Have you ever lived outside of the US?

[UdoKier]

Have you ever lived outside of the US?

Has it changed the way you view America, the world, democracy, economic justice, etc?










PS: Living overseas was what taught me that the scare stories about "socialized medicine" were an absolute LIE. It ROCKS.

[Krupskaya]

1. I lived in Russia.

A couple of years. It nurtured my cynicism.

I've also traveled throughout Europe several times.

It all confirmed what I'd already suspected, that this country often has its head up its ass on so many levels.

[LynzM]

2. Yup- 9 months in Stuttgart, Germany

With lots of travelling around Europe, within that time. It definitely changed the way that I look at the US, the average knowledge over here of world events, level of personal responsibility/accountability, help given to those who need it, medical care, schooling (atmosphere and responsibility, both)... on, and on, and on. I miss it, often. :(

[sui generis]

9. 14 years in Germany

military brat - half kraut.

Isn't it funny how when you're over there everything is "back in the states" and then when you get back there are all these people who are so completely sheltered from other cultures and new experiences?

I went into lack-of-culture shock when I came back.

[never cry wolf]

18. 9 months in Versailles, France

college program in architecture with a combined 16 weekes of "independent" study and breaks for travel throught europe.

I agree with all of your sentiments. This was the 78/79 school year and talking on the phone to friends and family back home and hearing them complain about gas prices of $1.00 a gallon, while I was paying $3.50 brought home why there were so many small cars, mopeds wonderful public transportation and plain old walking. Many in our group were limited to 3 showers a week, on the road you can buy a shower in the train stations for about a buck and a half, four bucks if you wanted hot water.

Not complaining in the least, it works. They are just more enlightened in so many ways.

[ProgressiveFool]

3. Lived in Germany

for a while in High School, and then again for over a year in college. Incidentally, I fully agree with what you said about socialized medicine. The care I got for various things was easy to arrange, timely, professional and thorough.

It did make me think differently of the US - while I was over there I came to refer to the US as "the States". Not sure why. Back then, though, we were the shining city on the hill, and I was met with nothing but positive attitudes.

But, seeing as the HS stint was in Berlin in 1989, and I was present for the fall of the wall, it made me feel more like a citizen of the world, and see the US as part of the world as well, instead of some mythical place called "home".

[NewInNewJ.]

4. Yes

6 months in Mexico and 6 months in Guatemala City. It really humbles you. While in Guatemala, the streets were full of armed guards with machine guns and also filled with begging children, very young, they dressed as clowns in the main freeways. Very sad.

[ballcap1776]

5. Ummm. ...spent a couple of drunken nights in Tijuana back in college....

Does that count?

[HamdenRice]

6. South Africa almost 2 years

This was during the bad old days of late apartheid. I was during human rights and education work. It made me realize that the US and SA were structured racially very similarly.

Today, I sometimes think about how everyone thought that the SA army was very brutal in the townships and neighboring countries. But the SA army would never dream of doing the things the US is doing in Iraq.

Most Americans have no clue about how violent and lawless our government is.

[babylonsister]

7. 11 months in Guam, 7 months in France, lots of travel.

Makes me realize this 'go it alone' agenda Shrubbie advocates is dangerous for America and Americans. As Dave Mathews said, it should not be 'us vs. them', but 'all of us'.

[UdoKier]

8. Isn't Guam in America?

Kinda?

[babylonsister]

33. Sort of...

The island is an organized, unincorporated territory of the US with policy relations between Guam and the US under the jurisdiction of the Office of Insular Affairs, US Department of the Interior.
It's a 7-1/2 hour flight from Hawaii, so I consider it out of the country.

[BlueStateGirl]

10. Yes. When I was a child. I lived in Sicily for 3 years. The first two

were spent in a villa on the coast of the Ionian Sea, and the last year was spent on a Naval Base.
We traveled a lot throughout Europe during those 3 years.

I felt like a European when we came back to the States.

[Zorra]

11. Still an expat, and my view has changed some.

Every time I meet a republican tourist I am astounded by how much RW cable news and hate radio has thoroughly brainwashed the population of the US.

