[quote=“Durins Bane”]This is my fifth year back in the States and after a visit from an old Taiwan friend I thought it might be a good idea to update/remind what I have learned (often the hard way) about the transition from Taiwan to one’s home country.
1.) Aquire skills. Take on-line courses, learn to speak Chinese, become a master diver, whatever. Even those of you who plan never to move back, well, shit happens. And if you can put stuff down on a resume that an employer finds useful or is needed then that can only help. Remember, nobody will really give a shit about your teaching English overseas. Some examples: My getting a blackbelt in Aikido while in Taiwan helped me land a sweet summer gig as well as an after school gig. My becoming fluent in AutoCAD while in Taiwan helped me land a job teaching Engineering at a middle school. Taking on-line courses while in Taiwan really helped. Even if you never plan to leave Taiwan plan that you could leave…it doesn’t hurt. I really recommend taking on-line courses.
2.) Life back home, at least for me (California) is really fucking expensive. I really underestimated how much it would cost. It is amazing how much nickel and dimed I am. It is just awful. We are still saving money but it is a lot of work. If you are planning to move back, research and set a budget, and then triple it. I recommend sending a little bit of loot back home every month because if you send oogles and gobs of loot back at once it attracts too much attention.
3.) Keep current on taxes in your home country even if you don’t have to pay. If you don’t file they will hunt you down, kill you, and do unnatural things to your corpse.
4.) Get a credit card from your home country. Moving back home with no credit history can make life difficult.
5.) if you have a spouse make sure him/her stays busy. Mrs. Bane’s transition has been very tough at times. It has helped that she is working and establishing her own social network.
6.) Be smart if you plan on buying a house. Don’t buy a McMansion or in a cookie cutter subdivision. I was lucky in this part. I bought a 1913 craftsman in an older neighborhood, dropped $80,000 into it, and it was recently appraised at over $90,000 than what I paid for it. That’s pretty good in today’s market. If you buy dumb you are surely and truly rat fucked. Buying a home in a good school district is a smart move.
7.) If you have kids look for a charter school. Public schools for the most part, suck. There are some good public schools out there but there are more bad than good. My two boys attend a charter Engineering high school and that will put them a leg up over kids attending a public high school. I mean, would you rather have your child taking ag biology or learning how to design a microchip?
I think, overall, my main piece of advice is to prepare yourself to a life back home even if you have no plans to move back. My dad died my first year back and I was lucky that I had already moved back. But think about how diffcult it would of been to support my mom if I had been overseas? My point is that there can be factors that may force you to move back home.
It has been hard at times…really fucking hard. At times it has strained my marriage and made me question my sanity, but now things are good. But it is tough and difficult.
Hope this helps.[/quote]
Great post, Durins. We made the move back about 2.5 years ago. At the time, it was a hard for me. I had a great job in Taiwan for a high-tech company (great stock and annual bonus), alimony payments from my wife’s first husband (that helped out a lot as well), and a nice marble-walled apartment in Mucha. But I had this nagging voice in the back of mind mentioning that I should provide my step kids with better educations than they were receiving.
We gave up the job, sold the apartment, and lost the alimony (made a deal that we would forfit that in return for the stepkids being allowed to go to Canada) to return to Canada right before the global economic downturn in 2008. If we had chosen to return any later, there probably wouldn’t have been work available.
Since we have been here, we’ve bought two properties but are really cash poor. I’ll outline the benefits and fallbacks as I see them for returning families:
Benefits
- Schooling–watching our kids do really well in the school system here has been a real plus. Both kids have achieved solid B+/A averages, have entered one of the best public schools in the province, and absolutely love school. If everything else was fucked up with the move back home (it hasn’t), this one benefit would make everthing else worth while.
- Balance for the kids–everything is not about school even though their grades are wonderful. Our son has just had one of the best summers of his life. First of all, he went to Nice in France for a French homestay program for two weeks. Now he is at Cadet camp for three weeks (program run by Canada’s armed forces). He’s learned to appreciate the outdoors and excel at sports (particularly basketball).When he returns from camp next week, it’s off for a week boating and camping trip.
- Proximity to Family–my semi-retired parents live 1.5 hours away from us. That means they can see our newborn baby and we can see them every few weeks or so. As someone who lived overseas for more than 10 years, this means a lot as they age.
- Citizenship for Family–If something ever happens in Taiwan, it is reassuring to have a second passport for your loved ones. Next year, after 3 years in country, they’ll be able to get it.
- Benefits of being in the system–While the tax system is so overburdensome over here, it is good to be a part of the system. Paying into the national pension system, receive child benefit/tax allowances for family, having free health care for family etc. does bring a certain piece of mind.
- Work–great defined pension system (a seperate one from the national one), colleagues, benefits for family, and professional development opportunities (I’ve attended two university courses in Canada/US since I’ve been back).
- Baby–in terms of maternity benefits, support from health care system, tax breaks and allowances, free all day kindy, French immersion in elementary etc.
Disadvantages
- Taxes–running between 30 and 50 percent. You’re taxed at the federal, provincial and local level. Very hard to save money. If it weren’t for our years in Taiwan, it would have been really hard to start out here. Come back with a nest egg is all I can say.
- Loss of internationalism–in any large country with a small population, you’re bound to come into a lot more local-minded people. Can be hard for people that were weaned overseas and lived large parts of their lives in international cities.
- Work–Much more confrontational. Just as factionalized as Taiwan work life but a lot more chaotic in many respects. In Taiwan industry and government, there is still a sort of paternalism and “nobless oblige” practiced by the elites. They take care of the workers and professionals, but demand loyalty. In the West, the only loyalty seems to be to the individial or special interest groups. You may have smart and capable people, but it isn’t nearly as homogenous in mission as Taiwan workplaces.
- Cabin Fever–Most expats that have lived and thrived overseas love the challenge of a new environment in a new country. Sure, sometimes we fall flat on our ass. But other times we rise and thrive in a particular environment. These experiences are addicting. When you do decide to settle down and can’t leave the country on a whim, there is a loss of a sense of freedom. Reminds me of the face that Ray Liotta has at the end of Goodfellas. This kind of “life in the suburbs” acceptance. Recently, Í wrote a test for a position at an international institution. Giving up a stable gig for a tax-free international salary would be really enticing, but I’m not sure I’d even do it if I was accepted. Family comes first. And that’s really hard for an ambitious person such as myself.
- Wife’s transition–Kids have thrived, but wife is staying at home all day with the baby. Gets bored and there isn’t the family support as there is in the East. My advice is make sure your wife finds a group of friends/support. My wife enjoys taking classes at the college and going to the library where she can order books, DVDs, and baby CDs. She enjoys the temperate fruit offered at stores here as well. How do I cure her homesickness? I make sure at least once a month we go the Taiwan ghetto in Vancouver (Richmond). She absolutely loves it (food, T&T stores, Asian shopping Centres etc.)
Verdict–Glad I did it for the time being. After kids are in university and baby has done a few years of school in the West–don’t discount working for international organization or in some place such as Singapore/UAE etc.
