Expats and Patriotism

Never did the word "expat" have such a profound meaning for me as it did today when I mailed in my absentee ballot for the November 4th Presidential election. Throughout the day I've felt a wave of different emotions come over me.

As the trends of expats have shifted from the 19th century till now from artists, writers and musicians living in Europe, to the larger trend today of recruiting professionals globally, I believe the word "expatriate" has taken on new meaning.

When we began our journey this June, the word expat sounded so negative to me. We're expats? The word ex-something doesn't sound so flattering. I guess it's really Latin. Ex/out of and patria/country. But to me it sounded like I'm being ex-patriotic or doing something against my country. But nevertheless, in the beginning that too felt kind of good, like I was escaping our self-absorbed American lifestyles. I'm thinking, wow, we're really cool, look what we did and look at all these expats we're meeting and hanging out with (mind you - while we're gathering at Starbucks in Korea).

Then the more I've witnessed and lived life in Korea, my opinions started shifting a little to, wow - we are really really fortunate to live in the United States. We have so many luxuries at our fingertips and I thank the stars that I'm able to give my children all of the wonderful opportunities that they will benefit from being US citizens.

When I filled out my absentee ballot today, I was excited and nervous. It was so easy too. Everything was emailed to me from our local county's electoral board and I'm participating in this historic election from across the world.

I've recently become involved in the Deagu International Women's Association where expats and Korean nationals meet on a monthly basis to experience our different cultures and also participate in charitable events. It's such a nice feeling to be embraced by the Korean nationals. We want to learn so much from each other. I also recently began tutoring a neighbor's son in English. We had a lot of fun the other night looking at and reading the National Geographic magazines I brought to our tutoring session. There was an article about "green" living and I was able to explain to him what that means and the effect of our "carbon foot-print" and then he said, "look at the picture, that guy's driving a Hyundai car". And I thought, see how we've made a connection together.

Expat life is fun - but I know that there is a termination date. I get to go home. And that too is a really good feeling. Something I never would have experienced if I didn't get this opportunity to live abroad. We're really fortunate to have this experience. It's given us a lot of eye opening and "aha" moments so far. Even our dog Ajax has become an expatriate in Canada! I might be "out of country" but I don't feel like an "Ex". More like an Exponent.