Job Discussion Forums

[go_ABs]

Being in a different country from your own is an awesome experience... most of the time. Everyone gets down in the dumps once in a while, no matter where you are. But here, away from family, with no one really to speak English to, no one to complain to (except the wonderful folks like yourselves on Dave's ), etc, it can be a trial.

For me, a single day without an e-mail from home is a sad day. Today is one such day. My sisters are busy at their 9 to 5s, my parents are away on holiday, and my friends are just slack. All of this culminates in a depressingly empty inbox.

I'm on an internet connection paid for by the school, separate from the phone line, so I leave the computer connected almost all the time. Whenever a new message comes into outlook express, the computer calls out "You've got some maaaaaaaail!" in the voice of a barbershop quartet. If I'm home, I come running to see who it's from.

I'm a firm believer in that 'spend a penny and it'll come right back to you' idea, so to this end I send lots of e-mails off to family and friends. Long, interesting and exciting they are... or at least were, as things become considerably less so as time goes by. Now I struggle to find new things to add. Yes, the Chinese are still spitting and shitting in the street. Yes, my classes are going fine. Yes, I'll be coming home soon-ish.

Lament with me, and be grateful for your own, full inbox.

[Gordon]

No emails? This is quite normal and you should get used to it. You have to come to the realization that people back home have moved on with their lives and they are getting used to you not being a round. It happens to everyone. I have no idea how long you have been away, I would guess 4-7 months just from what I just read. This is culture shock and it is depressing to think people back home don't think about us as much as we think about them.
It has been over 2 years for my family and I and sometimes we go 4-5 days with out an email, but I'm alright with that. I do understand your disappointment, we have all experienced this.

[go_ABs]

10 and a half months down, one and a half to go.

I guess it is culture shock, though it's only been this past week that has been so dismally lacking in e-mails. I'm going home soon - um, to remind them that I'm still alive - before (probably) coming back.

I really hope it's not something that I have to get used to. My family is fairly used to having people overseas, and I think are pretty good at keeping in touch regularly. Some of my friends have surprised me with how good they are at e-mailing, too.

I'm sure everyone does experience it, as you say, but it sure does suck.

[kev7161]

I can commiserate with you. About once a month, I send off a "newsy" email. How work is going, anything I've done lately that might be interesting, how I'm feeling, the current weather situation, etc. I have a group of friends and family and they all get the same email. I generally get about a half-dozen replies (sometimes more) with a one or two sentence response.

"Wow, Kev. Sounds like you are having a great time!" (or something).

It seems they don't have the time to reply with news of their world. Also, most don't seem to instigate an email. "Hi Kev, haven't heard from you in awhile. Thought I would catch you up on things around here." That sort of thing.

Granted, I do have a couple of devoted friends who are really good about keeping in touch with me. But, let's face it. When I lived back home, I didn't get phone calls every day from friends just to catch up. Those were about every month or so. Luckily, I get the assorted junk mail, porn offerings (non-solicited . . . REALLY) and other such things to keep me busy.

[Roger]

I guess, you wouldn't have lasted one month in the early 1990s when China was not connected to the Internet, and I had to trek to Hong Kong to pick up my meagre ration of news and dispatch a pile of thick letters myself!

My mother died at the end of 1996, and I learnt about it months later through the consular service; later my old man put up his toes as well, and no one informed me by email!

[go_ABs]

Yep, Roger, I bet you're right. I don't think I would consider going somewhere that didn't have an internet connection (or wasn't able to). I think part of that is growing up with it - I daresay we're of different generations, old timer! In the early 1990s I was proud to be graduating primary school...

But at the same time, in the early 1990s when you were in China, you knew you were coming to a place that didn't have internet. My problem is that nothing is preventing those e-mails from coming. Just busy or lazy friends and relatives.

Sorry to hear about your parents, by the way.

[Chris_Crossley]

There are only two people back in Blighty with whom I keep in touch fairly regularly - they are my mother and my old landlady. My mother has never used a computer in her life (she will be 72 in November) and so we keep in touch by that good old tried and tested method of communication - the handwritten letter. Usually, we write to each other just once a month.

My old landlady (who is already 73!) does have a computer, has internet access, and does write to me via e-mail, although her mails are about as frequent as my mother's letters. News in recent weeks include: the death from lung cancer of one of her longstay guests, the marriage of one of her many nieces and the moving-out of one of her other longstay guests to a residential care home (she is 84).

