Lessons I learned about living abroad
One of the beauties of today’s world is the ability to live in a diverse society surrounded by people from multiple backgrounds bringing their own unique stories, new perspectives, and different visions.
The experience of living abroad itself varies from person to person based on certain parameters:
- Was it your own decision to move abroad or it was based on some external reasons?
- Did you already have a chance to live in a different city or country for a short or long period?
- Did you move alone or with a partner/a family/or a friend?
- Did you move to a different continent which is literally miles away or for instance, inside the EU?
- Do you speak the language of this country? Do you already know someone there?
and so on.
Each of these aspects might influence your experience, put you in a certain subcategory, and preset a score of success of this aventure. Certainly, your personality will be another crucial coefficient in this formula.
What does it all bring to you? How can you grow both on personal and professional levels thanks to it? Let me answer these questions by telling my story.
Travelling is not equal to living abroad
I’ve heard this phrase hundreds of times. Still, I didn’t think about it before I started living abroad.
In fact, during travelling I used to fall in love with the beauty of the places quite often quickly jumping on the dreams of how would it be to live here one day. My emotions were nourishing me then.
Now I’m living in Paris and I know it sounds like a dream for millions of people. I do appreciate it—the beauty and the artistic heritage, the culture and a chance to attend a concert of any of my favourite artists —these are certain benefits of living in the world-known capital. At the same time, my vision of the city is completely different from a tourist’s one.
As the local, I’d try to avoid crowds and I don’t want Buttes Chaumont to become a part of the guidebooks (please, keep it secret). Besides the flaneur lifestyle, I’m experiencing different bureaucracy processes, regular grèves (strikes), high living costs in little apartments, a neverending switch between English and French languages, “je m’en fiche” attitude, and so much more. These are certain things you might not see as a tourist.
At some moments, cultural differences can influence your mood and probably, the biggest challenge is to overcome it, accept its’ difference and keep on loving this adventure. And yes, no travel experience will ever bring you that wide perspective of the real life in that habitat.
A chance to learn so much more about people, their culture and habits
Ironically the first flight in my life was years ago when I went on my solo trip with Paris as the first destination. I boarded at the airport in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine and after roughly 3 hours I landed at Charle de Gaulle airport.
3 hours of flight or 2404 kilometres as the driving distance between two capitals Kyiv and Paris does not seem to be a huge distance neither literally nor as a metaphor. Does it mean there are not that many cultural differences? Ouf, where should I start?
Different cuisines and tastes in food, different levels of social security and employee rights, and one more global topic — collectivist versus individualistic cultures.
For instance, in Ukrainian reality no matter whether I worked onsite or remotely with the companies, I used to build strong friendly bonds with colleagues. Here in France, I saw how people cut friendly connections once one of them leaves the working environment even after many years of working together. Since the majority of my Ukrainian friends I got to know through work, I still can’t fully accept this common French (or better say Parisian?) attitude.
I noticed how personal comfort was the main focus in the situations which if they happened in other countries, people would prioritise the comfort of a group first — it is the difference between individualism and collectivism. At the same time, it doesn’t mean every person I met in France used to follow the exact behaviour patterns that are common to individualist cultures. On the contrary, I saw situations when locals helped foreigners here in a way I may not expect in my own much more collectivist country. Real life is more complex than a classification in a book.
Now, I started to respect personal privacy and boundaries much more. Also, I started to prioritize building friendly bonds by dedicating time to talk in person first— spending time this way is much more valuable to me than chatting online (though, of course when you live in different countries online communication is reasonable).
Living in the capital is different from living in any other city
La province — any area in France other than Paris is called this way. This definition still sounds a bit arrogant to me maybe because in Ukrainian we’re using the same word and usually it would have a negative meaning. Still, it’s a great linguistic detail that showcases the difference between living in the capital from any other area of the country.
When it comes to living in Paris, I’m sure most people would characterise this lifestyle as hectic — everyone is always in a rush. I’ve also heard quite a peculiar phrase “I hope you don’t think all French people are like Parisians” which I could translate as “not that selfish, arrogant, not caring”. Oh, by the way, do you have the same vision about Parisians?
