How can I prepare myself for living abroad?
June 15, 2012 7:30 AM Subscribe
I'm moving overseas for 2 years. Now what? What can I do to help prepare?
This is a follow up question to my previous question about living abroad. I've accepted the job offer and will be moving to Hong Kong in August and my contract is for 2 years. It's exciting, scary, and extremely daunting at the same time.
I know I want to learn a smidgen of Cantonese before I go. I'm pretty comfortable with Mandarin already after taking classes this past year at college. While my Mandarin is far from perfect, I'll be able to get around and get through daily life without any issues. However, I don't know where to start learning Cantonese. My main issue will be with pronunciation and the tones since I can muddle my way through traditional characters (I've been learning simplified). Are there any good online resources out there that can help me learn phrases and vocabulary? Should I enroll in classes once I get to Hong Kong?
Are there also things that I should bring with my to Hong Kong that I can only get in the US?? What else do I really need to know to make this transition as smooth as possible???
This is a follow up question to my previous question about living abroad. I've accepted the job offer and will be moving to Hong Kong in August and my contract is for 2 years. It's exciting, scary, and extremely daunting at the same time.
I know I want to learn a smidgen of Cantonese before I go. I'm pretty comfortable with Mandarin already after taking classes this past year at college. While my Mandarin is far from perfect, I'll be able to get around and get through daily life without any issues. However, I don't know where to start learning Cantonese. My main issue will be with pronunciation and the tones since I can muddle my way through traditional characters (I've been learning simplified). Are there any good online resources out there that can help me learn phrases and vocabulary? Should I enroll in classes once I get to Hong Kong?
Are there also things that I should bring with my to Hong Kong that I can only get in the US?? What else do I really need to know to make this transition as smooth as possible???
(I see now, from looking at your profile, that you aren't white or a guy! Just goes to show what I know and that I should not assume...One of my Asian-American woman friends worked in Shanghai in my program after I'd left, and she found it really interesting to be taken for a local (until she opened her mouth and broke out the midwestern-accented Mandarin, of course.))
posted by Frowner at 8:25 AM on June 15, 2012
posted by Frowner at 8:25 AM on June 15, 2012
Congratulations!
I would get rid of as much stuff as possible, either store it or better yet, sell it.
Your household set up is going to be so vastly different overseas that your dishes, pots, etc won't mesh well with your new housing. Let's not even get into furniture.
They have Ikea in Hong Kong, so start from there.
Have a connection in the US who can send you stuff. When my folks lived in Asia I was forever sending boxes of crap to them.
Things are so global now that you should be able to get what you need from the interwebs. But if there's something that you simply cannot live without. Bring it with you!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:30 AM on June 15, 2012
I would get rid of as much stuff as possible, either store it or better yet, sell it.
Your household set up is going to be so vastly different overseas that your dishes, pots, etc won't mesh well with your new housing. Let's not even get into furniture.
They have Ikea in Hong Kong, so start from there.
Have a connection in the US who can send you stuff. When my folks lived in Asia I was forever sending boxes of crap to them.
Things are so global now that you should be able to get what you need from the interwebs. But if there's something that you simply cannot live without. Bring it with you!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:30 AM on June 15, 2012
I don't know anything about Hong Kong, but I did live abroad for two and a half years after school. My number one piece of advice is about your stuff: if you're not bringing it with you, and it's not irreplaceable or sentimental, sell or give away your car, your furniture, your kitchen stuff, and anything else that you can't store and move for free.
You don't want to pay for a storage unit, which sometimes aren't great for furniture anyway. You might stay abroad for years and years. You might return to a different part of the country, and the cost of moving furniture/ cars/ kitchen stuff is very high. Your taste might change. You might fall in love and move in with someone who has everything they need. In any case, it's much easier and cheaper to just replace it when you re-establish home base.
Hong Kong operates on 220 volts, while the U.S. operates on 110 volts. Some appliances (notably most BUT NOT ALL laptop computers) operate on both, but most do not. You either have to buy a heavy and expensive transformer, or buy appliances in Hong Kong. Do not plug a U.S. hairdryer into a transformer; it will break it.
As far as things to bring along, I made visitors bring brownie mix and salsa to the UK, which I craved badly and couldn't get for love or money.
