Want a day in my expat life?

Living abroad isn’t always a bed of roses for families
05:55 AM Oct 12, 2009

by Celina Casillas Probyn

I OFTEN read Tabitha Wang’s articles and really enjoy them. Sometimes I relate easily, sometimes not so much. I read your column (“Expat life is hardly a hardship”, Oct 9) – click to read the full article – and felt I had to write to you to share my story.

I came to Singapore as the “trailing spouse” of an expat. I sacrificed much of what matters in my life: A home I loved, my culture, my parents and siblings, friends and neighbours, my career and colleagues.

I also gave up the rewards of real hard work: A big beautiful house, the country club, my live-in maid, the two BMWs, a great school for our son, a lovely, forested, clean quiet neighbourhood with deer feeding in my front garden.

I also gave up my doctors and their care. I suffer from an illness for which there is no cure – and most Singaporean doctors have never heard of – so treatment here is difficult at best.

I must travel home to the United States to see a specialist doctor (my husband’s company does not pay for this).

I must depend on daily injections which cost more than US$2,500 ($3,500) per month (again, my husband’s company does not pay for this).

My illness makes me hyper sensitive to sun, heat and humidity which aggravate my illness and force me to stay indoors most days.

I feel fatigued and sick because of the weather here. It is rare that I can go out to socialise or meet friends or go shopping.

Yet, having pointed all this out to you, you probably still don’t realise that the biggest hardship is something so precious and valuable that it has no price tag and cannot be replaced.

You mention only the material aspects of a life you think is so great. You have failed to realise that expat families have left behind people who also endure hardship.

We give up the time we might have otherwise spent with family and friends back home.

For instance, my young son misses out on getting to know his grandparents and cousins. His grandparents in turn do not get to watch their grandson grow up.

My son has cousins he has never even met. My parents are old and sick and are alone at home.

I would love to be home with them to take care of them and to have more time with them but it is not possible to be here with my husband and son and also back home with my parents and family.

I had as good a life as anyone can hope for back home. There is no way that the “good life” you describe for expats in Singapore can match the “good life” I left behind.

It is hard to be here – for me, and for my family that I so dearly love and miss so much. So – how can you say that all expats have a great life here?

I would invite you to live in my expat world just for one day. Be assured, you would not want to lead the expat life that I do here.

Expats here are not always thrilled to be here and have already paid a far bigger price than any “expat package” that any company can offer.
URL http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/Isay/EDC091012-0000038/Want-a-day-in-my-expat-life

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