Building Your Dream House Abroad

Beach House in La Paloma, Uruguay
photo by Julie R Butler

By Jamie Douglas

After much thought and consideration, and a trial period in your newly adopted homeland, overcoming all the hurdles, avoiding every scam offered to you, having researched flood plains and access to major utilities, you managed to find your ideal piece of property, and want to build a home on it.

Here are a few suggestions and hints. As you may have noticed, there are houses everywhere in the world. It is the standard of building that sets many of them apart. You could easily live in an adobe house, like many people do in the southwest of the United States, or buy bricks that are either homemade or manufactured. Roofing ranges from tile to steel to palm frond. There are many ways you can go. Here are my suggestions for you:

Fancy a Cup of Coffee?

One of the many things that I enjoy about living in the Canary Islands is a decent cup of coffee. Gone are the days when “a cup of instant” seemed to be the norm, and I still shudder when I return to the UK for a brief visit. A visit to one of the relatively new, and supposedly trendy, overpriced coffee shops is, for me, an ordeal best avoided. A quick visit out of sheer desperation during a frantic shopping expedition led me into one of the many branches of ‘Costa Lottee’ that are opening up in all of the UK’s High Streets - after all, it did offer “Free Wifi Connection.”

My request for a simple cup of black coffee, no I don’t like mugs, was met with a disinterested look as the spotty youth pointed to a huge variety of coffees on the board above his sentry post.

“Take yer pick,” he slurped, as he continued chewing his gum and picking his finger nail. “That one will do,” I replied, "but I only want a small cup and not a mugful.”

“We only do them mugs,” he replied stabbing at the nearest soup bowl with a fingernail partly hanging from his index finger.

“But I only want a small cup...,” I protested.

What About the Kids?

Student in Córdoba, Argentina
photo by Jamie Douglas

By Jamie Douglas

When deciding to move abroad, whether it is for personal or professional reasons, it is simple to make decisions and assumptions for your own self and partner, provided you have no children. However, if you do have younglings in the nest or about ready to take flight, things are more complicated.

Some children are very attached to their friends and relatives, and when transplanting them into a new and unfamiliar environment, they will suffer in transmigration, while others are completely open to that new adventure and new environment. Thankfully, we are now in the cyber age, where even pre-teens can easily connect via Skype, Facebook, and the various messenger programs that make it so easy to communicate.

Skype, for very little money, offers you a local number in many countries, such as the USA and Canada (visit skype.com for detailed information), and with that number, people can contact you for free and you can be identified as the caller on others’ caller ID.

As far as uprooting your child or children, every case is unique. For instance, one sibling may be dancing for joy at the prospect of moving to faraway places (me), whereas others (my brother), hate the idea of leaving all that is familiar behind. (He stayed behind and I went to the USA from safe secure Switzerland.) I took full advantage of the opportunities to travel the USA as soon as I was old enough, setting out on a lengthy journey that, 40 something years later, still has not ended.

Along the way, I had a daughter, got married a couple of times, and having chosen photography to be not only my profession but also my passion, the wheels kept turning, so that my daughter grew up in many different locales, ranging from St Croix, USVI, to Costa Rica, Mexico, and Maui, with intermediate stops in Europe and all of Central America.

She seems to have suffered no ill aftereffects, being a very dedicated mother to two lovely girls who are very active in sports, having stayed married to the same man for many years, and generally living a very stable life.

When expatriating for any amount of time with the kids, several important things must be taken into consideration, first and foremost, their health. If there are serious health issues, make sure that your destination is able to cater medically to any pediatric situations that you are aware of.

Then there is their education. Even though the USA has slipped seriously in recent years in academic standards compared to many other nations, your children will more than likely have to attend private schools in foreign locales, something which can be pricey.

On the other hand, some countries offer excellent educational systems in their metropolitan areas (after all, they do produce scientists, doctors and all kinds of other highly skilled intellectual individuals). In many locales however, the rural schools lack many things that we take for granted.

Also, many times the school day is split in two, with lower grades going in the morning, and middle schoolers going in the afternoon. High schools are rare in the countryside pretty much everywhere, requiring the extra effort to go to the nearest larger town or city, which may also offer private schools such as Waldorf, Montessori or parochial schools.

I suggest that you investigate this subject thoroughly before setting out to live in the Pampas of Argentina, or the Mato Groso in Brazil.

Your children may require a great deal of patience, encouragement, and creativity in helping them to adjust. On the other hand, they might just as well quickly adapt and make new friends, as at first they present a curiosity, and the local kids will want to know them. Children have the amazing capacity to learn a new language as a sponge soaks up water, and will soon be telling you what it is that people are trying to tell you.