These people are so totally fucking stupid they make parrots seem like intelligent, eloquent statesmen.

And less than a year ago, I was astounded by liberal Democrat travelers not knowing anything at all about the electronic voting issue.

[NewInNewJ.]

13. While in Guatemala

I met several Republicans living there. Very pro Bush and vocal, still voting in the US but not paying taxes. Such Hippocrates!

[sweetheart]

34. the fish for the sea

Yes! Like how the aura of the propagana infiltrates the vibration
of the people, as another colour of stained metaphorical glass.
It is liberating to see healthy democracy in action, it restores
a broken trust i had in democratic process.

Recently hereabouts, some ill advised people put up big pieces of
caithness stone, engraved with the words "MacKay country". This is
kinda like putting up a sign that says "Williams country" in Inglewood. There is a critial mass to create a subtle social
elite network. There is a subtle tone taken, visible, in the
people here, steeped in local propaganda.

I have no care myself, but i've heard repeated repeatedly.! ;-)

Well, to make a long story short, somebody knocked down the "mackay
country" stone on the border of caithness and sutherland. I view
it is art. (the knocking down) and am very impressed with the
guesture. I can only complement the actor, in their sense of
justice for ALL people, not just people with mackay in their names.
There may have been a past time when mackay country was the truth
of the north, and that has long past. It is inciteful, those
stupid stones, and leading to small mind and the potential
for balkan stupidity.

I'm glad someone knocked one down, I hope the person stays
inspired and gets all of them... the one towards lairg, the one
by scourie and inland by the westminster estate.

The stones i think just suffered from overzealous idealism,
and perhaps should be re-engraved. "Natural Sutherland, the
largest natural wetland in europe." The makers of the signs
are blowing the marketing potential bigtime... and creating
divisiveness to boot.

Or in cynicism, "Welcome to the toxic coastline of dunreay, don't
pay any mind to the cancer clusters, or the little niblets of
fuel rod that you find on the beach. Be aware that swallowing
a sand particle could be lethal, and otherwise it won't hurt
you to be near fuel rod bits."

I enjoy, not having the government take the foreground of my
life with enforced achievement, rodents stirring a wheel.
Free willy. It is a very free feeling, post-climactic.
Britain has become "normal". :-)

[sweetheart]

39. Culpa mea

I knocked them down
with justice
and the hammer of god
and i gest.
I did not knock the stone
down, as i figured someone
else would eventually, and
i'm glad it happened sooner
than later. This descent
in to the potential for
bigotry, of identity politics
however convenient, best to
keep the minds opening up to
greater worlds rather than
descending in to me me
localism, or scotland will
socially die out with its
shrinking population.

In modern britain, i don't
see anyone putting up a
"Elisabeth country" signs
around buckingham palace.
Its offensive to the spirit
of all that is good in britain
to subvert the peasant revolt
for what the mackay mafia.

The name does not matter,
there is that rise of the republican
mafia or the Hard right war
cult of your intelligence.

I din't do it, i don't know who did,
Nor do i have any clue who did, but
:toast: Liberty for all peoples.
One among many.

[Surikat]

12. 18 years...

Expat for 18 years. Lived in Scandinavia, Africa and China. Worked just about everywhere else. Came back 8 years ago. Sorry I did. You don't come back the way you went out. Too old to hit the road again.

[UdoKier]

14. Coming back was a BITCH for me.

We decided to come back in Sep. 2000. The economy was great, the world was at peace, Clinton was a successful president (we had NO IDEA how big a deal Monica had been here - it was such a non-issue in Japan) So needless to say, we were shocked 3 months later when the SCOTUS put Bush in office, and it has been nonstop outrage ever since.

[LynzM]

15. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[T Roosevelt]

43. Welcome!

What was it like living in Scandinavia? (which country?)

[Surikat]

45. It was Sweden...

I loved it. The people were marvelous, once they got to know you. The country had a lot of problems, but I've never lived in a place either before or after my time there where they thought so holistically about how to deal with issues.