Having been in China for three years now, plus the fact that I now have a family of my own, I am used to sending and receiving communications so infrequently. However, it is always good to send and receive them at whatever frequency because it is likely that the people you send them to will appreciate that you have not forgotten them and you, in turn, can appreciate that they have not forgotten you.

My mother has expressed her absolute delight in becoming a first-time grandmother, albeit fairly late (at the age of 71) compared to my wife's mother (at the age of only 44, albeit 15 years ago). My wife and I have sent photos of our baby daughter and she's absolutely thrilled for both of us.

Keeping in touch with family and old friends, especially those who have been around a lot longer than most of us, is still quite important even in this so-called "information age" and "24-hour society" when we all seem to be so busy doing a hundred different things at once that we neglect those who have cared about us and our welfare once we exit the scene to go abroad to live and work.

[deezy]

Guess I'm the same as the OP. But I'm still getting emails from friends...well, a couple of them anyway, and news from England, (dad and brothers) and Australia (daughter, grandson and my husband). If I don't hear I send a rude email (but friendly rude) asking whether they're still alive, but they seem to think I'm having much more fun than them and they have no news to speak of (or write!).

However, my husband doesn't believe emails are a good thing: he reckons that there can be too many misunderstandings. So he phones me every day and if he doesn't I am quite miserable. It's important for us to keep communicating, long distance relationships are very hard to sustain and we've found the best way for us.

I've also found that when I go back no one is really interested in what I've done, where I've been, so I don't talk about it anymore unless asked. They have their lives, which can be somewhat insular but they're happy, and although they can't understand my desire to travel and live elsewhere (particularly China!) they are 'there' for me, whenever, and that's what friendship is about. I am sure you will find that when you go back, you will just 'drop' back into the same old familiar friendships. It's wierd, but even if I haven't seen a friend for years we both say "Wow you haven't changed a bit" which is a total lie but so what.

[Stephen Jones]

Ah, brings back memories of the really bad days, before they invented the postage stamp.

Used to be a real pain sendng messages from Riyadh. Used to have to put the letters in a bottle and stick them on the back of a camel heading for the coast. Lots of them never got through.

And then somebody invented the homing pigeon. You can't imagine what a change this new technology made to our lives!

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[denise]

I also feel a bit deflated to see an empty inbox. But then, maybe it's my own damn fault for checking my email every 12 minutes. I rarely go a day with nothing, though. I certainly hope I am not the only one here whose family and friends do care what I'm up to! My other teacher-friends certainly understand, and with my non-teacher friends, I discuss non-teaching things.

d

[ContemporaryDog]

I only have a few friends who regularly email me (i.e. a few times a week at least) as well as my mother (who recently discovered how to operate email) and my brother.

Other people don't seem to send them that often. I suppose we forget that we only work around half hte real hours that most people back home do, so we have a lot of time to check emails and stuff, so it seems like people are neglecting us when they really don't have the time.

[roostasha]

It's early days for me in China, so my friends are still emailing, sort of. I spent a year abroad at school before though and found that emails from home dropped off considerably after the first couple of months. When I complained that I never heard from anyone, their excuse was that nothing ever happened at home. I was the one in a new and exciting place so my life was just more interesting than theirs. So while they didn't have much to say, they liked to read all of my stories even if they didn't respond.

The thing is, when you're living in a place for a long time, working or studying, your life is pretty normal too. Try explaining this to your friends though, and they just don't get it unless they've been away themselves.

I get it. I'm frustrated too, and kinda needed the mini-rant myself.

[Guest]

The first 10 months I was in China, I was very dependant upon Emails from my friends and family in Australia - it was like a lifeline to me.

This year, I am nowhere near as dependant upon them as this is now "Home" to me and I have already told them everything interesting that goes on here - so no need to write the same things again.

They feel that I have abandoned them and Australia and they are correct, but it is great to have cut the umbilical cord once and for all.

But, the Internet has certainly changed my life - how on earth did we get on before it?

[biffinbridge]

Here in Libya you really are cut off from the world.While the Sahara is a beautiful place the boredom sets in after about 2 days.I work on a gas plant.There are no shops,no other Europeans and no recreational facilities.I don't see a woman for 65 days at a time.Access to the internet is extremely limited as it's a 3 km walk to my bosse's office and he doesn't like me using it.It's also censored by company software.Likewise the phone system is appalling and international calls involve filling in a form and faxing it off for authorization..generally there is no fax machine of course...the operator will then call you back at the designated time.Loneliness is relative and you learn a lot about yourself in such situations.Try not contacting anyone for 2 months and then you'll really see who gives a sh*t...you might even be pleasantly surprised.