Expats

[NYCBlue]

Re: Expats

Doesn’t ‘ex pat’ seem a lot more nicer than ‘immigrant’

Reserved for (usually English speaking) whites only. I prefer to be called an immigrant.

[jimmyscoular]

Re: Expats

Doesn’t ‘ex pat’ seem a lot more nicer than ‘immigrant’

Well, we're "expats" to our fellow Brits but immigrants to everyone else. I have often described myself as an immigrant to Americans because that is what I am. To tell someone of, say, Ukrainian heritage, that I'm an "ex pat" would be silly.

[jimmyscoular]

Re: Expats

I've tried telling a few people. They don't care. You think they'd be interested to know what it means at least.

Sometimes we're too close to things. If there were a housing subdivision named Crvc Hlavc, and some Czech immigrant wanted to tell me all about it I don't know that my interest would be overflowing. Welsh references are so rare, though, they do catch my eye. There is a Cardiff-by-the-Sea in California — probably no more interesting a fact than Nebraska has a Prague.

[Dublinblue]

Re: Expats

How come you're expats?
> I met a lovely Irish woman in a bar in London, fell in love, changed my life - she wanted to go home so we went, 25y ago. TBH I think of 'expat' as applying to people (usually white professionals) who live abroad but intend to return home. I'm not one - I'm an emigrant (from GB) / an immigrant (to Ireland).


I've always wanted to move somewhere warmer and being from Brynmawr the choices are endless.
> Well Dublin ain't warmer or drier than south Wales!

Do you miss Wales?
> Only in a nostalgic sense. I like coming back, but these days it feels like visiting not coming home. I've lived away from Wales since I was 18 (France -> England -> Kenya -> England -> Ireland) and all I have left is CCFC, a few people & memories. And I started following the City when I was in London.

Do you think you'll ever move back?
>It's possible but unlikely. I'm an Irish citizen now, most of my friends are here and Ireland is my home.

[jimmyscoular]

Re: Expats

When you see those programmes like Bargain Brits In The Sun it amuses me to see the British immigrants seeking out the best Sunday dinner, Bars that have bingo etc and that caravan park just outside Benidorm full of British immigrants

There is an Englishwoman in my town who emigrated to the United States as a war bride eons ago. She still says things like "love" and "car boot" and "rubbish bin," all with a completely intact Kent accent. Sometimes I think they hold onto these things as sort of trademarks. When in Rome, is my attitude.

In her defense, she is absolutely lovely.

[jimmyscoular]

Re: Expats

I was working in London at the time. My contract ended and I just decided to be a bit cavalier and get a one-way ticket to Hong Kong (I already sold my property in Cardiff).
I met a mainland Chinese girl, we got married, had a son and fifteen years later I'm still here in China.

I don't think I could ever afford to go back home, I certainly wouldn't get any meaningful employment at my age in the UK.

I went back to Cardiff for my mother's funeral just over 2 years ago. It was the first time I had been home in more than 10 years. I rediscovered what a fantastic city Cardiff is. I used to take things for granted when I was living there. The friendly and helpful nature of the people, particularly in customer service, was very notable.

Cardiff is a great place. As always, you have to be absent for a long time to appreciate it properly. I suppose when you trudge in and out of it a dozen times a year, Cardiff Market loses its charm, but I love visiting that place with its wonderful food stalls and that iconic fishmonger where I have many happy memories of my dad buying me bags of cockles. Even the council estates, so dreary and taken for granted when I was growing up, take on a fresh aspect after years away. Their narrow, winding streets are actually quite charming, if inconvenient, and being as they were built before cars became common possessions, everything is within walking distance.

[jimmyscoular]

Re: Expats

I moved to a place called Cardiff in my mid twenties .Lovely City.
Weather much nicer than my native Bonnie Scotland .
Great opportunities there well , run my own successful business, have integrated fairly well with the natives despite some of them having a gripe about some hand ball incident that happened years and years ago....
Standard of local football is shocking though. You need a neck brace to watch hoof ball.
I would recommend Cardiff to anyone .

[jimmyscoular]

Re: Expats

Good for you Mate!!
Nebraska’s Winters would be beyond my capacity no matter how much I dug the Corn Huskers.

