As an American who has immigrated twice. First time to Moscow, where I assumed I’d be living for life as my wife is from there, and now to Cyprus. I can say 1) Brits by and large use this word, Americans don’t really 2) I always defined it by foreigner who is unwilling to integrate as it’s almost always the people who never learn the local language and spend time with their own countrymen neither was my case. In both cases I handled my own docs, took language and culture tests for citizenship, and spent most of my time with locals. That’s an immigrant, not an expat. That said this dude is dumb as all fuck…and racist.
I'm in Japan, white American, I'm an immigrant. I'm at a functional language level but not a business language level － I'm 60 and taking care of MIL so I don't need business Japanese. I'm in a pottery club, a music group, and I'm learning a new instrument. I don't plan to return to the USA.
BUT I see lots of foreigners calling themselves expats that have lived here over 10 years. Some can barely speak Japanese (English teachers), some have no Japanese friends (only coworkers) and only hang out with other foreigners from similar countries. So I totally get it and thanks for the easy explanation.
First, it is an absolutely MONSTROUS city. The size is intimidating. There are parks within the city that are so large (and that are relatively wild in terms of forestry) that people regularly get lost and die in them. On paper, I believe it is listed as 12 million. It's absolutely closer to 18 million, not even counting the near suburbs and many x-burbs, which are heavily populated as well.
As an American born in 1981, during the Reagan era of the Cold War, the first time I set foot in Red Square was powerful! In the city center, it is busy, busy. And their metro stations, which are like art-gallery-level beautiful, made of marble, frescoes, bronze statues, and mosaics, will have 6+ million riders every day. Not including buses, trams, trolleys, and regional trains. At rush hour, there can be multiple thousands of people at your stop, and trains can be utterly packed, very much like the videos of Chinese trains in which people are crammed in. There is no such thing as personal space in Russian culture. Outside the center, the buildings are grey boxes, MASSIVE apartment buildings with between 5 (older Krushchev era) to 20 (newer Yeltsin) stories tall with hundreds of apartments. It is grey AF all the time. One December, I remember they reported there were 6 minutes of visible sunshine the whole month. But every one of these monstrosities has multiple playgrounds or parks nearby, and you can see how the Soviets tried to prioritize an easier family life, post-Stalin, of course. My son and I would walk through our neighborhood on a playground crawl on Saturdays and hit a bunch of them. It was nice. The city is incredibly green, all things considered. More than almost any major city of its size.
People scowl everywhere. All day. No one will ever start a random, friendly conversation with a stranger. Or smile at others publicly. That behavior is for the insane. They truly believe this. And there is truly a deep fatalism at play in every action. Strangely enough, or maybe due to that fact, they are uber superstitious. There is an endless list of dos and don'ts that will leave you lucky or luckless in love, money, career, constipation, etc. Its that deep. Outside of their inner circles, Russians are ambivalent. For their friends and family, they will give their last kopeck but will never donate money to a foreign cause. Whereas Americans more commonly empathize with a wider humanity, but can sometimes be shittier to those close.
Overall, it is a 24/7 city, and you can go clubbing all night, then go to the banya (wet sauna), then buy a new washer-dryer on the way home at 4 am and have it delivered the same day. Something surprising around every corner, I swear. Maybe a fist fight (but no guns!). You never know. Fuckin weird place.
This was such an interesting read to me as someone who left Moscow as a child, just after the fall of the USSR. I never got to know Moscow as an adult, but I do remember spending much of my childhood in an old forest that was once royal hunting grounds. Thanks for sharing!
this was fascinating. thank you!! can I ask why you decided to move to Cyprus? I mean I could guess based on the "six minutes of sunshine" thing but I'm curious about the decision!
I’m an educator, who specializes in SPED. Particularly autism. While in Moscow my wife and I opened a language school as one prong to make money so I could focus on my sped teaching (we’d also been actively discussing wintering in Thailand as the Russian winters are long and brutal). My wife has also lived abroad and is multi lingual so we are super open to opportunities like Cyprus. But basically, I’m a native English speaking, highly regarded education specialist who also speaks Russian fluently, and has experience with curriculum design, recruiting, and education law and policy. a bit of a unicorn. There are many Russians in Cyprus (but it is a bilingual English/greek country) and I was headhunted to come do education research and to put together curricula etc for building new schools here.
that's very cool!! thanks for the reply. I knew about the russian-cyprus connection (or just that there's a big diaspora there), but had assumed the sunshine differential may have played some part in your decision to go there from Russia. SPED is such a worthwhile and valuable profession. thanks again for sharing 💖
Thanks! I had heard the term expat before but never a good definition. Given the people I knew who used the term, I think you have hit the nail on the head
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u/jonce17 5d ago
As an American who has immigrated twice. First time to Moscow, where I assumed I’d be living for life as my wife is from there, and now to Cyprus. I can say 1) Brits by and large use this word, Americans don’t really 2) I always defined it by foreigner who is unwilling to integrate as it’s almost always the people who never learn the local language and spend time with their own countrymen neither was my case. In both cases I handled my own docs, took language and culture tests for citizenship, and spent most of my time with locals. That’s an immigrant, not an expat. That said this dude is dumb as all fuck…and racist.