There will of course be new dishes to be tried, and new ingredients to be gotten used to, as not everything is available outside of metro areas, so a degree of tolerance is required in that field as well. Something important to remember if you migrate to Latin America, is that Mexican food is unique to Mexico and the USA. Each country has its own regional food stuff which has evolved over many centuries, and in most instances is very good, though often lacking spiciness.

Meat and poultry in many places are expensive and not always easy to get. And today’s prices of grains are being driven up by speculation; conversion to Ethanol (seen as a crime against humanity in Third World countries); many ranches in South America’s Beef Belt – Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil – are converting to soy, a monocrop, which will deplete the soil and bring about more fertilizer and pesticide use along with the Monsanto and Cargill genetically engineered seed stocks. The Province of Rio Negro, Argentina, has just made a deal with China for 100 (!) years, to give them 300.000 hectares of land, port and airport facilities, to build factories to process the soy beans, all tax exempt, something which will be a burden on the entire population, now and in the future, as they also gave them the water rights to some very important resources. (End of Rant)

If your kids have that inborn curiosity that most children have, they will enjoy and adapt rapidly. Over the years, I have seen many of my expat friends’ children grow up and become everything from artists to diplomats. The extra native language skills acquired will be immensely beneficial to them, not to mention the poly-cultural tolerance that will be absorbed and cultivated within their emerging personalities.

I don’t recommend setting timelines, like “We’ll go for a year and see!” Rather, prepare them for a multiyear change of living experience that will shape their lives forever. Likewise, do not make promises for an early return to the relatives at home, especially grandparents, as they of course are generally very attached to your children, being as they are an extension of themselves and you. Do make sure that you budget for frequent visits, and urge your parents to come visit as often as you can handle them. (A guest cottage is great for that).

There are no set rules or guidelines for bringing your children abroad. But it is imperative that you know their feelings well, and if possible, via internet, connect them to some of their future peers in your intended destination, and bring familiar items with you, so that they don’t feel completely disconnected from their former lives.

Love your Children! Be good to  your Mother Earth!

Jamie Douglas

Patagonia

To contact Jamie regarding this article, email: jamie@expatdailynews.com

Jamie Douglas is an Adventurer, Writer and Photographer with an amazing array of Nikon equipment, and a lifetime of experience traveling and documenting. To contact him for assignments and new adventures. email: jamie.douglas [at] yahoo.com

See more expat articles by Jamie at Expat Daily News Latin America.

We would love to hear your comments on this article email us at editor@expatdailynews.com

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Working in Australia



Sydney Opera House - photo by Julie R Butler



by Julie R Butler

I would like to apologize for posting an article recently about houses in the Australian Outback that has subsequently been removed.

The reality of Australia is that Australia simply does not present itself as a good location for retirees on pensions.

Where Australia is attractive to expatriates is in the area of skilled workers – at least for the moment. In fact, Australia’s economy has been so strong of late that there is currently a shortage of skilled workers, so salaries for these workers have been going up, with immigration policies having been eased so as to allow companies to fill skilled worker shortages with overseas workers. Australia’s prosperous economy has become a hub for business between the West and Asia, while the mining industry is booming once again.

This prosperity has unfortunately brought about the unintentional side effect of mounting tension over the fact that the high-paying jobs are going to foreigners, who are driving the costs of living up in the cities and in their suburbs, so that Australian nationals feel that they are being shoved to the side as they are increasingly unable to afford to live in these areas. These are issues that the Australian government will need to address by encouraging the training of Australians for these high skilled jobs as well as by ensuring that other parts of the country can benefit from the prosperity that these companies are bringing in to the cities.

So, what are these “skilled” positions? Australia has what is called the Skilled Occupations Lists, which contain those professions that are most eligible for work visas. In comparing this list with the job-listing website, seek.com.au, one can see that, by far, the most sought-after professionals are in the area of Information and Communication Technology. Following that are Sales and Marketing, Accounting, Health and Medical Services, Business Administration and Office Support, and Engineering. Also on the list are the less glamorous categories of the sciences, education professionals, social workers, and chefs.



The Swan Bells, Perth
photo by Julie R Butler



Although the picture looks good for many skilled workers who are looking at the possibility of moving to Australia, the high cost of living in the major cities, where the majority of these high-skilled jobs are located, is an important factor to look at. At the same time that Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne rate highly in listings of quality of life, the cost of living in these cities also ranks extremely highly, at #4,6, and 8 respectively, according to this Cost of Living Index - ouch.

Another factor to take into account is that there is rising concern in the business sector that wage costs are beginning to hinder business investment, overcoming business taxes and government charges as the single biggest concern in a recent survey. This, even as the skills shortage is of concern, along with charges by lending institutions, insufficient retained earnings, and interest rates, according to the survey.