Finally, I was miserably lonely at first. I remember walking down the street my first weekend and breaking into tears, thinking that there was no one for thousands of miles who cared if I lived or died. The smartest thing that I did turned out to booking a room in a dorm for the first few weeks- it was a lively social atmosphere with a common room, and I wished I could have stayed longer. If you could find a similar arrangement, I would vigorously recommend it. (It got better! I'm really glad I went abroad! But the first few months were pretty bad.)
posted by Clambone at 8:30 AM on June 15, 2012
You don't want to pay for a storage unit, which sometimes aren't great for furniture anyway. You might stay abroad for years and years. You might return to a different part of the country, and the cost of moving furniture/ cars/ kitchen stuff is very high. Your taste might change. You might fall in love and move in with someone who has everything they need. In any case, it's much easier and cheaper to just replace it when you re-establish home base.
Hong Kong operates on 220 volts, while the U.S. operates on 110 volts. Some appliances (notably most BUT NOT ALL laptop computers) operate on both, but most do not. You either have to buy a heavy and expensive transformer, or buy appliances in Hong Kong. Do not plug a U.S. hairdryer into a transformer; it will break it.
As far as things to bring along, I made visitors bring brownie mix and salsa to the UK, which I craved badly and couldn't get for love or money.
Finally, I was miserably lonely at first. I remember walking down the street my first weekend and breaking into tears, thinking that there was no one for thousands of miles who cared if I lived or died. The smartest thing that I did turned out to booking a room in a dorm for the first few weeks- it was a lively social atmosphere with a common room, and I wished I could have stayed longer. If you could find a similar arrangement, I would vigorously recommend it. (It got better! I'm really glad I went abroad! But the first few months were pretty bad.)
posted by Clambone at 8:30 AM on June 15, 2012
While you're still in the US, buy a Vonage box and have your US number transferred to it. Take it with you to Hong Kong, plug it in, and voila! For a few bucks a month you've got a US phone number with free calls back and forth (and often free/heavily discounted calls to some other countries), so all those business cards you've been handing out aren't obsolete and when you move back to the US, you can transfer that number back to your cell phone.
posted by olinerd at 8:32 AM on June 15, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by olinerd at 8:32 AM on June 15, 2012 [1 favorite]
It's a tough call to make, but you might consider living there for longer than two years.
For one thing, moving overseas and then back again is expensive. Spending more time (say 5 years) will allow you to recoup some of your costs. Unless someone else is paying for the move, you might spend all of your money just getting back to Chicago.
Two years is also not a long time to develop professional connections and make friends. As a rule of thumb, it takes three years to fully settle into any community, so at two years you will just be getting traction, and I'm thinking professionally.
To put it another way, you will have invested two years into developing a fledgling professional network in Hong Kong, only to give it up and return to Chicago where you will have to start all over again.
Learn the basics of networking etiquette for professionals, and be sure to make and maintain professional connections. Being in Hong Kong you have a wonderful opportunity to make connections with people from all over the world. It's really unique. But learn the etiquette so that people like you, remember you, and want to help you in the future. And be sure to want to help other people.
Stay in touch with contacts back home. If there was a mentor or employer you connected with in Chicago, send them an email ever six months, or connect on LinkedIn or Facebook.
The biggest challenge you will have is making the move back to the United States. Hong Kong has an established expat culture where they're not afraid to hire someone from overseas. It's not like that in North America, so you're going to have to do something to maintain professional connections.
Finally, never, ever ever ever complain about living in Hong Kong. Enjoy your time there. Do not let culture shock get you down. Do not hang around with other expats who are negative about living there. You have been given a gift.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:55 AM on June 15, 2012
For one thing, moving overseas and then back again is expensive. Spending more time (say 5 years) will allow you to recoup some of your costs. Unless someone else is paying for the move, you might spend all of your money just getting back to Chicago.
Two years is also not a long time to develop professional connections and make friends. As a rule of thumb, it takes three years to fully settle into any community, so at two years you will just be getting traction, and I'm thinking professionally.
To put it another way, you will have invested two years into developing a fledgling professional network in Hong Kong, only to give it up and return to Chicago where you will have to start all over again.
Learn the basics of networking etiquette for professionals, and be sure to make and maintain professional connections. Being in Hong Kong you have a wonderful opportunity to make connections with people from all over the world. It's really unique. But learn the etiquette so that people like you, remember you, and want to help you in the future. And be sure to want to help other people.
Stay in touch with contacts back home. If there was a mentor or employer you connected with in Chicago, send them an email ever six months, or connect on LinkedIn or Facebook.
The biggest challenge you will have is making the move back to the United States. Hong Kong has an established expat culture where they're not afraid to hire someone from overseas. It's not like that in North America, so you're going to have to do something to maintain professional connections.
