Real Expat Stories #2 - Paul
Insights from Paul on life abroad
Welcome to Real Expat Stories! In these series of posts, expats and immigrants from around the world, answer questions about their personal journey, their struggles and experiences1. Some of the participants are fellow Substackers. Others are friends of mine. They all share a common characteristic: At some point in their lives, they moved out of their home country2. They became expats3.
Paul’s story
Today’s story comes from Paul. Paul is a fellow Substacker, hosting the Always Care Community newsletter. Instead of giving an introduction, I will let Paul’s answers do the talking. At the end, you will also find links to some of Paul’s posts, if you want to learn more about him and his work.
Apart from minor edits, below you can find Paul’s answers untouched. Enjoy!
If you would also like to participate to Real Expat Stories, please shoot me a message!
Where are you from originally?
I was born in Jasper, Alberta, Canada and raised in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada from the age of 7 – 18.
When was your first expat experience i.e., when did you first moved out of your country for more than just a vacation trip?
Less than a week after my high school graduation in 1978, I left for Norway on what was supposed to be a gap year to discover the roots of my paternal ancestry. My gap year lasted four decades and one week.
Was there a moment you remember catching yourself thinking: "I would like to move abroad".
My father had the opportunity to go to Norway with his parents in 1949. He chose not to and later deeply regretted passing up the opportunity. Ever since we were little kids, my two brothers and I were told the story of my father’s missed opportunity to learn another culture and language. We were promised plane tickets as a high school graduation present, if we could save up and plan for our own trip. My older brother went in 1975-76. My parents didn’t expect me to take up the offer because I was lazy and immature (and I was), but I didn’t know what else to do with my life after high school. So, when my final school year began in September 1977, I told them I would accept the offer.
When you first moved, was it because you wanted to experience your new destination, or because you just wanted to leave your home country?
It really wasn’t either of those two things. In my case, I had an opportunity and I took it. It wasn’t that I wanted to leave Canada and it wasn’t really that I wanted to experience Norway; I think I was just trying to find a way to postpone my decision about what I wanted to do with my life.
Where are you living now?
My Danish wife and I live in Kelowna, where I grew up. In 2018, I left the hotel company where I had a basement to a boardroom career. My wife’s parents have both passed away, so we decided to move here to be closer to my parents, who are now 90 and 95.
What is it different about Kelowna today, compared to what you were used to growing up?
It has grown from about 50,000 when I left, to over 160,000 today and over 200,000 if you include the neighbouring suburbs. It’s still a very white area, although the addition of a University and expansion of the community college have added close to 20,000 students with a broader, diverse background. This is slowly, and positively, changing the city to focus more on things like public transit (almost non-existent when I grew up), green spaces, and cycle-routes connecting all areas of the city. Many fruit orchards and vegetable farm have transitioned to growing grapes and producing wine. Orchards that used to be right in the city have now been replaced by housing developments. The downtown area has been somewhat preserved, although high-rise apartment buildings now exist on its outskirts. Many apartments were purchased as investment properties for short-term rental use, but recent regulatory changes now limit this opportunity in the hope to make more housing available and affordable. Time will tell if this will be successful.
What do you like and what do you dislike about your current location?
The city lies on a large, beautiful lake (100 km long, about 1 km wide) with sandy beaches. It’s surrounded by small, tree-covered mountains. Mild winters and long hot summers have made the city a tourist magnet with wineries, breweries, beaches and golf courses being key elements of the market. Sometimes we feel like we live in a resort -in a good way. We also like how the city has recently focused on making its neighbourhoods walkable and accessible with multiple small town centres dotted around the city, so residents have everything in their vicinity. We have excellent citizen services including a large, regional hospital that is well-equipped and has a large amount of specialist capabilities.
On the negative side, it remains a very white, very conservative city. A young friend of ours recently called it a place for Newlyweds, the Newly Rich, and Newly Religious. Maybe it always was and perhaps I’m just seeing it through new eyes, educated by my years abroad in Norway, Denmark, and Belgium as well as my travels to over 60 countries. It is slowly changing and especially the young people have a much better understanding of indigenous people, than we had when I was growing up. The tourism industry prides itself on being a world-class destination, but coming here from abroad was like time-travelling back to the 1980’s. Tourism and hospitality has stagnated, especially when it comes to customer service. In many ways, it has been too easy. Most tourists come from this area, neighbouring provinces or US states. The local tourism organization talks about attracting values-aligned visitors, but without changing their approach or the quality of the product being offered, nor focusing on attracting people from broader geographic and demographic markets, change will be slow.
What do you like and what do you dislike about your home country?
There’s not a lot to dislike about Canada. We have space and compared to many countries around the world, we have a well-functioning physical and political infrastructure. One dislike I have, is the increasing influence from the US with conservative parties calling for increased privatization of healthcare and education, less government regulation (e.g. Airbnb restrictions), and more freedom. When I look at our neighbours to the south, I see this as a real threat to the freedoms and responsibilities we have. Especially healthcare and education, are areas that need to be offered to everyone equally, if a society is to remain strong and vibrant.
What are things/habits that you have picked up while living abroad, that you have incorporated in your life? In which countries did you pick up each of these things?