Also, despite the mining boom brought on by soaring commodities prices, it is hard to say what the full impact of the flooding in Queensland will be. The devastation has been estimated to have caused AUS$3 billion in lost coal exports and farm production, and could cost some $20 billion to rebuild. "These costs do not take into account the cost of lost farm infrastructure and assets which may amount to much more," The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences has stated, as agriculture in the states of New South Wales and Victoria was also affected by flooding.

Regardless of anything, “Oz” is an experience that every traveler should add to their itinerary. And to emphasize its vibrant youth culture, the Aussie experience is actually quite accessible to the backpacker crowd, as qualified citizens from select nations can obtain a Working Holiday Visa and work as a bartender, boat crewmember, au pair, fruit picker, or the ever-popular barista, among many other options.

To contact Julie regarding this article, email: julie@expatdailynews.com

Julie R Butler is a traveler, blogger, freelance writer, and editor who has authored several books, self-published as eBooks, including Nine Months in Uruguay and No Stranger to Strange Lands (click here for more info). Please contact Julie for writing or editing assignments at: julierbutler [at] yahoo.com

See more expat articles by Julie at Expat Daily News Latin America.

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The Fiji Islands: Part 2

Taveuni, Fiji - photo by Jamie Douglas

By Jamie Douglas

After reading part one, some may be disturbed by the political atmosphere that still prevails in these magical islands, but like anywhere else where there has been a large and sudden foreign influence, the natives get nervous when their traditional lifestyles are being changed by new internal forces, religions and customs. To see the results of that, one has to look no further than Switzerland, where the recent influx of refugees from the Balkan wars and the American meddling in Iraq, and Afghanistan, not to mention the entire middle east, has brought a large percentage of immigrants who have brought with them customs and religions that are very foreign to a nation that was home to a couple of big wars over reformation of the Christian church, led by Ulrich Zwingli. These groups do not integrate into traditional Swiss society like former refugees from WWI, WWII, the Hungarian revolution in 1956, and various other uprisings did.

For good information on Fiji, here are a couple of articles that have already been written by capable narrators:

Living and Working in Fiji

Paradise Found in Fiji

Then there is the not to be overlooked Fiji embassy site, which contains all the necessary information for migrating and going into business. Forget about getting a job, as they are practically non-existent: Fiji Embassy

As I have stated before, Fiji is many different islands, two of which offer the most in creature comforts such as electricity (most of the time) and hospitals (sort of). Prepare to be on your own, even collecting your own rainwater (easy).

Viti Levu, is where the capital, Suva, is located, with the International Airport situated at the other end of the island. The town of Nadi (pronounced Nandi) is near the Coral Coast, where you will find most resorts ranging from hostels to 4 star hotels with swim up bars. (A number of these are always for sale.) Driving is somewhat hazardous, due to constant presence of livestock on the road and generally marginal drivers. However, hiring a car for a few days to do the Circle Island Tour is something few tourist do, but a must for travelers.

On Vanua Levu, the second largest island, you will find several very inexpensive just-offshore island resorts that include the hammock, snorkeling, neighboring islands you can walk to at low tide, and really friendly faces all around.

Nonetheless, be aware, as petty thievery is prevalent by domestic staffs at almost all but the finest resorts, where the personnel are searched before leaving the property. The simple solution to that is to not bring your fancy stuff and get an economical camera, which you will not cry over when it gets lost in the shuffle. That said, there thousands of travelers that come to these pearls without ever missing anything. On the camera end, if you must leave your camera in your room, you might want to remove the memory card and hide it well, or put it in an envelope to leave at the front desk for safekeeping.

If you came to the islands for little more than laying on the beach and soaking up rays, there are other easily accessible islands that offer greater solitude, such as Taveuni, “the Garden Isle of Fiji.”

When adventuring to other islands I recommend you fly, as that is the best, safest way. There are some airports you may fly into that will give you a fright to remember, such as the one on Koro Island, where your airplane approaches a volcanic cone by dropping down to the water line, touches down on a very short, slightly uphill part of the runway, and then powers its way up the hill to where the terminal is located, where the plane makes a sudden 90 degree turn and stops. Takeoff is a little more simplified, in that the aircraft just turns another 90 degrees and powers downhill, becoming airborne way before the ocean.

The main export from this island is Yagona, or Kava, or Grog, from which the traditional Kava drink is made. By reputation, the Yagona from here is the best out of all the Fiji islands. I stocked up here to bring some to future villages I went to visit, and was always met by great enthusiasm when unwrapping the root of what is a pepper tree, and traditionally has to be prepared by a virgin. It is ceremoniously pounded into a fine powder, then mixed with water and passed around in coconut half-shells with a handclap and a “Bula.” The last little remnant is tossed out, also for traditional reasons. If invited to a village, be sure to bring a lot of food and kava, and you will be welcomed as a friend.

