Can you really believe this? It is not true, by several orders of magnitude. To me the uniformity of US culture across a wide range of climates and geography is one of its most astounding features.
Personally, I would consider this a ‘pro’.
With an ABAPer? That’s why I said go to SAP-australia… they need ABAPers, ooooh yeah!
(There were times when my situation in Costa Rica was so lousy that I was looking at jobs “anywhere”)
New Zealand still seems stuck in the 1950s in many ways, but it has it’s problems.
I’d suggest moving to Christchurch, Wellington, or even Dunedin over Auckland though, although it depends on your tastes.
How about the Netherlands? English is pretty much everyones second language over here. Plus, the political and cultural climate might appeal to you.
Interesting. Maybe my rather pathetic Afrikaans skills will help slightly as well. But would a company wantt to hire me when I can’t speak the national language?
I’ve lived in the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia, but to tell you which one will suit you more is a hard thing to do. I think it’s really going to depend on what you are wanting your new life to be like in the new country.
US - haven’t worked there, but understand getting work visa is problematic. Lifestyle wise is varied depending on where you are located - so hard to make generalisations. Seems to me to be more conservative than the others on your list politically, and I have issues with the quality of food (highly processed) and environmental attitudes - but also seemsl ike you can make a lot of opportunities.
UK - was based in London, but travelled to Scotland for work quite a bit. Culturally pretty similar to other Commonwealth countries, and major opportunities in terms of work and variety in all facets of life. Low quality of life (for what I valued) - despite higher incomes, the cost of living is also high, life without a car is a mission, and the ability to make the most of the outdoors, the lack of social spontaneity (there is more to life than hanging out at the pub!) The ability to travel to Europe was fantastic, but made me wish I had actually taken more of a plunge and moved somewhere like Holland, France or Italy and learned more about a new culture. With a UK passport you may find work more easily than you may think - I had a flatmate decide to move to Norway, and found a job in a month. He’s really loving it there, much prefers it over the UK.
NZ - Lovely place to live and raise a family - but I have left after 15 years there as I knew returning to NZ after time in the UK was going to feel too small and limiting. It’s actually very advanced technologically (small educated population is a great testing ground), and the population is very outward looking - most people spend a couple of years living overseas as a way of dealing with the isolation. Quality of life was great - fantastic food, my surf beach 10 minutes drive, my ski mountain 4 hours drive - but lack of cultural variety - few international visitors, and can be a little insular (our A-List celebrities would be C list anywhere else!). Still generous social system - only publlically/business funded accident compensation system in the world, meaning no right to sue, and accidents are covered (both income and cost of medical treatment). Would live there again if I wasn’t looking for better job opportunities.
Australia - Which brings me back home after 27 years, moved here in May after time in the UK and am very much enjoying it. The weather is an advantage, I love seeing the extent of the sky, and the ability to do so much more outside. The people are very positive here (sometimes verging on nationalistic fervour, but which country isn’t?!), and lots of job opportunities. Great culture and cafe society too (based in Melbourne, it’s apparently well known for it), and a lot of immigrants, both recent and several generations old, which gives it a fantastic feeling. It’s far away from the rest of the world, it’s true, which is the biggest drawback. The other thing I have noticed is the need to be very environmentally aware - we are subject to droughts - we can’t water the garden anymore, and I have a bucket in the shower to help the plants, and the sun is very harsh, which has health concerns if you are pale skinned like me. But I think that’s perhaps a good thing - the world as a whole needs to get a little more aware of its environmental impact, and it’s just more obvious here.
Hope that helps!
That helps a lot. You haven’t mentioned what it is was like living on Mars though
I’m with Rickjay. Having lived in several different places around the US, and worked with people from all over, there are definitely some major differences in culture and attitude. Right now, I’m working in a company that’s jointly owned by people here in MI and some folks in CA, and we have huge cultural issues between the management. Things just aren’t done the same in both places.
People think the US is uniform, but it’s not. I had a rude awakening when I first moved away from my hometown at age 17, and again at age 21 when I moved 1400 miles away. Sure, the big things may be the same - people work and socialize in similar fashions (but so do the people all over Europe, Australia, and South Africa), but the subtleties can be very different and disconcerting.
In IT? Absolutely. It is even considered a bit chic for a Dutch company to hire people from the UK, USA, Canada or NZ. It adds to the “We’re an international company”-glamour. That link is to the Dutch number one job-site, by the way.
You’d be amazed how many English speaking people live and work in the big Dutch internationally oriented cities, like Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Some for a few years, some permanently.
Afrikaans is certainly a plus (as long as you vehemently abhor apartheid ). Afrikaans and Dutch are basically the same language; I can read a magazine in Afrikaans.
Regarding New Zealand.
Being a Native US citizen, after the appalling 2004 elections, I seriously examined emigrating to New Zealand, going so far as to search for work there and actually getting a job offer (from one of the premier software companies in NZ). (I’ll try to make the NEXT sentence even longer. )
We ultimately didn’t emigrate because the salaries there didn’t match the cost of living. We spent 3 weeks there and spent a lot of time looking at the price of things. The cost of living there was quite high, much more than we expected. All of the “day-to-day” things were outrageous. Levi jeans were over US$100, paperback novels were over $20, a basic 19" color television was over $1000. Food was pretty expensive, too.
