Expat issues

I don’t have a job.

And it’s ok, really.

‘We care locally.’

That three-word profundity comes from a weblog written by Joe Posnanski, a sports writer whose work I enjoy.

I went to see ‘The Simpsons Movie’ last month. It was fun: it’s not great, but it’s very good, upholding the general excellence of The Simpsons TV series – which I believe has earned a permanent booking at the base camp of the pinnacle of western civilization. The Simpsons has for years been my touchstone for the culture of my homeland; it’s the tether that connects me to my people.

Or is it?

How different would life be if you’d never left home to live overseas? Mr Tall pointed out some of the big differences a couple of weeks back, but here’s a couple more.

A few weeks ago I introduced a new component in our set of articles on the cost of living in Hong Kong. In that first installment, I compared the prices of fresh produce and meats in Hong Kong's markets, ordinary supermarkets, and high-end 'expat-oriented' food halls.

Chengdu Airport, 8:00 AM

She is well-prepared; I’ll grant her that. North American, around 50, I’d say – far too practical to dress in the swirls of cheap Thai cotton favored by younger backpackers, she’s armored in quality adventureware straight from the reviews in Outdoor magazine. But she’s still got that Traveler look: a supercilious gaze, a smug little smile that assures you she’s already assimilated this morning’s airport adventure into its proper niche in her Experiential Tapestry.

We Batgung are asked the same question by many commenters and emailers: ‘How much does it cost to live in Hong Kong?’

The easy answer is ‘quite a lot, but maybe not so much as you might think, so long as you know where to look for things’.

What’s much harder is demonstrating by anecdote or isolated example how much difference it makes in Hong Kong if you buy your goods and services from expat-centric providers, as opposed to local ones.

Not surprisingly, most voluntary work in Hong Kong needs you to speak Chinese. Still, if you have some free time and want to volunteer there are options for English-speakers. I'll describe one of them, a place I spent some time at last year. Then I'll also list some other groups that are looking for volunteers.

Crossroads

If you couldn't leave Hong Kong, would you still have chosen to move here?

I'm not suggesting you're about to be arrested, or the border will close. But what if air travel was so limited that you could only expect one flight to bring you here, then another at the end of say three years when your contract finishes and you fly home?

I recently read an interesting book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The author, Michael Pollan, traced the sources of all the food in four very different meals: a McDonald’s fast food lunch; a couple of organic dinners, one from ‘industrial’ organic sources, i.e.