Finally, never, ever ever ever complain about living in Hong Kong. Enjoy your time there. Do not let culture shock get you down. Do not hang around with other expats who are negative about living there. You have been given a gift.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:55 AM on June 15, 2012
i am an asian american woman who lived in hong kong for a year with my family when i was in high school. i also moved to japan for a year after college for my first job, so i'll try to give advice based on both life experiences.
-you won't need much cantonese, so you don't have to worry about that. mandarin and english will get the job done. the only canto i learned was "excuse me".
-bring as little with you as possible, because it is a pain in the ass to bring it back afterwards.
-most stuff you need you will be able to get in hong kong, unless you have specific needs like prescription meds.
-apartment stuff: if your shower has the little furnace/fire thing you need to get going for hot water, don't be scared, you get used to it pretty soon :) if there's a tiny closet-like room with a bathroom, that's the maid quarters as most people have filipino and indonesian maids (we didn't). the airconditioners in each room, you will need them!! though do as the locals do and on weekends go to the mall to soak up atmosphere and free AC.
-enjoy your time abroad! yes, hong kong can sometimes be overwhelming, noisy, too hot and humid, claustrophobic. but there's a lot of beauty there too, and my year living there was one of the most interesting of my life. for many years i had recurring dreams where i went back to my high school in hong kong for the first day of school, despite knowing in the dream i'd already graduated from high school, and then college....
feel free to memail me if you have any specific questions :)
posted by raw sugar at 9:21 AM on June 15, 2012
-you won't need much cantonese, so you don't have to worry about that. mandarin and english will get the job done. the only canto i learned was "excuse me".
-bring as little with you as possible, because it is a pain in the ass to bring it back afterwards.
-most stuff you need you will be able to get in hong kong, unless you have specific needs like prescription meds.
-apartment stuff: if your shower has the little furnace/fire thing you need to get going for hot water, don't be scared, you get used to it pretty soon :) if there's a tiny closet-like room with a bathroom, that's the maid quarters as most people have filipino and indonesian maids (we didn't). the airconditioners in each room, you will need them!! though do as the locals do and on weekends go to the mall to soak up atmosphere and free AC.
-enjoy your time abroad! yes, hong kong can sometimes be overwhelming, noisy, too hot and humid, claustrophobic. but there's a lot of beauty there too, and my year living there was one of the most interesting of my life. for many years i had recurring dreams where i went back to my high school in hong kong for the first day of school, despite knowing in the dream i'd already graduated from high school, and then college....
feel free to memail me if you have any specific questions :)
posted by raw sugar at 9:21 AM on June 15, 2012
I have to disagree. If you want to communicate as a purely functional exercise then Mandarin and English will be fine. If you want to gain real access to local culture in any meaningful sense, then there is never a substitute for learning the local language (and Mandarin isn't it). You are doing the right thing by trying to learn Cantonese, and it will engender a certain amount of instant cred (coupled with slight confusion about why you went to the effort) if you can speak even a minimal amount of Cantonese.
2nd keeping a contact at home who can send you stuff. After living abroad for a couple of months you'll discover that there's something you can't get there that you might have taken for granted before you left. In the past, that's included (for me) gear for grinding and brewing coffee, certain spices and other food items, and shoes that fit me properly. Your list will be different, but there WILL be one. If you decide you need one (I needed one for my grinder), specialized transformers exist for using high-wattage appliances like coffee grinders with 220v. They're not that expensive.
posted by 1adam12 at 10:44 AM on June 15, 2012
2nd keeping a contact at home who can send you stuff. After living abroad for a couple of months you'll discover that there's something you can't get there that you might have taken for granted before you left. In the past, that's included (for me) gear for grinding and brewing coffee, certain spices and other food items, and shoes that fit me properly. Your list will be different, but there WILL be one. If you decide you need one (I needed one for my grinder), specialized transformers exist for using high-wattage appliances like coffee grinders with 220v. They're not that expensive.
posted by 1adam12 at 10:44 AM on June 15, 2012
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1. Are you bigger or taller than the average Hong Kong person? Are your feet? Plan to bring extra shoes and pants, in particular. (You won't always like the tailoring options - it's not always easy to get casual pants made the way you'd like). I had endless trouble with socks and tights - although maybe it's always warm enough in HK that this isn't a concern.
