Expatriation Here And There

Fred On Everything ^ | 6/2/2003 | Fred Reed

[SauronOfMordor]

June 2, 2003  

Expatriates. You see them in back-street bars of Bangkok, Manila, Guadalajara, along third-world waterfronts, in up-country Thailand, anywhere living is cheap and rules scarce.

Some are old guys in their sixties and seventies with fading tattoos from other lives, lives that also fade into fewer and fewer living memories. Some are in their thirties and run little businesses, often legitimate. They are a bit rough-looking or maybe just eccentric, congenitally what they are and not concerned about what you think of them. You find them heisting a brewski in out-of-the-way spots, chaffing with the barmaids who maybe or may not have a sideline. They are the dropouts of the earth-the interesting expats, not the middle-management retirees who really belong in some dismal retirement colony in Florida.

They are a breed overlooked by the world, which suits them fine. Some have pasts. You see jailhouse tattoos. A few are drunks waiting to die spitting blood--poor miserable sods who just couldn't get it together after the contract ran out on the oil rig and the wife ran with the kids, probably for good reason. Most are solid enough. They drop by the bars because that's where the social life is. Some own bars. Many have local wives and families. Some did once back in the States and figure they'll pass this time around.

They are men with stories, many of which wouldn't be believed in the upholstered countries of the earth. On the other hand, expats generally don't talk to upholstered people. You meet a lot of retired pilots, maybe for United and maybe for spook outfits like Air America, or maybe the personal pilot of some oil-sheikh out of Arabia. Some did things they don't talk about during the American lunge into Asia in the Sixties; after the war, the golf course just didn't appeal to them. Golfers don't always understand about Lucy's Tiger Den, the Grey House, the Blue Fox in TJ.

Their defining trait is that they don't fit in and don't want to. The bond broker for example who wondered, "What am I doing this for?" and stopped. He opened a dive shop in Mexico and never looked back. There are drug dealers who got smart in time; men who don't seem to have last names, or not the same one twice; guys who scout trinkets for the US import market. You bump into freelance writers living by their wits, credentialed by obscure publications which sometimes exist. Military men who retired on twenty and didn't want to work in the NAPA outlet; the former bouncer at a strip joint in Florida who somehow drifted abroad and saw no reason to go back.

The waters of anarchy run wide and fast through expatriate realm, though they don't gather up everybody. Some of the Americans are deeply attached to the memory of the US they left. For a few, patriotism has replaced religion as the psychic buoy for the otherwise unmoored.

Others are profoundly, by conviction or inattention, citizens of nowhere, loyal to no country. Maybe they've lived in so many places that whatever bonds they may have had have worn through; borders are to them just places where you get your bags inspected. Maybe they wearied of the socialism of Canada, the regimentation of the United States, and bailed. Some are angry that their countries haven't lived up to their desires. Others are bored with the question.

The world does not approve of deliberate statelessness. These men wouldn't care. There's not too much they do care about.

A few expats are bad-voodoo muck-skulkers. The Federales in Guad recently snatched a candyman on the lam out of Spokane: something like forty counts of homosexual child molestation. (He seemed like a nice guy.) But it's rare. More commonly men marry and play Leave It To Beaver, have kids or adopt the wife's, live happily and make sure she gets the Social Security when they die.

Almost universal among them is a profound desire not to be part of somebody else's parade. They want to be left alone. In the semi-developed countries favored by expats, governments usually don't care about you unless you break the law. Sometimes they don't care even if you do break the law, depending on the law. The big North American governments never stop supervising, admonishing, collecting data, requiring forms. Those who dislike it enough end up somewhere else.

The uncharitable in America bruit the notion that men expatriate because they want to enjoy sex with lovely young lovelies. That's part of it. For a man of fifty, a sloe-eyed sweetie of twenty-five beats hell out of an angry menopausing gringa with a law degree. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but it is that way.

But much more than sex is involved. Women in the backwaters are often just plain agreeable. After the divorce back home, men learn. Some do.

There are interpretations and interpretations of the prostitution and semi-prostitution that one finds abroad. Hooking, an expat might tell you, if he cared, which is unlikely, gets a bad rap. Bar girls usually aren't bad people. The cynical among the expatriates, which is about all of them, say that hooking differs from other approaches to sex chiefly in that the latter cost more.

Deep down, a lot of men just don't want the admin overhead of the usual relationship: the breakup, the shrieking, the agony, and let's-get-counseling, and everyone feels like dirt. Relations between the sexes, they say, are always fundamentally commercial. Women trade sex for whatever they want, and men trade whatever they have for sex. In the US, when the whole mess becomes horribly boring, the husband insists that he's still in love to avoid admitting that he'd give anything to be in Bangkok. The woman eats bon-bons.

Remember that the expat lives there, unlike the crypto-sadistic Japanese sex tourist. He knows the girls in the bar, laughs with them, takes one home here and again. For her, it beats being sweated in a running-shoe factory. Most countries don't have the Puritan background America does.

I know lots of men who have married either bar girls or non-hooking local women. (Some don't know they have married bar girls.) Often it works well. The woman gets what she wants: a decent life, and a husband who doesn't knock her around. He gets what he wants: a pretty and pleasant young wife, food on the table, and a good mother if they have kids. He probably actually loves her because, praise God, she's not congenitally angry or in a law firm. They're happy. It's their business.

[SauronOfMordor]

ping

[Kenton]

Golfers don't always understand about Lucy's Tiger Den, the Grey House, the Blue Fox in TJ.

Back in my misbegotten youth I used to have an "Eat at the Blue Fox" T-Shirt.

[sauropod]

I love this article!

[SauronOfMordor]

ping

[wildbill]

As soon as my family obligations to my parents end, I'm off to either Thailand or Colombia. Maybe both.

