Just a reminder, Switzerland has four languages. Everyone forgets Romansch.
I’ve thought about doing the ex-pat thing. My family’s from there, so I could own property (and travel on that cool red Swiss passport…)
Seriously, one of my factors is the language: I know very little ‘Schweizerdeutsch’. And, as the old saying I just made up goes: "Swiss German is even less melodic than the real stuff."
I’ve considered the French or Italian cantons just because everything would sound nicer…
I get what you’re coming from @cervaise. It’s what I’ve been calling ‘cultural osmosis’.
To take a small example - I don’t care about team televised sports; they’re just not my cup of tea. Despite that, if an American football/baseball/basketball game is on, I can pretty well follow the action, know the basic rules, and so forth.
In Australia…well, the various rugby and Aussie football rules are different. With a little work, and some help from those around me, I can get caught up on the what they’re doing and why. Cricket, on the other hand…nope, I prefer my headcanon on that!
That sort of thing, details of the governmental structure, different idioms and words (power point, not outlet, for example) - all these little things that, if I’d grown up with them, I’d have just soaked up through general life experience. As it is, even after sixteen years, I feel at times that I’m still translating, rather than fluent, in Australian ways.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great here, and I have no intention of ever moving back to the States…but I don’t think I’ll ever be a native Australian.
And you could says “huitante” instead of that stupid “quatre-vingts” thing.
I don’t. Once I saw a shopping bag from a department store in Fribourg that had a legend in 6 languages: French, German, Schwyzerdeutsch, Italian, Romansch, and English, of course.
Belgium does have three official languages—including German. I will say that when I was studying German no teacher ever included Belgium in the “list” of German speaking countries—but officially it is.
What interests me most is the emigrant part of your experience. My mother’s family immigrated to the US when she was 9, and as was said upthread and you’ve acknowledged, it was a very different and much harder experience than yours, so a bit like comparing moving to California for a job offer versus being an Okie. I don’t know if this is typical for children of immigrants, but one reason I won’t leave the U.S. is that my parents invested too much of themselves into this country, and in my mother’s case in particular, at great personal sacrifice. I’d feel like I was throwing that away and abandoning their causes if I left. I understand why others may want to emigrate, however.
So if I may ask about the emigrant part of your experience, what is the hardest part about not living in your home country any more? What do you still miss? Gatherings of extended family? Traditions? Do you still feel like Americans, albeit Americans who’ve adopted and adapted to another culture, or do you feel like people who used to be Americans? And have you returned to the States to visit? If so, what was that like?
If you don’t mind me offering one answer: it’s definitely the family gatherings. I don’t get over to the US as often as I’d like (and this year has been a total bust - all plane trips to anywhere cancelled) and I miss just talking to my family in person.
I still feel like an American at heart, even though I’ve been here for over two decades and have dual citizenship, I still take an active interest in American politics and culture and I still have many American friends. But when I do go back, it doesn’t feel like home anymore. Having to drive everywhere, getting vast piles of food in restaurants, television shows with commercial breaks so long they have to remind you halfway through what show you’re watching - it all feels weird and alien, even before I get to the way the political climate has changed things since I left.
I also miss Thanksgiving - I could take the day off and cook vast amounts of food, but without the rest of the extended family there’s no point.
I was last in the US 10 years ago for my dad’s funeral. My family has never been big on gatherings so that’s not an issue. I renounced my US citizenship a few years ago so I’m a bit worried about what hassle I’d get going in on a British passport. When I’d travel to Canada for work I’d always make sure to get a direct flight and not one that touched down in the US.
About the only things I miss are food related. Like being able to go out for biscuits & gravy and not having to make it all from scratch myself. I miss Wendy’s burgers and Popeye chicken. Junk food too like crunchy Cheetos and Chex mix.
I definitely don’t miss the freezing winters in Nebraska, the sweltering heat of Houston, and the tornados in Kansas.
By the way, kferr, is it just me or do you find KFC in Britain infuriating too? “We sell gravy - but we don’t sell biscuits or mashed potatoes! But why not pour the gravy onto your chicken burger instead?” Madness, I tell you…
It would be, I think, essentially the same thing I described in the original post — the constant (and unfair) feeling of being dumb. After decades of being in the US, I knew how to do everything. I knew where to get prescriptions, I knew how to send express mail, if I wanted to have my house painted I knew who to call, and on and on. Everything here is different, even if only to small degrees.