For example, they realised early on that mass transit in a high area/capita country like Sweden didn't work well unless you had a large taxi fleet to compliment the busses and trains. The Swedes very cannily eliminated school busses and contracted with taxi companies to pick up all school kids in the morning and afternoon. That way taxis had a baseline income from which to build a living which was much higher than you'd find anywhere else. As a result, there were a lot of taxis. Of course, you couldn't get a taxi when schools opened and closed every day, but that was a minor inconvenience when you could get an affordable taxi ride almost anywhere in the country any other time.

The other good thing about that way of doing things was that kids got taken to school in small groups in a fraction of the time that a bus route would have taken. Thus, you had few fights on busses and your kids weren't exhausted when they got to school in the morning and home in the afternoon from a long ride like happens in rural districts in the US.

[maddezmom]

16. Yes, 2 yrs in Bogota Colombia and 2 yrs in Peru

I lived in Bogota during the Clinton Administration and Peru the last 2 yrs of *....let's just say being an American overseas was more dangerous during * administration.

[blueblitzkrieg]

17. Nope, I've only been to Mexico once and that was when I was 13.

I would love to live overseas. I have a fascination with Germany for some reason, hope to visit the country someday.

[UdoKier]

19. Wow! Look at the results.

A majority have spent time abroad.

I think that speaks to the worldliness and intelligence of our group.

I'm sure only a tiny minority at FR have even traveled overseas, and they would probably see these stats as proof of how "un-American" we are. Sad.

[Surikat]

23. You have to remember that the poll has a self-selecting sample...

I doubt that the people responding here are representative of DU'ers in general either.

[plcdude]

20. Yes

6 years in Papua New Guinea in the Central Highlands. It very much changed my way of looking at life and the cultures of the United States both in positive and negative ways.

[SCDem]

21. 7 months in Honduras

[asjr]

22. As a child in 1943-44 in Haiti.

[burythehatchet]

24. Yes, lots of places

london, paris, new delhi, singapore, HK

[npincus]

25. I lived in Japan for 2 years

it broadened my persepctive about life, freedom and what democracy means. Though it was a strict society with many 'rules'- one might call them inhibitions to one's personal freedom- i never felt the kind of safety (from crime) and security about healthcare (I was enrolled in their National Health insurance program) before- it made me realize that quality of life and standard of living here in the US are not the great bill of goods we've been sold. Japanese are basically a homogenous and middle class society and the government appears to take care of its people. Further, living there gave me a sensitivity and awareness of how Americans and America is prerceived abroad. I encountered anti-Americanism (not from Japanese, but from other expatriates) for the first time and was shocked and disturbed by it. This was 13 years ago, but the experience changed me forever.

[UdoKier]

31. Pretty much the same as my experience there.

But I would say that Japan is about as "free" as the US. Inhibitions are different, but in Japan you can go out with your boss, get drunk and call him a jerk. People out on a bender try to act DRUNKER than they actually are, rather than pretend to be sober. Pissing on the side of the street when drunk was a common sight.

I found my Japanese acquaintances to be much more individualistic and emotional than the stereotypes that are prevalent here. I also came back to find that my fellow Americans were a lot more conformist than I had once thought.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. That was my experience, too

Beneath the conformist exterior, Japanese people can be extremely quirky. All one has to do to get by is to observe the surface niceties. Contrary to the stereotype, I saw tremendous creativity in everything from gadgets to handmade signs in shop windows.

And for all their vaunted individualism, Americans are remarkably reluctant to be different from the herd.

[MrModerate]

26. Yeah, all over the place -- Father was in the Air Force . . .

. . . during the cold war, so we did UK, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Turkey.

I work for an international engineering firm, so (as an adult) I've done Kuwait, Iraq, Hong Kong, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, and now Romania.

And of course San Francisco, which the fundies believe is another frickin' GALAXY!

