the greener grass

Seems that the grass is always greener where you relocate as an expat.

After a quick repatriation in the beloved "Toy Land" i was looking forward to going back to the chaotic, dirty, humid and messy Kuala Lumpur. Frankly speaking when i was there just before leaving few weeks ago i wasn't so excited to go back home. Why ?

It doesn't matter where you come from or where you move to, the excitement of an expatriate is often as inexplicable as it is irrational. Suddenly the public transport are on time and clean, people abroad are open mind and polite, you won't feel stressed as you were at home, life is cheaper, no queue at the post office and so on...

Is it really true ? Not at all obviously.

I'm not talking about the indisputable economic wealth, efficient infrastructures and lifestyle of places such as Australia, Singapore, Shangai or NYC that actually help to improve the life quality. The matter indeed is a bit tricky. The fact is that we can't choose the place where we born and we used to take for grant that everything has to be as we wish there, if not we complain about it. And it is far easier to complain and criticize than to not.

So first of all we should consider the expectation we have before comparing our home town life with the one in the foreign land. Without high expectations there's nothing much to complain about.

Then you need to understand what you want and above all what you would be available to bear. Melbourne is the most liveable city in the world but if you're meteoropathic it might be a nightmare.

Generally the ability to adapt to a new place make the life easier and for some curious reasons expatriates are usually able to perfectly key to the new habits wherever they move to. Again KL is definitely a noisy, dirty and messy city but plenty of expatriates found it a nice place to live in.

We should then wonder if the itchy feet of expatriates (also called "ballo di san vito" in my region) make the grass greener in the foreign country. The continue desire to travel, discover and learn make the life abroad unreasonably better than home and what is ordinary suddenly become great,  deserving appreciation.

My opinion is that after few years, once you've digested the excitement of the new adventure, there is no place on earth that someone living there couldn't find fault with.  There is no best country overall. There's maybe just a country that better fit for your own temporary needs.