I think the Scandinavian way of finding resolutions through consensus, is something I’ve tried to incorporate into the way I do things. My wife is Danish and we speak Danish at home -me with a Norwegian accent. It’s good to be able to keep practicing the languages. We also have a number of holiday traditions that we’ve incorporated from Scandinavia. For instance, I prefer roast pork over turkey as a Christmas dinner. In Scandinavia, much of life is centered around family celebrations at home. Christmas lunches that start at noon and end after midnight for example. Living in Belgium and often travelling to neighbouring France, taught us to appreciate food and drink in restaurants, in a way people here seldom grasp. In most restaurants here, service is rushed. Guests are in and out in under an hour to make way for new guests. We’ve found a few local places that have learned to understand us and where we can sit for hours with a drink and a meal, and enjoy the atmosphere without feeling rushed.
Are there any myths about expat life that you have busted?
I like to say that for most of my life I was an immigrant, not an expat. Being in a sink or swim situation is completely different from being in an expat role with a well-paying job, having to learn how a society functions and what your responsibilities (and limitations) as a foreigner are. Apart from civic elections in Denmark, I was never able to vote in elections in the countries where I lived. In most countries, people accept expats and immigrants, but they don’t truly allow you to fully integrate. In Norway, even after twenty years, I was still often introduced as “Paul from Canada” rather than “Paul my colleague” or “Paul my neighbour”. I also believe expats make a mistake when they join expat groups in their new countries. Conversations in those groups often end up comparing the home country to the place you live. Invariably, the memories of home are all blue skies and sunshine, while the experiences of where you live become all about bureaucracy and frustrations. In truth, both visions are wrong. I avoided expat groups and tried to live my life locally.
If you were to change countries again, where would you like to live?
When my parents pass on, it’s possible we will return to Europe. Our daughter lives in Rotterdam, so we’d likely be somewhere in Scandinavia or the BeNeLux4 countries.
Are you considering or planning going back home?
Bad question. I’ve always been home. When I lived in Norway, that was my home. When I lived in Denmark, that was my home. When we lived in Belgium, that was my home. Now that we live here, this is our home. When we lived in Europe and travelled to Canada on holiday, I wasn’t going home, I was going away. If we travel to Europe to visit our daughter or my wife’s family in Denmark, we’re not going home, we’re going away.
Is there anything pushing you away from home?
When my parents pass away, it’s entirely possible we move. If we do, it’s likely we’ll return to Europe to be closer to our daughter.
Thoughts on Paul’s story
Two things stood out to me in Paul’s replies:
Immigrant, not expat
Paul highlights the difference between being an immigrant and an expat. In Expats vs. Immigrants, I have written about how, in my opinion, the difference between the two terms is the result of abusing the word expat. To quote from that post:
[…] my experience is that the term expat is used by the first category of people (white collars), in an effort to differentiate themselves from the term immigrant. That is because, being an expat implies better educational background and potentially a better paying job, than being an immigrant. And since these are two factors that are used to define social status, we try to show them off whenever possible.
In short, expats are immigrants who take themselves too seriously.
However, Paul stresses that being an immigrant also means being in a sink or swim situation -to use his words. This is in fact an important difference between the two words and I am glad it was raised here; Trying out a new country, while having as a backup that you can always abandon ship and go back to your country of origin5, is definitely not the same as what Paul describes. And in that sense, an expat and an immigrant are fundamentally distinct.
If it makes any difference, in the same post I noted that, if I had to choose a label for myself, I would also go for immigrant; that is also why the description of this substack is Reflections of a millennial immigrant6.
Home
Paul called me out when asked if he is considering going back home. The reason? He is home.
I am glad he did, because that gives me the opportunity to re-iterate that, I 100% agree with his point of view; I also consider Denmark to be my home and not just an intermediate destination, until I return to Greece. Maybe a small difference is that, I consider both places to be my homes. The reason the question is phrased in such a way, is to distinguish between place of origin and place of residence. I had tried to clarify this distinction in The 3 levels of distance from home:
First let’s define home. Home is were you live, but in this post when I say home, I mean the place where your parents live; in some instances also the place where you grew up and where you still have childhood friends.
I call both Denmark and Greece home, because they are both my home; however in this post I will refer to Denmark as residency and Greece as home.
All in all, Paul is right that for someone who is home, this question might be poorly phrased. As a personal comment, I believe that everyone who has moved to a different country, should aim to reach the point where they feel comfortable enough to call it home.
Further reading
If you would like some more insight into Paul’s story, what better way than checking out some of his work👇
What is your story? What stands out in your journey abroad?
For the sake of conciseness, not all their replies will be included.
The term home country refers to the country of origin, not the place you call home. I only use it to avoid confusion between country of origin and country of residence. If you are interested in a longer elaboration of this, I have shared some thoughts in The 3 levels of distance from home.
Or immigrants.
Benelux is used to describe the economic union of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The name is an acronym of the country names.
Or at least to the country you previously resided.
In case you haven’t noticed, this is the header of all the emails you receive from me.
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Thank you, Naive Ignorant, for including me in your compelling series! I look forward to reading other Real Expat Stories. I especially appreciated your comments to my contributions. The immigrant vs expat discussion is one I have long been interested in.
In Dutch student-lingua we dinstinguish our two homes by calling “home” (thuis) the place you currently live, and “homehome” (thuisthuis) the place you grew up and or your parents still live. I think it is a beautiful way to not really having to partake in this home/away dichotomy