Then there is the Yasawa Group, located in the western division, easily reached from Nadi by plane or boat. They are probably the most visited of the outer islands due to their proximity to Nadi. The Yasawa volcanic islands consist of six main islands and numerous smaller islets. The archipelago stretches to the northeast for more than 80 kilometers. The islands are volcanic and very mountainous. The only safe passage for ships is between Yasawa Island, the largest in the archipelago, and Round Island, 22 kilometers to the northeast.

Until 1987, it was the policy of the Fiji government that the Yasawa Group was closed to land-based tourism. There have been limited cruise operations since the 1950s, but passengers had to stay aboard their ships, which did little for the local economy. Now, permission is required to visit all of the islands except for Tavewa. Due to its freehold real-estate status, three budget resorts have been operating on Tavewa Island since the early 1980s. They are very rustic, offering backpackers a realistic look at authentic Fijian life.

Nanuya Levu, also known as Turtle Island, is one of Fiji's most famous resorts. Areas of the Yasawas were the locales for the 1980 filming of The Blue Lagoon, while Return to the Blue Lagoon was filmed on Taveuni. In 1970, Richard Evanson purchased Nanuya Levu, and in 1972, he moved there. After the filming of The Blue Lagoon on Nanuya Levu, Mr. Evanson converted the bures, or native palm frond cabins, which had been built for the film crew, into the Turtle Island resort.

All in all, Fiji is a marvelous place to visit and live, has a lot of opportunities in the hospitality industry, but like other places, I highly recommend that you visit before you resettle, to get a good feeling for the islands and their people.

Be well!

Jamie Douglas

Patagonia

To contact Jamie regarding this article, email: jamie@expatdailynews.com

Jamie Douglas is an Adventurer, Writer and Photographer with an amazing array of Nikon equipment, and a lifetime of experience traveling and documenting. To contact him for assignments and new adventures. email: jamie.douglas [at] yahoo.com

See more expat articles by Jamie at Expat Daily News Latin America.

We would love to hear your comments on this article email us at editor@expatdailynews.com

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Fiji: More and More Off the Beaten Path

Taveuni, Fiji - photo by Jamie Douglas

By Jamie Douglas

Many people think that Fiji is just an island, like Tahiti, but what is common to both of them is that they are actually island nations spread out over thousands of square kilometers, with many islands, from large to very small. But there is a huge cultural difference between the two. French Polynesia, the home of Tahiti, its largest island, is infused with the same type of “Aloha Spirit” as are the Hawaiian Islands.

The Fijis, meanwhile, have a history that involves two distinct groups of people, the first of which are the native Fijians, a race of large people of African descent (more than ten thousand years ago). Anthropologists and archeologists have not yet figured out the migratory pattern that brought them to the Melanesian Islands, just as they are still theorizing how the Polynesians got to Polynesia, and thence to New Zealand, where they are now known as the Maori. Perhaps some of those mysteries don’t really need to be solved, but it has been conclusively proven that the Melanesians are genetically related to Africans.



Approaching Taveuni
photo by Jamie Douglas



The other group of people consists of the descendants of formerly indentured laborers from India who were brought there to work in the sugar cane fields, as no enticement was sufficient to convince the natives to go to work. When Great Britain acquired the Fijis, to protect them from the Germans, the French, and assorted privateers, the new colony had to pay for itself, and as it was ideally located in the sugar belt, it was perfect for producing vast amounts of the cavity creating chemical. So more and more indentured servants (slaves) were brought in from their Indian Subcontinent possession. Most if not all of them were Muslims, serving to sort of relieve the friction in India between Hindus and Muslims (See the later wars, creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh etc).

By the Fijian constitution, the Indians were not allowed to be landowners, only mere tenant farmers. However, before independence, the British established a very good educational system, including the University of the South Pacific in Suva. As a result of landowning restrictions, the Indians, being very ambitious, educated themselves, sending their children to New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the USA to further their education, and many of them came back as very capable administrators, lawyers, doctors, technocrats who of course started going into business and accumulating wealth. By the mid to late 1980’s the population of East Indians exceeded that of the native Fijians, and elections brought in a new Prime Minister who was a Fiji born Indian.

Fiji had become known as a fabulous place to spend a vacation, offering hundreds of kilometers of white sandy beaches that catered to the many tourists who decided to take advantage of the free stopovers granted by airlines heading to and from Australia and the Americas, as ultra long-range jets had not yet been introduced, and Fiji was the logical place for a refueling stop. Fiji was also known as a duty-free shopper’s paradise.

