Expat: Women's True Tales of Life Abroad

This is a collection of women’s stories of Americans who have chosen to live in other countries.  Most of them chose to live elsewhere.  One woman wrote of when she was a child, and her family moved from Brooklyn, NY to Sydney, Australia.  I was intrigued by the book because since going to Guadalajara I have given some thought about retiring to Guadalajara, particularly the Lake Chapala area.  There are several thousand Americans and Canadians living there.  I met a woman at the Dallas airport who lives there, and she loves it.  Anyway, it was interesting to read about the adjustments the women had to make to deal with the cultural differences.  Also, I liked reading about what the women did to help them feel more at home.  One woman had moved to China to teach English.  She decided to have baked chicken like her mother made.  It was not available in a store under cellophane.  She had to buy a live chicken.  At least she didn’t have to kill it.  The poultry vendor killed it for her.  He also had a device for removing the feathers.  She cooked it with seasonings like her mother used, and cooking it helped her feel more at home in China. 

Most of the women were single, but one woman was married with a young family.  She and her husband decided to sell everything and move to Morelia, Michoacán in Mexico and live with their baby daughter.  She writes that they enjoyed living in Mexico, but after living there for four years, they decided to come home.  They wanted their daughter to know her cousins, and they wanted to live among Americans again.  She said that they always felt like outsiders.   I thought this book was interesting.  I highly recommend it.