If you are already an expat, you know what it feels like to be on the front lines of the globalization transformation. Even if you have managed to live your entire life without leaving your homeland, you might have noticed that things are different – there are a lot more “foreigners”? around, for one. Different languages spoken on the street, different groceries available at the corner market, different ways to offend people with comics, or spitting, or asking for the check…There is something major going on in every city of the world – but what, exactly, is it?
Globalization in the West usually refers to textile workers losing their jobs because everyone is shopping at Walmart. In the developing world it means CNN on TV and schoolkids dressed like gangbangers from LA. In fact, it is a transformation that is re-defining economics, culture, education, and politics everywhere in the world. And for those of us who are choosing to live, work, and travel further from our homeland, globalization means we are the bleeding edge.
Expat Nation is the site to explore what this trend is all about. City Weekend – the leading magazine and web-site for expats in China – is sponsoring this blog to raise everyone’s awareness. But Expat Nation is intended to go one step further than the political scientists and pundits who are heralding a new era: Expat Nation is a forum to discuss where these trends could and should go. The days of “…it happens”? are over; it is time to be more than a passenger to destinations unknown. Expats, because of their unique role as ambassadors and avatars in this brave new world, can make a difference.
Expat Nation marks the end of an era, when we identified ourselves as Koreans or Germans or Aussies. As time goes on, expats are developing a new identity, complete with multiple languages, a new culture, and inter-marriage across all ethnic barriers. This millennium will see the emergence of expats – and their sympathizers around the world! – as a new identity. It is time to consciously shape that identity into something we – and the rest of the world – can be proud of.
Expats of the World Unite!
Or, at least: discuss, debate, align, identify, and coalesce into more than the sum of ourselves. We hope you will join us. – JAS, Shifu