All was well in paradise, or so it seemed, until April of 1987, when Ratu (High Chief) Sir Kamisese Mara was replaced with a Labour-led coalition consisting mostly of the Indo-Fijian population. That brought about twin military coups, both led by Sgt. Sitiveni Rabuka, soon to be Lt Col Sitiveni Rabuka. I was present for both of these military coups, and compared to others I had been in, such as Bolivia and Guatemala, I called them the “Coconut Coups.” The military looked and acted very menacing, but basically the uprising was limited to looting and burning of Indo-Fijian owned businesses, while there were minimal casualties.

On the morning of May 14, 1987, a section of ten masked, armed soldiers entered the Fijian House of Representatives and subdued the national legislature, which had gathered there for its morning session. Rabuka, dressed in civilian clothes, approached Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra from his position in the public gallery and ordered the Members of Parliament to leave the building. They did so without resisting. The coup was an apparent success, and had been accomplished without loss of life. The former Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara returned to his native Taveuni, where I met him and presented him with an Alaskan Whale’s tooth, a very strong and sacred symbol of peace, and over several bowls of Kava begged him not to abandon his country to the military.



Fleeing Fiji
photo by Jamie Douglas



After a few days, he sent an emissary back to Suva to sort things out, but things got worse before they got better. It was all political wrangling between the two factions, which, after the second coup, eventually worked itself out. A large number of Indo-Fijians ended up emigrating, and today, there is relative peace.

I wanted to bring these events into perspective so that my readers don’t fly into this island paradise unaware that there are political tensions present. However, tourist and expats, no matter where from, were never in any danger.

Today’s Fiji is still an unexpected bargain, the beaches are still fabulous, and the natives still greet you with a big smile and “BULA!” wherever you go.

In my next installment, I will take you around the Island of Vanua Levu, which is the Main Island, Viti Levu, the second largest, and to several of the outer islands, where expats stand out amongst the local population, of course, but are readily accepted and tolerated. So look for my next installment on the wonderful Fijis and their marvelous people.

Until then, do nice things to people and your home planet.

Jamie Douglas

Patagonia

To contact Jamie regarding this article, email: jamie@expatdailynews.com

Jamie Douglas is an Adventurer, Writer and Photographer with an amazing array of Nikon equipment, and a lifetime of experience traveling and documenting. To contact him for assignments and new adventures. email: jamie.douglas [at] yahoo.com

See more expat articles by Jamie at Expat Daily News Latin America.

We would love to hear your comments on this article email us at editor@expatdailynews.com

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Something about Singapore

Singapore Skyline (photo by Jani Patokallio via Wikipedia)

by Julie R Butler 

There’s something about Singapore that keeps putting it on my radar, lately. When I search for the cities with the highest quality of life, Singapore appears in the upper portion of every list, certainly high among other Asian locations. This city-state has been ranked as the eighth most important “Global City,” in the world, the fourth leading financial center, boasting a US$182 billion economy, and with the port of Singapore being one of the busiest, the World Bank ranks the city as the world’s top logistics hub. The British colonialist, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, certainly knew a good strategic trading post when he saw one back in 1819.

Now Singapore is a parliamentary republic that is well known for being very tough on crime. While Amnesty International has criticized the strict government policies for failing to presume innocence until proven guilty, one can also point to a survey of expatriate business executives that was conducted in 2008 throughout Asia, which ranked Singapore as second behind Hong Kong in having the best judicial system in the region. Just last November, the World Bank placed Singapore at the top of its list of the most business-friendly countries in the world, due to its strong investor protections and its reputation for low government corruption.

However, this precious reputation is being challenged. Although Transparency International has rated Singapore, Denmark, and New Zealand as the least corrupt nations in the world, the government of Singapore recently sentenced one of the accomplices in a decade-long scam that cheated three government agencies out of more than US$9.7 million to ten years in jail. The alleged mastermind, who was a deputy director at the Singapore Land Authority, faces life in jail for 372 charges that each carries a maximum sentence of ten years.

Singapore doesn’t mess around. They already pay their government officials the highest public salaries in the world, which is supposed to prevent fraud and corruption. Although some are wondering how the perpetrators got away with their graft for so long, the government of Singapore’s resistance to the temptation to cover the story up was intended to send a strong message to the business leaders that are the drivers of the nation’s tremendous growth.

