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Stranger In a Strange Land

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Fnord
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03 Oct 2008, 11:09 am

My wife is Asian, and she just became a citizen this year. I get along better with her than I do with my own relatives. Any differences in understanding are swept under the rug of cultrual differences. Most our friends are also Asian, and they seem to think that I am no more odd than any other American.


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0_equals_true
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03 Oct 2008, 11:21 am

anna-banana wrote:
I was always jealous of kids whose parents were diplomats :p my dad was a construction engineer but he only took us with him for contract work abroad twice, and to fairly boring countries :( .

I guess I'm making up for it now though ;p

It has its pros and cons. I'm pretty much done travelling to anywhere for long. Although it would be good to go to Asia. I've never been there, always wanted to. My sister was in Vietnam recently.



Last edited by 0_equals_true on 03 Oct 2008, 12:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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03 Oct 2008, 11:39 am

zeichner wrote:
I recently started reading Tony Attwood's "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome" and something I read last night set off some loud bells in my head. One of the coping strategies that he mentions for adults with AS, is to live in another country - where social differences are more easily excused ("He's American, so of course he doesn't know what to do.")

I grew up in the US, but lived in Belgium for 5 of the happiest years of my life. A few years after I returned, I went to work for a company run by Vietnamese immigrants (about 90% of the employees were Vietnamese or Hmong) - also a very happy time for me. It isn't that I was any less socially inept at those times - but being an outsider in another culture seemed to outweigh any other reason I might be different from the people around me.

How many of you with ASD are now, or have been in the past, living in a foreign land? And do you find it any easier to live there, than in the country (and/or culture) where you grew up?


I grew up in a travel-loving family. My sister was with an airline, so we even got cheap tickets for a while. I loved being somewhere in a strange country from childhood on, long before I came to know about AS. It seem just right to be a stranger there, whereas I felt a stranger at home among others and that did not seem to be accepted. I learned lots of languages and lived in different countries. The basic problems with communication as an aspie are the same, but it's easier to keep out of contact and communication and more accepted to be "different" as a stranger.
The only real problem always was the job: its hard to find a job as Aspie in Germany, but it was much harder in a foreign country, even if you are fluent in the language - there's just no market nowhere for Aspies.
I am now in Germany reducing my household and waiting for my time, as soon as I get some early pension so I won't have to work, I am out of here! Germany is nice, but I want to be an accepted stranger in a foreign country again!



Liverbird
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03 Oct 2008, 2:14 pm

There's definitely alot to be said for living in a foreign country. If you do something socially stupid, they assume that you are socially stupid because you are foreign. Not just a ret*d, which is what happens in your native country when you don't get something. There's a high amount of tolerance for those mistakes as well. It's okay to be stupid when you are out of your waters.


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03 Oct 2008, 2:21 pm

Morgana wrote:
Yes! Yes! And yes! My social life improved drastically in Europe, where I am currently living happily :)
(I am American). I would recommend it, it worked for me.


As much as I'd love to be able to live in Europe, I can't even afford to visit it on vacation. Maybe one day...

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04 Oct 2008, 12:19 am

The majority of my friends are of different races and many of them were at least born in different countries. I went to a High School and I go to a University that is very diverse and I am loving every second of it. When I used to go to small schools where the majority of people were of a similar background I did not enjoy it.Foreign cultures are an obsession of mine which is why I want to live overseas when I am older. I am also very good at foreign languages but I do not know what to learn.