division between more conservative rural areas and more liberal large cities; no one wants to live in the former, even locals, and so most of foreigners live in Warsaw (or Kraków, or Wrocław). It sounds like you’d blend in right away in one of these places. While property prices and rent went up since start of the plague, it’s not as crushingly bad as in, say, Berlin or Rotterdam. Random benefits include ability to pirate absolutely everything without VPN with no consequences and ability to use complaint as a conversation starter
I never thought about it before, but I agree - you can start a conversion by complaining.
Living in Poland all my life, I also would like to mention it feels really safe here (as a white male, so…).
Unless you’re into football, or low quality clubbing you’ll be hard to find violent crime. Domestic violence and related murders do happen, but you’ll be hard pressed to get yourself mugged or assaulted these days.
You can pay by card or via app (blik) nearly anywhere, small village shop, street produce vendor, food truck, anywhere. If they don’t want your card they are probably doing some tax fraud, or are bad at finding low card payment fees.
TL;DR: I’ve travelled a bit, and I really don’t think I’d rather live anywhere else.
I guess it’s good to hear that things are changing for the better, I emigrated from Poland when I was a child to Norway and my perception of Poland is a far less favourable one lol
Though my entire polish family are also very religious and conservative so
That’s really funny - my very Catholic mom is going to Poland next year with some church group and the priest, lol…I apologize for her in advance!
I’ve always wanted to visit Poland and still hope I can, one day. But no weird Catholic shit!
Is that the church in the salt mine? That’s the only place she’s mentioned so far, but I don’t recall the name or if she even said it, really. She may have just read about it and not known how it was pronounced.
If you’re a nurse or some other skilled professional in some specific fields… We have kind of a labor shortage with some jobs here in Germany. I live in the city, should be okay for outsiders. I guess.
I’d recommend to visit a place before considering to move. See how the people act. And you’d need to learn the language to be able to take part in regular every day life. (Edit: And for most jobs.)
Ja, aber man braucht wenigstens b2 für eine Ausbildung zu machen. Das gelt auch für wenn man möchte als Pflegefachmann/frau arbeiten
Stimmt, da habe ich wohl ein großes ‘Aber’ ausgelassen. Habe das mal ergänzt, Danke. Angeblich ist Deutsch ja auch nicht so ganz so leicht zu erlernen. Viele der anderen Sprachen aber wahrscheinlich ebenso wenig.
Ja genau, Deutsch für mich persönlich war/ist schwierig, aber es ist nicht so kompliziert wie es auf Youtube oder Tiktok erklärt werden. Ich schätze, dass es viel einfacher als Arabisch ist.
Here in Scotland / the UK you’d be absolutely fine so long as you’re a decent person. There’s not even a language barrier beyond dialect, and dialects vary hugely within the UK and each part of the UK anyway. Just please don’t insist that your great-great-grandmother is actually from Clan MacWhatever.
Does establishing some kind of ancestry actually do anything? I did a whole report on my great great grandfather on my mother’s side and learned about the name and the clan. Still remember the motto and official plaid and all that jazz. Never once considered it’d ever be relevant to anything.
It is fun seeing “nec sorte, nec fato” pop up ocassionally tho.
