Mainly, I’m interested in those who have left the United States on a permanent or near permanent basis.
What caused you to leave the U.S, and how do you like your new country?
Left for Japan about a year after college, with plans to return “in a couple of years.” That was eight years ago, and I’m now married and planning on applying for permanent residency soon, so I guess you could say I like it here.
Why’d I leave America? Because I’m not good at multi-variable calculus or handling linear algebraic matrices.
Seriously. I was majoring in physics for the first two years of college when I hit a brick wall in trying to apply the math from one class to the physics problems in another. After floundering for a while I changed my major to history (post-1789 Europe), and all went more or less well. With one exception: I’d previously planned on going on to grad school to continue working in physics or something along those lines, but now I had a degree in history and no idea what to do with it. I went to some recruiting sessions for consulting firms, but everyone else seemed so sure of what they were doing (I realize now that they were clueless and full of it) that I lost my nerve.
At that point, a roommate of mine who’d spent a summer studying in Japan mentioned that there were lots of jobs there for English teachers all over the country. I then decided I try that for a couple of years, get my head together, get some real working experience, learn the language, and come back with some usable skills. I spent a year in Boston working part-time and taking night classes in Japanese while sending out letters to every English school whose address I could find. I came to Japan in '95, taught for two years out in the sticks, got a job in Tokyo with a brand consultancy, did a brief stint as a tech/marketing writer, went back to teaching for a year, and am now an ad writer at a tiny agency next to the Tsukiji fish market.
For whatever reason, something just clicked here. Now, whenever I go back to the US, I start feeling homesick for Japan.
Left for Ireland almost three and a half years ago, although in reality I’ve been trying to get here for over half my life. It just took this long to be able to do it legally.
Basically, I just feel as though this was the country I was supposed to be born in. I have never had nationalistic/ patriotic feelings towards America and I feel it was just a big unfortunate accident of fate that I was born there. I’m not anti-American or anything, it just never really felt like home. Ireland has felt like home since the first time I set foot in it.
I don’t think I could really explain it rationally. It’s just one of those things you know inside.
Left a year ago and no plans to return anytime soon.
The US doesn’t realy feel like it is a part of the world - everything is different there… different power, different mobile phones, terrible public transportation, people are, in many cases, ignorant of the world outside the US. I just felt I no longer belonged on the “island” of the US. I’d been trying to leave for a good number of years and finally after Sept. 11, decided that the US was not even able to consider the root causes of the events which took place. It was time to leave.
I went the other way, from the UK to the US for pretty much the same reason as ruadh. I just felt I was supposed to be there which was a little wierd as before I moved the only time I’d been to the US was to NYC for 5 days and I ended up moving to San Francisco.
I think you move for one of 2 reasons;
a) The experience. A lot of people move for a number of years because the can, because they are adventurous and want the experience.
b) Some people move because they don’t like their home country and feel they would be happier some place else. I fall into this category although I’d say most fall into the first category.
I left America two and a half years ago with my husband. He is half Italian, (as in actually half Italian. Speaks fluently, knows way around Milan ect, total eyetie street cred :)) and half American but he never really lived in the US til university. He was rasied in Germany, Italy and Switzerland. He never felt remotely at home in America. We moved to England on a whim, he was offered a job, we moved.
I can never live in the US again. There is a great big gorgeous world out here than many Americans either don’t care about or just don’t really believe in. This attitude pervades US culture. I can’t slag off the US, or won’t rather, but I will say this; I am a strong patriot, loving a country that absolutely does not exist: the US is a propagandist nation. Having seen the other side of the stage set, I ain’t going back.
I get a whole lotta grief for being American, and thats telling as well. One can say things about the US in the presence of an American that youd never dream of saying to any other nationality. I guess I mean that if otherwise lovely people from all around the world are happy to sit and pick over bones with you above anyone else in the room, its a bit of a hint.
I came to the UK on a 3 month work tour in 94, and came back full time in 95. I went from work permits to permanent visa to dual citizenship. I’ve got no plans to go back. I’m currently attempting to get a job transfer to Australia.
I moved from the UK to Japan one a one year contract but met my husband in the first year, and ended up stuck! It’s been 12 years now, and we have been married for nine.
It was odd but getting on the plane to come here I somehow knew I would be staying. I truly was not planning to, and it was not a conscious thought, but when I did end up marrying here, there was kind of a little “I told you!” voice in my head.
I knew nothing about Japan when I came, I just needed a job, and got that one. I am not a Japanophile, not crazy about the place, but I do not have those rabid feelingsof hatred towards Japanese society that seem to come to some ex pats here. About two years into my experience I realised that I had become inextricably linked with Japan, and that I would never again be entirely satisfied with either England or Japan.
This summer I came to an interesting crossroads in my life. I have now spend equal thirds of my life in Germany, England and Japan. From now on, the country that I have lived the longest in is here. I speak the language fluently, am settled into my life in the backwoods, and cope well with all the crises of family life. But every time I go out, I hear “gaijin, gaijin” (Foreigner! - literally means “outsider”) from kids around me. Kids who were not even born when I arrived. WHO is the “outsider”? Sometimes that makes me feel very lonely.
Still, I wouldn’t swap my family for anything, so I reckon I have gotten a good deal out of life, and am satisfied.
I left the US for several reasons. See the world, have some adventures, etc. I wanted to go somewhere alone, far from anyone I knew. Start over, take another shot at developing my personality, away from those who knew me growing up. I was living in Seattle with an insane woman (hadn’t fully realized the extent of her insanity before moving across the US with her), so when I was offered a job in Japan, I was on the next plane.
I liked Japan, but didn’t like my job there. Stayed a little over two years. Now I’m in Korea, and have been for nine years now. I like my job here. Do I like Korea? Well, a person’s gotta live somewhere. I’m fairly comfortable here, but it’s not home. Of course, neither is home. I’d probably leave if it weren’t for my wife, who doesn’t speak much English and doesn’t really want to leave her job in Korea, but I’m fine here. Korea isn’t a very exciting place to visit, but it’s an okay place to live. Just okay, though.
I left the US for “three years” and it took me nine to return. I have been back a year and I just don’t feel like I fit here anymore…I am trying my best to get back to Europe. I guess that doesn’t make me an ex-pat anymore but an ex-pat wanna-be.
I know one thing. If I get back to Europe, I won’t leave again.
I moved to Panama “temporarily” 11 years ago. Although I could have looked for a job back in the U.S., I’ve ended up staying here because I love the tropics and the rainforest. (I first came to Panama in 1977, and worked here periodically until I moved here.)
I also lived in New Zealand for 3 and a half years. Oddly enough, though, I feel culturally much more at home here than in NZ, which is superficially more similar.
I left the US 1 week after graduating university and came to the UK. That was 3 years and 3 months ago. No regrets.
There are myriad reasons, really, why I left. Having fallen in love with the country on previous holidays here. The wanderlust in me… itchy feet, can’t stay in one place for long. Political (won’t go into it here). But probably the most important reason, the man I fell in love with and married.
After a couple trips back to the US, it amazes me how much things have changed there. I just don’t fit in and found things frustrating and irritating. The only tie there is my mom, so not much left for me there, though I do miss her. I keep trying to convince her to visit. Perhaps soon.
I spent two years out of the US in Russia and then Kosovo. We came back so that my girlfriend could finish her masters and now that she is, we are talking about leaving again.
I love America, but it seems to be changing right before my eyes into something unrecognizable. I’m torn as to whether I should stay and try and fix it, or get out before we get bogged down with house, kids, etc. If the current administration gets re-elected we will probably leave for good.