[KDD]

Trinidad, Bermuda, or Belise for me.

Rebels are going to be an ongoing threat in Columbia.

Most of the "expats" there these days are CIA.

[Loyalist]

Sometimes I wish I could just up and leave like these men did for a place where they let a man go about his business.

[Quix]

Well written piece.

There are other categories.

There are mid and upper level mgmt folks heading Asian or host country fields of major multi-nationals.

And there are missionaries--funded or self-supporting; with or without mission organization--working usually rather tirelessly and sacrificially for The Kingdom and helping often very disadvantaged groups in host countries have better lives.

The category of expat the author seems to focus on tends to include lots of--if not consist of mostly birds of rare plumage who he seems to describe fairly well. "Don't fence me in" seems to be a favorite mentality and perspective. And what, with the Hollyweed-i-zation of the American West--there's not much wild west to go to if you like being warmer than Pt Barrow Alaska.

Many do have the attitudes toward sex and marriage so well described. And, too often, for the reasons proffered.

But it's still a rather bleak view/slice of reality and a rather bleak set of mores in a lot of respects. There's a lot of loneliness in the aging expat birds of rare plumage who's main claim to fame have been a particularly unique brand of hedonism and too little else.

Even foreign women get tired of alcoholism--physical abuse or none. Even foreign women get tired of even American et al brands of selfishness on the part of largely gruff to complaining, even whining bar hounds. Sooner or later a lot of them end up crying in their beer alone.

It may be of some comfort that their State-side families don't see the depths they've sunk. And, it's nice that the economics are still somewhat functional. But it's not much of a life to write home about. And the old better times with their youth and less westernized, less developed host country escapades and contexts recede more and more rapidly, more and more fully into the foggy boundaries partially pickled memories that never were that pristine accurate in the first place.

The corporate types tend to get rotated in and out with annoying frequency unless an odd member decides he likes what he's got and has enough clout to persuade the home office to leave him be.

Or, as in one case, when the multi-national was taken over by a hot shot bean counter hell-bent to even more extensively outsource a historically American emphasizing company--the expat corporate hotshot leaves that company with a huge retirement account and bonuses and sets himself up still as the chief jobber for his former company but more on his own terms--still in the cushy style he's long been accustomed to--only more so and more on his own terms. Some guys have the best of all worlds, it seems.

Thankfully, in this particular case, he's long been given to helping The Kingdom and now routinely goes on mission trips to an Asian country much needing the funds and expertise brought to the orphanages etc. he reaches out to.

I've even heard his full-time working expat-professional wife has mellowed considerably from a too common certain flavor of ostentacious haughtiness. And, he's reportedly been a good boy in the home department for a long time, now.

The author also left out the masses of writhing, moving, young birds of rare plumage roming the world a la the flower children of decades past in a new iteration. They teach English or pan-handle or manipulate more money out of daddy back home or manage by some cleverness to keep fed and somewhat clothed.

Some are decent sorts out for adventures while they are young and none too tied down. Some have degrees and want some wide experiences and adventures to add to their experiential perspective on life before they become tied to the suburbs or managing daddy's company. Others want some such experiences before they bother with more schooling they are not totally convinced is in their best interests anyway.

Some are running every way possible and as fast as possible from any fences and any hint of any authority telling them what they must or must not do or anything else they don't want to hear. Too many still fail to appreciate the strictness with which many host countries view and treat western expat kids who abuse drugs. And a lot of them have yet to learn plenty about cause and effect and reaping and sowing in terms of life choices, behaviors, mouthiness etc.

And now we have raging rampant Global Government Tyranny trying to homoginize the whole planet into the lowest common manageable denominator. It may be interesting to see how these gifted folks who are artists at falling through the cracks deliberately still manage to do so with a shrinking quantity and diversity of cracks to fall through.

I greatly miss Asia. I'd be back there in a flash if God allowed it. It's good to help dad with mom's last months. It's not fun. It is honorable.

But I'm sure thankful for the net and phones and a diversity of Loved ones, Godsons and Goddaughters there. I enjoy being a citizen of the planet as long as it's not construed to have anything to do with the march of the looming Global Government Tyranny.

But I also deeply cherish the historic values, place and associations with the US OF A. Though I have often felt much freer--even in some Asian 'martial law' contexts than I have at times in the USA.

Anyway--good article in a lot of respects.

[ChemistCat]

Interesting article. John D. MacDonald knew the type well.

Didn't some guy just die, and after they'd cremated him and it was too late to take fingerprints, they discovered all of his papers and next-of-kin were faked? He was living on the birth certificate of a kid who died with his parents in an accident 50 years or more ago. He's got almost a hundred thou in a bank account and no real relatives.

Makes life hard for genealogists, as well as collection agents. A friend of mine has the hobby of keeping creditors and the law informed as to the whereabouts of his wife's ex.

[Centurion2000]

interesting ...

[angkor]

As a former expatriate who's preparing soon to re-expatriate, this made my day.

Every paragraph is a gem.

Thanks.

[666beast]

"""Women trade sex for whatever they want, and men trade whatever they have for sex."""

Ain't it the truth!

I can't believe someone mentioned John D. McDonald, my dad's favorite author.

I don't have the evidence and the proof, but, straight up, I'm willing to bet that these relationships (marriages) have a lower rate of separation than the domestic American kind...Colombia is on my mind.

[666beast]

Ping, brother.

Plan a vacation. You may thank yourself for it.

[Orangedog]

I may do that at some point down the road. As for now...time to make the donuts!

[chasio649]

thanks for your post...excellent!

[Quix]

Thanks for saying so.

A touching thread to me. Sure miss Taipei, Chiang Mai, Hong Kong etc.