Winters here in Northern VA are brutal to me.
If we don’t get back to Wales, a Snow Bird lifestyle it is!

Yeah, we're thinking about Texas, although in one of those life twists my daughter and her husband just bought a summer home in Puerto Rico and now the missus is talking about retirement on the Caribbean. I don't know that I could live happily in a non-English speaking country, though. I need my radio, an addiction that took hold long ago with Radio Luxembourg and Jimmy Clitheroe.

[jimmyscoular]

Re: Expats

Not sure if I qualify as a full blown expat but I’ve spent many years of my life outside of the UK. Work driven for me, mainly on secondment to transfer or start up businesses. Currently on a 3 year stint in Poland but previously I’ve done the same in Japan, Ireland, California, Canada, Holland & India. I love the change & challenges.

Nomad, perhaps?

[light up the darkness]

Re: Expats

I went to Vietnam originally to head up a business school. I never saw myself and still don’t think of myself as an ex pat. I view the ex pats community as a bunch of folk who are boozers and can’t leave ‘home’ behind them and so band together forming cliques which are not easy to associate with.

Besides which a lot of the ex pats are Australian and a pain in the arse especially when they’ve had a beer.

We live in Phu My Hung district in Ho Chi Minh City which is mainly Vietnamese and have a place in the country near Ba Ria Vung Tau where I am ‘the foreigner’. If you pitch up there and ask in the market for the foreigner they’ll likely send you to our place.it’s kind of nice but like living in a goldfish bowl sometimes.


Married a beautiful woman in 2014 and we have a very handsome young boy.

We bought a new house in Radyr using zoom and my sister to act as our intermediary and we’re moving to Cardiff as soon as we can get the paperwork sorted out.

The Spouse visa is a triumph of bureaucracy. She even has to have current medical certification which confirms she doesn’t have TB and we have to produce a file of photographic and other documents which prove we’ve been together since 2010

The education and healthcare systems are dreadful and you can’t get anything done unless you pay tea money. Even the women in the bank when you take out cash or make a money transfer want you give them a ‘nice tip’.

The police are equally as corrupt I had to get a stamped copy of my residence permit. It took 4 visits to the local People’s Committee. As soon as the cash appeared so did the stamped copy. Whenever I get pulled up by the ‘yellow dogs’ vang chai I have a 200,000 vid note folded with my licence and that’s twice what the locals will be asked for.

It’s the way things are. Can confirm It’s really different to living in Canton….mostly

But. If I could have a conversation with myself when I was 20 I’d tell myself to get an English language teaching certificate and fk off around the world staying as long as I wanted and using the qualification to fund myself.

As someone said It’s a big world out there and I recommend everyone should get out and see some of it.

You might just like it.

[Maurice Swan]

Re: Expats

Isn't is great to know all these stories? Myself....I live in the Dordogne (where the pool is appreciated this time of year)......)...married forty years until my wife died very suddenly in 2011.
I nearly married a girl in China from Chongqing (for info Rock_Flock_of_Five)...but did not work out. No children from first marriage but I then met and married a Thai girl from Udon Thani , and we now have two wonderful little boys 8 and 2....who are healthy and happy...what more can one wish in life.....
Do I miss Wales???? Well, I worked in Treorchy for a while in the old Midland Bank.... lovely place ....and being born in Cymmer, Porth, and being extensively travelled, I miss the mountains...Aberdare market.....fish and chips from Cardiff Fish Bar in Aberaman (THE BEST!! -I lived in Aberdare for a while.....) ....I will never return though. The only other place I would live is New England in USA.

[ToTaL ITK]

Re: Expats

Moved to Sweden 1989 with my Swedish wife, now divorced and i've upgraded to a filipina beauty.
When i retire i hope to retire there.
I'm currently applying to become a swedish citizen.

[jimmyscoular]

Re: Expats

I went to Vietnam originally to head up a business school. I never saw myself and still don’t think of myself as an ex pat. I view the ex pats community as a bunch of folk who are boozers and can’t leave ‘home’ behind them and so band together forming cliques which are not easy to associate with.

Besides which a lot of the ex pats are Australian and a pain in the arse especially when they’ve had a beer.