In any case, the daily lifestyle of living in the capital and outside is different. In many areas, you can get more once you’re in the capital, at the same time, you do pay more for this both literally and figuratively.
It’s also about pace. The more you go to smaller areas with fewer habitants, the more the lifestyle is slower and calmer. And that can suit you or on the contrary, a more intense lifestyle is your cup of tea (or as we Parisians would prefer café allongé).
Know your worth. Become stronger and more resilient
You can rely only on yourself — this is something I learned before I started living abroad but at the same time, this idea became even more reasonable to me here.
In general, living abroad puts you in a survival mode — you’re not familiar with the rules of the game here as much as you are in your own country, you probably do not have the support of your family, and you often start building your life from scratch. What’s good about all of that?
You become stronger, more mature, and more resilient.
But maybe it’s better to live a more peaceful lifestyle in your comfort zone and go with the flow? Well, that definitely would be more calm but would it still give you the motivation to grow personally? Noticing such a growth in yourself is an amazing thing.
A chance to take a new career path and grow professionally
A new city can bring you a new reality and professional possibilities that you may never found or thought about while living in your hometown. It’s also a chance to join a team with multiple backgrounds having a broad horizon of interests — this will enrich your knowledge not only about the culture of the country you’re living in but also, other close and far countries and cultures. And you’ll discover a lot of new things about them regularly — if you have curiosity in your DNA, that’s more than a valuable gift.
Also, working daily and charging your brain to think in a foreign language while solving the tasks is a great exercise to think out of the box, see diverse perspectives, and spark creativity.
If you’re working in the tech product sphere, multiculturalism is a big plus both for your personal growth and product growth since you can’t build a successful international product with people who only have the very same mindset and background.
Be a representative of your own culture and country
Your cultural roots are what you have since childhood — it’s something you have by default. Some cultures tend to raise children being wholeheartedly proud of their nationality and origins. Being Ukrainian, I hardly had the same idea in my mind till the moment our nation stood to protect our country against the russian barbaric and terrorist invasion.
I don’t know whether I had the same idea unless there wasn’t a war in my homeland, but now I do think that living abroad you have a part-time non-paid assignment to be a decent representative of your country of origin. And I don’t mean that every day you should go to strangers saying “let me tell you something about my country”. Certainly not.
You also get used at some point to the fact that people often like to ask cliché questions which may be even rude or very narrow-minded. Sadly, it is what it is, we may often have limited knowledge. What you do learn from living abroad is a sense of empathy and again, curiosity. Talking to someone who has origins in a country you’ve never been to and knowing how it is to get asked about your homeland, you might be much more tolerant and respectful.
Conclusion
In my case, living abroad became quite literally the next chapter after years of active solo travelling. It happened par hasard (accidentally) — I left my home thinking I was going on another trip with a small suitcase filled with summer outfits for a month or two and then, I ended up starting my life in a new country during the cold March.
My life here in France has already brought me completely new ideas, visions, and impressions of the lifestyle and daily experience during these less than two years. Such an experience enriched me and I’m more than grateful for this far-from-easy but still very enjoyable path I keep on going through.
While I do notice and discover certain commonly known characteristics of French, I do not generalise and expect that everyone here would have the same features. Some patterns could be similar in a certain area, it’s interesting to discover it but at the same time, each person is a unique universe with their own rules and ideas.
I can’t say everyone needs to try living abroad. But if you do want to grow both personally and professionally, you are curious and you want to broaden your horizons and mindset, to become stronger, more mature, and more resilient, then choose your destination and welcome to this game. The new level is waiting for you.
More stories to read:
- The articles of Bas Wallet are my recent discovery, where he’s writing about cultures, diversity and their connection to UX design. You can start with “Why are Western apps more minimalistic than Asian apps?” article;
- Half a year ago I wrote my design analysis not of the project but of a city, guess which one? — find “Learning the city through its design code: Paris” article;
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