26 things you can learn by living abroad for a year

26 things you can learn by living abroad for a year
What I learned and how it changed me
Etienne Garbugli
Blogger & Speaker, 21lives.com

What I did. // Itinerary.

I moved to Beijing in January 2011
Note: The plane probablydoesn’t go in this direction. :)
I arrived in Hong Kong
in October 2010
I moved to Singapore in July 2011
I moved back to Canada in October 2011

Why I did it. // Objectives.

To evaluate if where I wasborniswhere I wanted to live
To travel
To takesome distance
To experience life somewhereelse
To meet people
To come up with a great business idea
To learn
To discover and understandanother culture
To work on myself
To getsomeexperienceworkingabroad
To take a step back and discoverwhat I want to do

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 people
2

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

Thankyou.
Answer?
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etienne@21lives.com
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Etienne Garbugli
Blogger & Speaker, 21lives.com
Blog
21lives.com
Twitter
@egarbugli
LinkedIn
/in/egarbugli

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26 things you can learn by living abroad for a year

by Etienne Garbugli on Sep 19, 2011

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