Writing The Far-Flung Life: The Life and Times of Expat Writers

Here's the truth. We expat writers have some pretty hilarious, tres bizarro, mega-heart-breaking, uber-adventurous, heads-bowed enlightening, truth-revealing, "no effing way" stories to tell.

We could begin right at this exact moment telling those stories and not be finished until...well, until never. And the entire time we were telling them, you (our audience) would be bent over double with laughter, sobbing like babies, or saying "No effing way" over and over again.

After all, we brave, crazy, passionate expat writers not only travel to exotic locales for spits-and-spots of experience. We actually pack up our homes, our families, our hearts, our underwear, and our bottles of Imodium and MOVE to these exotic locales. We say, "Yeah, bring it on! I want to live in this place...as uncomfortable and confused as I am right now...and I want to...I want to..."

"You want to what?" you ask.

"I want to figure out who I am in relation to this new place. Because I was pretty damn clear about who I was in my home country, but here? Here? This place where I stand out like a sore thumb? I don't have a clue who I am or how I fit in."

"Anything else?" you ask.

"Yeah, I want to KNOW this place. Not just a little, but a lot. As much as an outsider can, I guess."

"That's a mighty tall order," you say in a John Wayne drawl because maybe you are an American.

"Yeah, but I've got a while."

Then we expat writers live in these locales for...one, two, three, four, even ten years...witnessing cultural clashes, cultural enlightenments, medicine-resistant illnesses, language conundrums, awe-inspiring kindnesses, life-changing revelations, strange fish-stomping deaths, unfamiliar burial rites, and perhaps most importantly, everyday life. We eat funky foods and compare this to that. We stare, get stared at, drop chopsticks, make friends, make mistakes, and finally, let the old shift as the new seeps in.

And of course we write about it. Because that's what we do. Because like all writers, we are obsessed with getting our stories onto the page...with working life out in pen and ink (or via the clickety-click).

But something else happens as well.

We start to change. We look in the mirror and say, "Who the hell are you?" We thumb through the myriad of stamps in our passports and say, "Who the hell am I?" We study the addresses on our mail and say, "Home?"

Because at some point...some critical point...we stop feeling like citizens of a single country...and instead feel like citizens of...well...the world.

How effing corny and wonderful and confusing and unlikely is that? There's no precedent for being a "citizen of the world." As far as I know, there's no "citizen of the world" anthem. No "citizen of the world" constitution. No "citizen of the world" rule book. No "citizen of the world" flag. There aren't any traditional "citizen of the world" costumes or sports clubs to cheer for.

Just what holidays does a citizen of the world celebrate? Tet? Chinese New Year? Passover? Christmas? And if Christmas, Santa Claus or Sinterklaas?

So once we feel this way, what do we do?

Well, you know, we're writers--expat writers-- so we do what we always do. We keep telling stories. And we find ways of sharing those stories with you (our audience)...wherever you are...back in our "home" countries...here in our adopted countries...or in the countries we touch down in along the way.

And hopefully, you (our beloved audience) read them.

_______

Thanks to Francesco Marino and djcodrin for the digital artwork.

Comments

[parisimperfect]

I am so glad I've found you - yes! I am reading your stories! Keep sharing. They are wonderful.

It's kind of funny because when I first moved to Paris I actually got a major case of writer's block. I thought I would have ten million new stories - but nothing doing. Because I *did* have ten million new stories, but it was also, well, my LIFE I was trying to figure out. Lots of processing, took awhile for the stories to start making it to the page.

It probably doesn't sound as big a leap to France as to China, but living in another language, culture and being reminded everyday that you are a foreigner (French word for foreigner is "etranger" - notice how "strange" is the root of that?) - well, it definitely is a trip. PLUS, to live in such a literary capital can make your own efforts feel really, really small.

Happy to report that I'm back at it because, yes, I crossed over at some intangible moment to feeling like a 'citizen of the world' as you say. Well, I probably wouldn't have said it that way to myself, but I just felt...free. I was not "displaced" from my home (I barely even know what home means anymore). I have learned that I *can* make a home anywhere. Isn't that cool?

Thanks for your awesome posts. Sorry for the long comment. Clickety-clicking away.

[Meryl K Evans]

Love having your insight into life of an expat. I'll never be an expat, but I will be a visitor to far flung places... I hope.

[Anastasia]

Thanks for this Kristin!

Yes, we don't have an anthem. We don't even have a category in the Yahoo Directory or any of the other biggies. I checked. I wanted to submit my global niche blog to a global citizen section. Doesn't exist. How crazy is that? We're out here doing it, and yet, the name for what we're doing, what we're experiencing, hasn't seeped back home.

Keep writing, and posting, and submitting (critical mass and all).