Expat

We further explore the idea of being a “Foreigner at Home” with Scott Underwood’s insights to living and teaching as an American in Thailand. Having backpacked and traveled for years, he was surprised to learn that calling a place home took more a bit more adjustment, but he soon found himself instep with a new pace of life. Click on the photo journal below to learn about what it’s like to live as a “Foreigner at Home” in Thailand!

: I am an American living in Thailand. Home for me has been Nonthaburi, a province just on the northwest corner of Bangkok, for the last year. But this isn’t how I started, I have been in 48/50 states, working for weeks or months or even years in some. When I was young my parents loved taking road trips in the summer. I remember putting the overcab camper on my dads F 150 truck and how it felt knowing that for the next couple weeks I would be on an adventure. I guess you could say I never really grew out of that.

: My first thoughts about coming to Thailand were overconfident to say the least. Having traveled most of my life I was very comfortable living out of a backpack and felt I could do that anywhere. I’m lucky to have had a great group of people here when I arrived, because I was wrong about the ease of my transfer to being an expat living in Southeast Asia. Even going to the bathroom here was something I needed to relearn.

: One of the better shocks I have had was learning that grocery shopping is what the wealthy do, while normal every day people just go out to eat, shockingly the price of making your own food is much greater than having someone else prepare it for you and taking it home or eating out. This is STILL weird to me, but I love it. If you’re inside Bangkok and remotely near anything “touristy” you’re going to have no problem speaking English to order any food from street vendors, but if you do happen across someone who doesn’t understand, luckily you have the option to take 4 steps and find another vendor. Most of the street vendors speak out in English when a farang (white foreigner) walks by to let you know that they’re ready and able to help you.

: A typical lunch for two; soup, rice, a bottle of water and a glass of tea costs on an average of $5 Learning to enjoy soup 5 times a week was somewhat of a trick but it wasn’t too long before I was asking if anyone wanted to get some tomyum or make sinigang na baboy (Filippino) for dinner on a pretty regular basis.

: Now, it’s not all work and no play of course. Who would travel halfway around the world just to work and not have any more adventures?! For about $10 you and a friend can take a van to all kinds of destinations, from Pattaya to Korat, to Kanchanaburi (where the bridge over the river Kwai is). Traveling here is very affordable and hotels are also fair priced.

: The Buddhist temples are always open, no matter what the scamming tuktuk drivers try to tell you, most of them are free or donation based, some charge 100baht ($3) to get in. If you come to Thailand and you never check one of these out you really missed out on a lot of their history and heritage. This is the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, and I can’t begin to describe how tiny this makes you feel.

: Even the shopping malls here are a little different than most of us are used to.

: Typical malls have 4-6 floors, while some of the larger ones have 12, and a Lamborghini dealer next to a Ducatti dealer. They all share one thing in common though, right outside the entrance to any mall, you’ll find a small sidewalk fair filled with street foods and clothing at some of the best bargains imaginable.

: Tuktuk drivers are absolutely crazy and some of them decorate their rides in a true Fast&Furious fanboy style. Normally I stay away from these because they are all usually on some take of some kind. Meaning, you barter your price, decide on 50baht, then they change half way through the ride saying you only pay 50baht if they can take you to a place first. Many of these drivers get gas cards from stores by dragging tourists in. If you don’t have a local ID, these are fun to ride once…. Then get a taxi or bus after that experience.

: The trick is, understanding Thai, or having GPS to know exactly when/where you’re stop is.

: Of all the things I love about living in Thailand I think the people here are really the best. People from all places come here and everyone gets along fantastically. I have never seen a fight break out, I have never heard negative words spoke, and the constant smiles on everyones face is a nonstop reminder as to why they call this….. The Land of Smiles.

: One of the absolute best and cheapest ways to get around Bangkok is via the water. Taking a boat from south Bangkok all the way to the northern section will cost about $1, or less. It’s not the fastest, but it’s without a doubt the best views, especially if you catch them at night while the city lights are contrasted only by the moonlight.

Return to Foreigner at Home #1.

Thank you, Scott, for sharing your new life with us—a Professional Nomads sticker is headed your way! Check back next week when we’ll share details to the next Adventures in Aperture call for submissions. Click “follow” to have notification about contests like these sent right to your inbox!

As we learned through our previous reader-submitted series, travel forces us to break out of our comfort zone, put aside preconceived notions, and build tolerance. But what happens when the trip doesn’t end? How does that affect you, your relationship to your home country, and your perspective on the world? Can you ever feel at home in a new place? What about the country you left behind? And if living abroad does scramble your perspective on the world and your place within it, why do it at all?

Jill Friant is an American expat working and living in Australia. Click on her photo journal below to delve into her experiences acclimating to life as a foreigner not only on new soil, but back in her original country, as well. For submitting her story Jill will receive a Professional Nomads sticker to further claim her duplicitous role as a “Foreigner at Home” wherever her travels take her.

: On June 14th, 2006 (Flag Day, if you’re an observer of the Hallmark high holidays) I moved from the U.S. to London for a two year work contract. Nine years later I live in Sydney, Australia, hold two passports and feel both more and less American than I ever did before I went abroad.

: As an expat you get used to being American becoming a bigger part of your identity, because it’s the first thing people notice about you and a conversation starter with everyone you meet. Good or bad, everyone has a story or an opinion about America. Being identified as an American first and foremost has made me more patriotic, in a way. Thanksgiving was always my favourite (yes, part of expat life means expat spellings) holiday, but being a hemisphere away has made it one of the biggest dates on my calendar. In 2011, I cooked a turkey in 85 degree weather in an apartment with no air conditioning and made my friends come dressed as their favourite Americans.

: But about those expat spellings. When I go back to America people often think I’m LESS American. Because I spell the Aussie way and say different words for things sometimes – I write at work every day and adapting was an occupational necessity. I try and switch back as soon as I disembark at JFK, because people in the USA think it’s pretentious if I slip up and say “lift” instead of “elevator.” But there are switches I can’t flip back. I took this picture on a freezing January day in Pennsylvania, during the trip where I learned my blood has acclimatised fully to the Sydney climate and I wondered how I ever survived my formative years in northeast USA winters.

: The first place I go on any trip to the States is the nearest supermarket. American supermarkets overwhelm me now. Even though I always thought one of the things I miss most about the USA is the endless consumer choice, when faced with it now I can’t imagine how I’d cope having to choose among all those different kinds of pickles.

: I’ve been in Sydney for six and a half years now. A couple years into my time here, I flew back from a trip to the States on an overnight flight. I landed on a sunny morning and made jet lagged small talk with my cab driver. He asked if I was arriving home and I said yes. He asked where I had travelled from and I said “home” to that too.

Thank you, Jill, for sharing your world with the ProNo community! Check back Friday, July 3rd, to learn about Scott Underwood’s transition as an American teaching in Thailand!

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Foreigner at Home #2

Foreigner at Home #1