Now, it’s true that I work in one of the highest salaried areas of the world (Silicon Valley), but I wasn’t prepared for the salary levels there. I was willing to take a 40% cut in pay, but the salary I was offered (by supposedly the “best” software company in the country) was a 60% cut in pay. I just couldn’t see getting pushed back into relative poverty. Ooops, sorry, enough about me… :rolleyes:
On the plus side, the people are wonderful – friendly and accepting and very cosmopolitan. The land is beautiful, there is a great environmental attitude. There is little polution and little crime and no corruption. The big scandal around that time was about the Prime Minister’s motorcade speeding – SPEEDING! – on their way to see the All Blacks play.
The country is technologically advanced (I heard many companies roll out products in NZ first as a sort of test market before releasing them world wide).
With 2 high-tech salaries, you might be OK there. My wife doesn’t work so it didn’t work out for me. Oh, yeah. If you’re still interested in NZ, you might want to check out the Yahoo group expats-in-New-Zealand.
J.
What is a POSSLQ?
I grew up in rural Louisiana and ended up moving to Massachusetts after college where I later got married. Anyone should be able to guess that there are very large differences (including cultural) between the two area and there are. I stayed in culture shock for about 5 years and now, after 10, I just now feel like I am getting adapated enough to start calling it home.
I have traveled all over the U.S. and the world. There are some very definite differences between cities and regions in the U.S.
I’m interested to know why you think this. I thought the “Welcome to New Zealand. Please turn your clocks back 20 years” business was a myth when I lived there in the 1990s. On subsequent visits it has seemed even more ludicrous.
I have to agree. I’ve visited quite a few cities in the US east and west and while there are differences, I find there is a certain sameness. International news is hard to find - you have to make an effort to find out what’s going on on the planet. Grocery shopping can be very frustrating - a lot of pre-processed food and fatty things and small produce departments.
For me, the biggest problem is the issue of safety. I’ve never known anyone who even knew anyone in Canada who’d been shot where a lot of Americans on the boards I read speak of local gunfire as commonplace, or at least not unusual.
If you were to move to the US, you’d want to choose a large centre that offers the kind of cultural and gustatory variety you probably are used to (I’ve been to a US city that had two restaurants - both diners! ) but then you’d have to find a safe area in that city. I just can’t imagine living someplace where it’s unsafe to go for walks after dark.
There are a couple places in the States that I could spend extended periods of time in happily but I don’t think I could hack living there all year round. I go for visits and quite enjoy them but visiting is very different from living in a place.
Tripadvisor dot com has people in every city who’ll tell you what to visit in their town. I’ve also seen people asking about moving to cities and getting very helpful advice so you might want to try that if you want specifics about certain cities.
huh? Where exactly did you visit in the U.S.? Hillbilly Haven without newspapers and grocery stores? Did you live at some sort of campground? With all due respect to the OP, what makes you think they’re used to “cultural and gustatory” variety that that’d find lacking in the U.S. because they’re from South Africa?
FWIW I’ve never know anyone who was shot.
The murder rate in my town for the last 20 years has been 0. Violent crime for the past 5 years is .5% per 1,000 people.
We don’t own a gun and none of our friends do with the exception of one of the men who is a police officer.
I would move to the Netherlands in a heartbeat.
NZD$1000 for a 19" TV? I don’t think so. You can buy them for about NZD$300 or so- about USD$150.
Which parts of NZ did you visit for business? I’m just about to duck out the door to have dinner with friends, but I’ll elaborate my thoughts on NZ later, if anyone’s interested…
Will the last person to leave South Africa, please turn out the lights.
I know tons of South Africans who have left the country. J-burg is not what it used to be.
Just kidding, I have moved to Central Europe, which is a great place to raise children - the problem: the weather sucks.
There are SAP jobs everywhere, so your wife is in luck, expecially with her knowledge of ABAP. Take a look at the job opps on jobserve: www.jobserve.com and you will see what the pay rates are and where the opportunities are. They are mostly Europe focused, and to work in other countries outside of the UK, Holland and Germany, they often demand the commensurate linguistic skills. If you speak Afrikaans, then Germanic countries will be a snap.
Switzerland is a nice place to live… close to Italy for summer fun, lakes and mountains, and great skiing.
It’s an old WKRP in Cincinnati reference. Les Nessman noticied POSSLQ on a census form and on asking found out that it meant People of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters. (I hope I remember correctly it was a long time ago) I just used it as a joke as I’m never quite sure of how to refer to my Girlfriend/SO/Partner. Each of the terms doesn’t sound right to me. Girlfirend sounds as if I am 16, SO just sounds strange, Partner to me seems to be more used by same-sex couples and we are not married so I can’t call her my wife.
I just looked up POSSLQ in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSSLQ and it actually was an official term. Anyhow, I’m sure of heard of it from WKRP