26 Things You Can Learn by Living Abroad for a Year

26 Things You Can Learn by Living Abroad for a Year

Etienne GarbugliProduct Design & Marketing Consultant

What I learned and how it changed me

What I did. // Itinerary.

I moved to Singapore in July 2011

I moved to Beijing in January2011

I arrived in Hong Kongin October2010

I moved back to Canada in October 2011

Note: The plane probably doesn’t go in this direction. :)

Why I did it. // Objectives.

To travel

To evaluate if where I was born is where I wanted to live

To take a step back and discover what I want to do

To come up with a great business idea

To work on myself

To take some distance

To discover and understand another culture

To get some experience working abroad

To learn

To experience life somewhere elseTo meet people

What I learned. // Life lessons.

It’s fairly easy to move and take a new place as your home

1

It’s also easy to meet people2

Some relationships last, others are just circumstantial

3

Expat friends are easy to find. Local friends much harder

4

Without speaking the language, it’s hard to fully understand and integrate a culture

5

It’s also very hard to avoid isolation

6

But, you’ll never be as local as the local people; keep your identity

7

People are surprisingly nice and helpful everywhere

8

But, sense of humor & metaphors can easily be misunderstood

9

You soon realize that being abroad changes your perspective of where you come from

10

And that life goes on with (or without) you

11

We don’t change too much when travelling but, things change even less back home

12

You’ll probably miss your friends and family; it’s much harder to center your life without them

13

But, having things or people waiting for you somewhere else makes it easy to give up

14

Comfort comes when you get your own place

15

But, like everywhere else, routine sets in as you work

16

And you realize that it’s hard to have time AND money to travel no matter where you are

17

AND that, being close to a destination does not necessarily mean you’ll actually get to see it

18

Abroad, the most dangerous thing is the downward spiral; when everything starts to suck

19

It can be frustrating dealing with and understanding people from another culture but, people are rarely racist

20

It’s just naturally harder to trust and understand people from another culture

21

Since we naturally see things through our own culture’s eyes

22

Which doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically be friends with people from your home culture (many seem to think so)

23

But, ultimately, there’s good and bad things everywhere; maybe another city would suit you better

24

Moving away is not about having fears or not; it’s about how well you face your fears…

25

Life is more flexible than we think; with enough work, almost everything in life can be changed

26

Thank you.

Etienne GarbugliProduct Design Consultant

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