Singapore’s economy is based on refining imported goods that are then exported, and the business environment is renowned for its high level of openness, competitiveness, and innovation. Many multinational corporations have headquarters there, concentrated in electronics, petroleum refining, chemicals, mechanical engineering and biomedical sciences sectors as well as shipping and banking. While the government has recently been regulating property investment laws to limit investment bubbles that would put short-term profits above longer-term stability, the tax system, which balances corporate and personal taxes with a goods and services tax, is a major incentive for businesses of all sizes.

All of this makes for an expatriate community that numbers in the hundreds of thousands. And then there are the millions of tourists that visit Singapore each year, drawn by innovative natural and heritage conservation programs, great shopping, gambling, dining, nightlife, as well as medical tourism.

Singapore truly does look like a very attractive “Global City.”

resources:

Wikipedia.org

Wikipedia: Goods and Services Tax (Singapore)

Singapore Tax Rates and Income Tax System – 2011 Guide

Bloomberg: Official Faces Life in Jail as Singapore Deters Graft

Businessweek: Singapore Extends Housing Measures; Developers Drop

To contact Julie regarding this article, email: julie@expatdailynews.com

Julie R Butler is a traveler, blogger, freelance writer, and editor who has authored several books, self-published as eBooks, including Nine Months in Uruguay and No Stranger to Strange Lands (click here for more info). Please contact Julie for writing or editing assignments at: julierbutler [at] yahoo.com

See more expat articles by Julie at Expat Daily News Latin America.

We would love to hear your comments on this article email us at editor@expatdailynews.com

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Do You Have Cultural Intelligence?

Cultural intelligence matters:   source: Expat Arrivals.com

Moving to a new country with a culture different to your own? What do you need to know before you leave?

Moving to live and work in a new country will challenge you in ways that you have not been tested before and you will be out of your comfort zone. The result of this experience will provide you with great personal growth, but the journey may not be an easy one.

Experts in the field of cross-cultural research have identified key personal attributes that will help face the challenges of expatriate life:

• An open minded attitude
• Tolerance to frustration and failure
• Adaptable and flexible
• Curious to try new things
• Strong communication skills
• Observant
• Self reliant
• Good sense of humour
• And crucially, Cultural Intelligence

Do you have Cultural Intelligence?

Culture is defined as ‘The customs, beliefs, art and all other products of human thought made by a particular group of people at a particular time.’ Unless you know the rules of these other cultures you can make serious errors of judgment resulting in insulting your host or even starting an International crisis!

When travelling to live and work in a new country, not knowing what to expect and the differences that can be encountered upon arrival and in the early stages of settling in can often result in culture-shock – defined as the disorientation felt by a person subjected to unfamiliar way of life.

Here is a list of the type of areas where cultural differences should be considered, with a few examples taken from different countries. It would be advisable to be aware of the differences and protocols before you arrive in a new country. This information can be found in books, on the internet and also through cross-cultural training advisors and courses;
> Greetings
In some countries men and women are forbidden to touch hands …. In others public displays of affection are normal.
> Communication Style
The Japanese or English may distrust Italians because they wave their hands about or Spaniards because they sound emotional. The French may appear offensive as they are direct and frequently use cynicism. Germans may take the English too seriously and completely miss the humour or irony. No one may know what the Japanese are thinking as they may say little or nothing at all
> Personal space
In some countries it may seem that there is no such thing as personal space. When queuing in some countries; that is to say in countries where they actually have a queue system, standing so close to the person in front that they can feel your breath on their neck is not considered an issue, whereas in other countries this would seem offensive.
> Eye contact
In Asia direct eye contact can be interpreted as rude and disrespectful, whereas in the United Kingdom it is an important way to show sincerity and trust.
> Views of time
In the United Kingdom and the United States it is advisable to always be punctual. In many Latin countries punctuality is not as important as arriving at all, whatever the time
> Gestures
The okay sign has different meanings when used, depending upon your location -

• North America – to show approval
• Japanese – to signal money
• Brazil – it is a vulgar sign
• France – means zero
• Middle East – a rude sexual gesture

> Taboos
In some parts of the Middle East and Far East showing the sole of your shoe sends a rude message whilst in Thailand for example it is considered rude to sit cross-legged.

About the Author: Expat Arrivals.com is the information hotspot for all you need to know about expat living and working overseas. Find answers to all your questions on our Expat Forum and learn more about the ins and outs of your destination by reading our comprehensive country and city guides.

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Sailing The South Pacific: Episode 2

Fanning Atoll

(see Episode 1)Or does no good deed really go unpunished?

By Jamie Douglas

Sorry about the delay in this installment. I had company, plus I got ill. But the flow must go on, so here we go with the second and final installment, of my visit to Fanning Atoll, or as the locals call it, Tabuaeran Atoll. Keep in mind, there are no locals there, just a few hundred people who were rousted out of their meager shacks thousands of miles to the west, in Tarawa, the capital island of the Republic of Kiribati, to be forcefully resettled onto these barren atolls.