Up until Bush, I generally encountered respect and appreciation for the US (our economic power, military power, and the movies), even in places (like Indonesia and Malaysia) where there is a history of tension between "moral Islam" and "decadent Westernism" (thanx, Mr. Mahatir).

Since Bush, I've found resentment and puzzlement (and fear), and a renewed determination that American values will not overwhelm local values (and no, I haven't been to France recently).

Gotta stop using (maybe overusing) parenthetical statements.

[lawladyprof]

27. Yes, I am a British immigrant

Came to the US as a child. Went to school there as a teenager. Reading British history textbooks re: the Revolution was (and guess still would be) an eye-opening experience regarding things from a different perspective.

[Cleita]

28. My father was an ex-Pat.

I spent about half my growing up years in a mining camp in South America. I think being able to negotiate the differences between two cultures and languages that were often at polar opposites made me question rules and other mores, including moral values, at a very early age.

That's why so much of what people hold to be absolutes appear to me as absolute nonsense. All the cultural issues of religion, class conflict, women's issues are viewed by me with a very critical eye.

[kayell]

29. What, no option for No, but I've been to Canada or Mexico?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. Did part of my graduate work in Japan, returned several times,

most recently in September.

I also visited Europe with my family while in high school, and since we visited a lot of relatives, I got to see how ordinary people live there. Even 35 years ago, Europe seemed perfectly livable and downright pleasant, while people back here were talking as if the U.S. was the only place in the world where life was bearable.

I've also visited China and Taiwan.

I could easily live in Japan. Their government is conservative, but not in the mean, fanatical way that ours is.

[Allenberg]

32. Sure Have

Been here at Misawa, Japan since July 2002. I'm active duty AF. It's kind of hard to drown out the seemingly mindless drones of the military that vote Republican because they like to "kill people and break things," not to mention the very right-slanted American Forces Network. I manage however. The Japanese up here in rural Japan are very friendly towards us Americans, and are quite seemingly ignorant towards American politics. However, I have came across some younger Japanese who called me a "babykiller" in an alley behind the bar.

The good part: only 267 days until my contract runs out. I would of claimed CO status, but I have a wife to feed. ;)

[UdoKier]

35. Well, at least in Japan, you don't have to mow anybody down...

...although US GI's mowing people down while drunk in cars, as well as raping young girls has been a huge problem in Japan, and one that people over here hear nothing about. It is a big part of why many Japanese want US bases out.

Most Americans are also unaware of the fact that Japanese taxpayers foot much of the bill for keeping US bases operating there, as well as donating the land so that US servicepeople can live in roomy, American-style quarters, using electricity-wasting dryers while Japanese hang out their clothes, and live in cramped dwellings and are miserly in their energy use...

[The Wielding Truth]

37. Welcome !Welcome to the DU.

[Padraig18]

36. Born and lived, both.

First ten years of my life...

[taps]

38. If being in the service counts then

Yes I was stationed for 18 months in the Philippines back in the late 60s. I was also in Okinawa for a short while. Americans were now well thought of even back then.
This is my first post after watching for quite a while and just have one question but not sure where to ask it. What does the n/t mean on post? I understand that Kicking is taking it back to the top...thanks

[lapislzi]

40. Yes, yes, yes, and yes

10 years in South Africa (as a Reagan exile) transformed me from an idealistic socialist to a pragmatic cultural racist to a pacificst to an apolitical observer, back to an idealistic socialist.

[progmom]

41. Lived in The Netherlands for 3 years

from age 15-18. Turned me into a little Socialist. :party:

Coming back to living in the midwest was...an experience. My first job was working at a Dennys. :wow:

[quiet.american]

42. Yes

Being away from the country made me understand why America is (was) considered the greatest country in the world.

It made me proud to be an American. Proud of our flag.

Now, after four years of Bush, I'm ashamed of what this country is doing in my name. And, quite frankly, I feel I witnessed the death of this country on Nov. 3rd, with John Kerry's concession speech as its last rites.

The only question that remains is, can it be raised from the dead?

[arwalden]

44. Bangkok, Thailand 1971-1972

Eye opening... even for a 12 year old.