2. I brought a bunch of dried mixes from the co-op, which I saved for when I was homesick or just sick of Chinese food (which was a state that never lasted long, but did happen - unbelievable as it seems). I had hummus mix and polenta mix and dried soups and so on, plus a bunch of pudding mixes. You'll be able to source some of that in HK, I'm sure, but not exactly what you want exactly when you want it. Dried mixes are also really light to ship.
3. Both times I lived in China, I brought some food to eat for my first day or so because I knew I'd be jet-lagged and culture-shocked and might just need to crash rather than negotiate going out and getting food. I packed a big wedge of a dry cheese (asiago, I think) and some other dense stuff, and home made trail mix. I really appreciated it, as I totally crashed both times. Also, I do not know about the availability of cheese in HK - I'm sure it's better than mainland China but I did like having that asiago.
4. Don't underestimate culture shock if you've never lived abroad before. You may be tired or stressed or irrationally frustrated or angry sometimes....even if most of the time you're really excited and having a good time.
5. I made labels with my address in Mandarin to leave with my family so that they could ship me stuff easily - the address written in English/pinyin was usually okay, but the labels made sure everything got there.
6. Meet your neighbors ASAP. I don't know what the culture is where you'll be, but it was so helpful to have tips from the other foreigners - where to buy groceries, where to buy a bike, how to deal with currency issues.
7. I brought a lot of tiny decorative items both times - my collection of postcards, a little painting a friend had done on cardboard, mini posters, a couple of little metal doohickeys that meant a lot to me. It helped me to settle in to my new place to put those up. (I also brought that sticky clay-like stuff that you use to put things on the walls). I certainly managed to acquire local tchochkes fast enough, but it was comforting to have my own.
8. Don't under-pack. The first time I went, I got into this "I will be a minimalist" mentality - didn't bring enough shoes, didn't bring enough clothes, etc. Then I was perpetually on the hunt for stuff my whole time there. Also, if you always wear slippers at home, bring the slippers. If you have trouble sleeping without your favorite pillow, bring it (lord knows I wish I had).
9. What will be provided for you in your new digs? Will you arrive to towels and sheets? Pots and pans? I worked at one place where it was all furnished....except for sheets. (Which was fine, people usually slept with just a quilt - but I would absolutely have brought them if I had known.)
10. What services will you have access to? We had a cleaning service in one place - and the miscommunications were hiLARious and perpetual. (It was this old school "iron rice bowl" mainland school; the building had a concierge, a cleaning staff, a cook who cooked for the staff and for official events but not for us - it was actually a very nice place to live except that due to local conditions, it was pretty run down.)
11. Medicines. Bring your favorites! But also be alert for local variants. I'm sure you can get most Western-style stuff in HK, but if you're picky about something (like a type of migraine med) be sure to bring an ample supply. I ended up finding the best cold remedy in Beijing, though, so get local recs.
12. If you like to read books, bring some books. The internet has made it such that things are not as dire as they were, but I still like to hold a physical book. I bought a huge number of old, small-sized vintage novels at the thrift store and brought them with, which introduced me to the work of Margaret Drabble.
13. Get all your customs ducks in a row before you leave. There is nothing like being on the plane, getting customs forms and realizing that you should have done something or else realizing that you are totally confused about what you need to declare. There were all kinds of rules about laptops and so on that you had to declare and pay import fees on when I went in the early 2000s - or else you'd get dinged coming home.
14. Singapore Air! If you haven't got your ticket, I recommend them highly.
15. Will you be coming home for a visit in the middle? Start planning now - it will give you something to look forward to.
16. If you find yourself sad and panicky and culture-shocked and counting the months til you come home, remember that it will wear off.
17. Do some prep about police and the consulate and so on. It was different on the mainland than it will be in HK, but because we were foreign we were not really under anyone's jurisdiction and several scary things happened, some from Chinese folks and some from other foreigners. In retrospect, I would have felt a lot better if I'd known how to interact with security and how to contact the consulate. (Should have reported this one guy for attempted rape, too.)
18. Don't be that guy, if you're a guy. There are a lot of asshole white guys in Asia - sexist, patronizing, racist, overpaid, entitled, homophobic - and they get away with it because even now with globalization a mediocre white asshole can do far better in Asia than he can at home. If you're a girl, look forward to two years of meeting lots of assholes. (Not that there are no nice white men working in Asia; I met a really great friend over there and a bunch of other nice folks - but there's a liberal salting of creeps and sometimes it feels like that's all you encounter.)
Still, I bet it will be awesome! Have fun!
posted by Frowner at 8:18 AM on June 15, 2012 [3 favorites]