The day of my Luau had come, and all the locals were in a festive mood, any excuse to party and drink their “Totty,” the fermented baby coconut juice, and to be generally happy in their misery.

The night before, a rickety sailboat had pulled in, in desperate need of rigging repairs, and the Kiwi “Captain” had a crew of 2 completely inexperienced girls who actually jumped ship and swam ashore, asking for help and protection from the lunatic on the nameless boat. They explained that twice the US Coast Guard had prevented them from leaving Honolulu for Auckland, citing that the vessel was inherently unsafe, but in the middle of the night, he snuck out of Hawaii with rotten sails and rigging, no lifeboat or life jackets, and lacking provisions to cross the Pacific Ocean. By sheer luck, they made it to Fanning, which one of the girls spotted in the morning sun, with the “Captain” insisting they were approaching Samoa.

He never made it ashore because the customs representative and Harbor Master went to the boat to quarantine it, suggesting he was completely out of his mind, and that he probably had Hepatitis.

The girls were invited to the Luau, having retrieved their meager belongings from the boat with the help of the locals, and were put up in a shack by the “Post Mistress,” who doubled as the Visiting Sailors’ Mistress, for a small fee.

I brought my Nikons out of their waterproof bags and set out to photograph the proceedings, and also brought my two canteens, one with Hawaiian water, and the other with Cruzan Rum. Soon I was covered with baby powder, which was liberally tossed on all celebrants, and one of the girls, who had some Polynesian blood in her, hooked up with one of the local guys, hoping to improve her situation a little bit.

The other one, a British girl named Lorraine, who was cute as a button, started to hang out with me. We kept sneaking off through the shoreline mangrove forest to drink rum, and I must say, she had a sailors appetite for that fine Cruzan Gold, having come all the way from St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. Needless to say, we became very good friends, very quickly, and the locals wanted to marry us the and there, because they suspected that some serious Hanky Panky was going on in the bushes.

By late afternoon, the food was being served, lots of pig cooked in an Umu, which is an underground oven heated by stones that had been fired to red hot then covered with Pandanus leaves and wet burlap sacks. There was chicken, rice, some kind of baked goods and of course plenty of Totty.

By early evening the traditional dancing and singing had begun, and by 10 pm everybody was snookered to the gills. It had been a wonderful ceremony, and many kind things were said about me and the good deed I had done. The victim of the Machete self-mutilation was in a hammock in the middle of the long house, surrounded by his family members, which appeared to be half of the Island.

There was a beautiful full moon shining onto the lagoon, and I invited my new best friend Lorraine out to the boat, to stay with me. She was happy to accept, as she was terminally afraid of the giant crabs that by now were everywhere, eating food scraps, completely undisturbed by the presence of the other invaders, the humans. So we strolled down to the beach to where my Zodiac was tied up. We had to rouse a drunk who was sleeping in it, and then I helped Lorraine into the boat, and started pushing it out into the channel. Just then, I felt something strike my leg, once and then again, this time very painful. I grabbed a paddle and stabbed into the water at it while pulling myself into the boat. Whatever it was tried to get another bite, and it was clearly a shark! Lorraine shrieked, yelling that I was going to bleed to death. Once safe inside the boat, I wrapped my t-shirt around my ankle, realizing right away that this was serious. There was flesh hanging down from my leg. He got me good.



Inside Fanning Atoll
photo by Jamie Douglas



Once we got out to the sailboat, I tied the dinghy to the stern and climbed up the boarding ladder. I turned on the cockpit light, and saw that I was losing a lot of blood. I was able to secure a tourniquet below my knee, which stemmed the flow of blood, and used some fresh water from the tank to rinse off the wound, while I sent Lorraine below to get the remnants of the first aid kit. I started the generator and gave Lorraine some basic instructions on the use of the radio, in case I passed out or on – Honolulu Coast Guard frequency, 2182 – and then proceeded to clean the wound. It was very jagged. The last bite he took, he tried to rip the flesh off, and made a mess. I was at a loss, what to fix first, and in going through the First Aid supplies, I discovered that I really did not have any small curved needles left. All I had were three sterile packages with sutures and straight needles. I wrapped my damaged ankle tightly, so as not to make a giant mess, because I had to go below, to where my Radio was, as well as much better lighting.

I got on the Emergency Frequency and contacted the Coast Guard in Honolulu, who answered immediately. I identified the vessel and myself, and explained the circumstances to the person at the other end, and he asked me to stand by while he hooked me up to Tripler Army Medical Center on Oahu. I was connected to a trauma specialist who asked me many questions, and then he wanted to talk to Lorraine, asking her how serious in her mind the situation was, and whether they should dispatch a C-130 aircraft in the morning to evacuate me. She asked for a little time to discuss that with me, and we decided that the immediate problems were cleaning and closing the wound and watching for infection, and there was no need wasting the resources of the Coast Guard until it became a matter of saving my life.