The nice thing is, this effect is reduced over time, as you learn more specific tasks and procedures and internalize the principles according to which everything operates. For example, it’s very uncommon here for house windows to have exterior screens. If you want fresh air, you’re letting flies in. People here don’t seem to mind; “just leave the window open and they’ll go out again.” There are screens you can buy and install, but in most places, you have to get approval from the commune (a level of regional government halfway between city and county) before installation. They will examine your neighborhood, and your individual house, and tell you whether or not window screens are acceptable according to the “character” of the area. This seems very strange to an American, like you’re living in a giant home-owners’ association, but overall it’s not that bad; there’s a much lighter touch to the rules compared to a typical HOA. The first time you encounter something like this, there’s a mental “record scratch” noise, but then you get used to it.
On my side, the immediate family is very small, fewer than a dozen people. There’s a lot of loosely connected cousins and such, but we’re not that close and didn’t keep in touch with them even when we were in the States. Plus, my parents are snowbirds, so they weren’t around for the holidays anyway. For Christmas and similar events, we would gather with selected friends, and we have continued to do the same here, albeit with our new local friends. I miss my American friends, of course, and stay connected with them via social media and regular video chats.
This is much more difficult for my wife, who has a very large family with many close connections. She really, really misses not being able to see her mom any time she wants.
Our particular situation is a little different on this point. My wife was born in the Middle East, and naturalized as an American when she was a teenager. She was already between cultures, and was making an effort to maintain two sets of traditions, even before we moved. We made sure our kids were eating her native cuisine, hearing her original language, and celebrating her country’s key holidays. So now that we’ve moved, we’re basically keeping up the same practice, just with an enlarged list. And we’re also adopting some of the traditions of our new home country as well, trying them out to see if we like them, and seeing if they help us feel more adjusted.
It’s a continuum, always changing, and each person makes the journey at a different pace. I’m probably thirty percent along from the first to the second; over the next dozen years, I’ll probably settle in somewhere between fifty and sixty percent. Identity is powerful, and changes only so much. My wife is lagging a bit behind me. Our kids are well ahead of us, and will have a much higher ceiling.
We went back for a week the summer before last. As for what it was like, I will echo this:
It’s been shy of four years for us, but we’ve already adjusted to a lot of the superficial things. In addition to what Gyrate mentions (driving everywhere, huge restaurant portions), one of the things that I found most striking was just how freaking huge all the cars are in the US. Here in Europe, vehicles are much, much smaller, even within what you’d consider to be conventional classes. On the trip to the States, the first time I had to cross a busy street, all the passing cars felt bizarrely gigantic. It was a very strange effect.
More fundamentally, I realized I had lost my sense of what I can only describe as “American ego.” This isn’t a negative judgment, not really; it’s something you’re surrounded with, all the time, like the water to a fish. It’s true for everybody, regardless of political persuasion; you know, at an almost chemical level, that the US is a wealthy and influential country, special on the world stage. Then, when you immerse and open yourself to an alternative culture, and you’re exposed to all the little differences in values and lifestyle, you start to realize that these are simply different ways to live, different rules, different philosophies. Some better, some worse, but all, primarily, different. And the American exceptionalism begins to peel away. I’m not an American! living in a new place, bending the world around me; I’m just a citizen of one country living among citizens of other countries, all more or less equivalent, separated only by language and day-to-day habits.
I’m not explaining this very well. It’s a really difficult feeling to put into words. But it’s very real.
No, that’s perfect. I completely know what you mean.
It doesn’t mean I love or identify with America any less, but that identification is not in bold italics anymore. It now sits within a wider context.
In Belgium you could not only say “nonante” (which I do with relish, particularly in France), you could even say “septante” instead of “soixante-dix” 
In a lot of cases, because English is a default second language and language of international business, Americans who immigrate abroad can survive without ever knowing the local language. It’s just that, as I’m sure Cervaise can attest, if you really want to maximize your opportunities, you need to be fluent in both a global and a local tongue.
Also, one reason some immigrants stay within a community of immigrants is a result of their work schedule and economic situation. If you’re working 12 hour days on a farm, your opportunities to learn English are extremely limited. Management certainly isn’t going to go out of their way to encourage you to better yourself through education, not when they’ve got reliable field hands that don’t complain about the working conditions.
Yep, I miss the mash. KFC chips are bad even when fresh. I miss extra crispy too.
Yes, exactly.
The weirdest thing about the visit to the US was recognizing, consciously perceiving, this feeling, this undercurrent of American entitlement everywhere, in everyone I met. It shimmered on people like meat sweats. It was the strangest sensation, like standing at the edge of a canyon, looking back at a mirror on the other side, far across the gap. I could see myself, but it wasn’t me any more.
Oddly enough, I have never felt this big American identity (but I know many who do and can easily identify them being out of context). Possibly, it is why so many Brits think I’m Canadian. Now, I’ll have to go ask the British ex about it…