We live in Phu My Hung district in Ho Chi Minh City which is mainly Vietnamese and have a place in the country near Ba Ria Vung Tau where I am ‘the foreigner’. If you pitch up there and ask in the market for the foreigner they’ll likely send you to our place.it’s kind of nice but like living in a goldfish bowl sometimes.


Married a beautiful woman in 2014 and we have a very handsome young boy.

We bought a new house in Radyr using zoom and my sister to act as our intermediary and we’re moving to Cardiff as soon as we can get the paperwork sorted out.

The Spouse visa is a triumph of bureaucracy. She even has to have current medical certification which confirms she doesn’t have TB and we have to produce a file of photographic and other documents which prove we’ve been together since 2010

The education and healthcare systems are dreadful and you can’t get anything done unless you pay tea money. Even the women in the bank when you take out cash or make a money transfer want you give them a ‘nice tip’.

The police are equally as corrupt I had to get a stamped copy of my residence permit. It took 4 visits to the local People’s Committee. As soon as the cash appeared so did the stamped copy. Whenever I get pulled up by the ‘yellow dogs’ vang chai I have a 200,000 vid note folded with my licence and that’s twice what the locals will be asked for.

It’s the way things are. Can confirm It’s really different to living in Canton….mostly

But. If I could have a conversation with myself when I was 20 I’d tell myself to get an English language teaching certificate and fk off around the world staying as long as I wanted and using the qualification to fund myself.

As someone said It’s a big world out there and I recommend everyone should get out and see some of it.

You might just like it.

Hell of a story. Vietnam of all places. I actually don't hang around any Brits at all here in Nebraska. In all the years I've lived here I've met fewer than half a dozen. A British food shop opened recently here in Omaha, so I've come across a few there, but, being British, we naturally don't talk to one another. Just get your Lyle's Golden Syrup and your jar of Marmite and get out of there.

[Maurice Swan]

Re: Expats

Isn't is great to know all these stories? Myself....I live in the Dordogne (where the pool is appreciated this time of year)......)...married forty years until my wife died very suddenly in 2011.
I nearly married a girl in China from Chongqing (for info Rock_Flock_of_Five)...but did not work out. No children from first marriage but I then met and married a Thai girl from Udon Thani , and we now have two wonderful little boys 8 and 2....who are healthy and happy...what more can one wish in life.....
Do I miss Wales???? Well, I worked in Treorchy for a while in the old Midland Bank.... lovely place ....and being born in Cymmer, Porth, and being extensively travelled, I miss the mountains...Aberdare market.....fish and chips from Cardiff Fish Bar in Aberaman (THE BEST!! -I lived in Aberdare for a while.....) ....I will never return though. The only other place I would live is New England in USA.

[Carl Dale's Mole]

Re: Expats

Couple of questions.

How come you're expats?

I was a problem child. Year above Bale/Warburton/Thomas/Kear in Whitchurch. I dropped out after Year 12. I was more interested in my friend's grandad's war stories than I was school. Used to drop by his house to listen to him instead of going to class. Then after dropping out I worked full time at the Plumb Center at City Road making next to nothing. I know absolutely nothing about plumbing. My dad's company asked him to move to Shanghai for a 3-5 year project. Parents asked me if I wanted to go with them and go back to school and redo Year 12 and after visiting Shanghai I said hell yes. Went to Uni in Malaysia and now settled in Singapore with a Singaporean-chinese wife and kids.

I've always wanted to move somewhere warmer and being from Brynmawr the choices are endless.
Do you miss Wales?

Certain things. But if I missed it enough I would move home. Although I say that but truth be told we're over reliant on my wife's job here in Singapore.

I miss Sunday roast. I miss going to watch City both home and away. Cardiff Devils too. And rugby. I miss my auntie Karen and all my cousins. I miss a proper cup of tea. I miss grass. I miss seasons. I miss pubs. I miss having a back garden. I miss having a connection to the people I'm around.

I went to Japan for the rugby world cup and whenever I met someone and told them I'm Welsh they got excited. Whenever I told them but I live in Singapore they lost their excitement.

Do you think you'll ever move back?

I would love to but only if we had enough money to do it differently. I wouldn't want to live in Gabalfa or Whitchurch again. Sorry if that sounds stuck up but been there, done that. I would love to give Pontcanna a try. With those massive fields and hipster cafes. Walking to town. Yes please.

Anyway I'm drunk.