So we set about preparing everything I needed to close the wound. Anti-biotic powder, the rest of the sutures and all the excess bandages and sterile pads, of which I overbought in Tahiti, and then I got myself into a sort of lotus position, in order to reach my left ankle, and with Lorraine illuminating the scenery properly, I injected myself with my last few droplets of Xylocaine, and went to work, trying to rearrange all the damage that had been done. I had to call into service a couple of the smaller sail maker’s needles,  sterilized some thread and fishing line with alcohol, and started to pull the raw meat of my muscle on my hind leg together using the absorbable sutures I had left. After a couple of hours of that, I finally felt that I had reconstituted enough tissue to let it heal itself, and now started on pulling my surface skin together with sewing needles and the sterilized thread. If course the points on those needles were not nearly as sharp as the surgical ones, and the anesthetic had long ago worn off. It took three passes of suturing the skin closer and closer together, until it finally closed due to tissue swelling.

Lorraine was a trooper, never once complaining about what she was participating in, and being a great helper, which made my auto-suturing possible. I don’t think I could have done it without her. At last, I reached the bottom of the wound, inserted a 4cm drain tube, and covered the whole mess with more anti-biotic powder, then Lorraine bandaged me up very well, being careful not to obstruct the drain tube. I followed the surgeon’s instructions carefully, went to the owner’s cabin to elevate my leg, laid some towels underneath. Lorraine came in as well, and we both took a well-deserved swig of that fine Cruzan Gold and fell into a deep sleep.

And so ended the dramatic part. I am pleased to report that my ankle is 100% healed. Due to proper diligence I did not get staph or any other kind of infection. And the other good news was that Lorraine stayed with me for almost 6 months, until I sailed to Fiji to work on a film, and having entered the US illegally and going straight from my boat to the Harbor Pub, where she was hired on the spot, she decided she was comfortable in Waikiki.

The lesson here is very simple: If you plan on being a Good Samaritan, save some sutures and anesthetic in case you get munched on by a shark, while in the pursuit of romance on Fanning Island with another expatriate.

Even today, my thanks go out to the fine Men and Woman of the United States Coast Guard, and to the medical personnel at Tripler Army Medical Center, for their unselfish and professional aid. Mahalo Nui Loa.

Tabuaeran Island Channel

And the adventure continues!

Jamie Douglas

Patagonia 

For more, see: Fanning Island

To contact Jamie regarding this article, email: jamie@expatdailynews.com

Jamie Douglas is an Adventurer, Writer and Photographer with an amazing array of Nikon equipment, and a lifetime of experience traveling and documenting. To contact him for assignments and new adventures. email: jamie.douglas [at] yahoo.com

See more expat articles by Jamie at Expat Daily News Latin America.

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Want to Move to Australia? Here's Your Chance

About Migrating Australia’s Outback

By Jamie Douglas

This title previously featured an article that began, “If it has always been your dream to live in the Australian Outback...” Houses for rent for A$1  per month, fixer uppers...

Yes, that dream exists. But you must take into account that the reason they are making this offer, is that there are a number of long ago abandoned houses, and this is a last gasp attempt to keep the town alive, as all the younglings have abandoned it to make a life for themselves in place where there is money to be made, such as the Blue Mountain tourist area, or to get good education in a nearby city with a college or university. Life in the outback is harsh, and unless you are willing to make a lot of sacrifices, such as your children’s dreams and aspirations, hold your Utes.

The Australian Dollar at present is on par with the US $, but has fluctuated as much as 20% just in the last year, and overall, the country’s cost of living is much higher than the

US or Canada. Then there are the very large distances to be considered, with the high cost of petrol, the 2o year spells without rain and the 10 days where you get that 20 years worth of rain. There is a really good reason why a great majority of Australians live along the coast.

I don’t discourage migration to Oz, but be aware that there are serious requirements, and presently they are really only interested in professionals, of which there is a shortage there.

As for the $1 homes, they are already inhabited by the Australian Brown Snake, (Deadly and Aggressive) Spiders, bugs of all sorts and those pesky flies. Never in my life have I encountered more flies than in Australia, or on the other hand, some of the friendliest people.

Jamie Douglas

Patagonia

For other articles about Australia see:

Is Australia Really the Best Place to Raise Expat Kids?

Live in Australia - 3 Sydney "villages" expats love to love

Living in Australia - Brisbane Beckons

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