Chile Forum

Hello all! I am a teacher in Los Angeles, California. I am ready to take the plunge and get out of my safe but boring rut here in the US. I expect to make a permanent move to Chile in 2009. I have been to Chile three times in the past 6 years, and I will be in Santiago for about 5 weeks in July and August to get my TEFL certificate. I have some good Chilean friends that I will be staying with, but I also want to get connected to the English speaking community in Santiago and start building those bridges....since I'll be burning a lot of bridges here in LA real soon! I'm 48, divorced, no kids, 22 years teaching experience (math and computers), a huge football fan (real football, not American football!), ready to move forward. I'd love to hear from any of you. Most especially, I'd like to know where the Yanks and Brits and Aussies and Kiwis gather in Santiago .....thanks....Tom Hutton

Hi Tom
Are you going to be teaching? Those English speaking schools are full of Yanks and Brits and English speaking Chilean teachers. they seem to socialize allot together also. Great place to start.
Helen

I've me quite a few expats in Providencia at the Lousiana bar on La Suecia. Friday night it's a great place after 10. Where in LA are you? I'm in OC.

cali_chile48 wrote:Most especially, I'd like to know where the Yanks and Brits and Aussies and Kiwis gather in Santiago .....thanks....Tom Hutton

LOL KIWIS? what is that

I'm sorry that's just funny

(P.s will my reply be considered spamm?)

KIWIS??!!! Kiwis are from New Zealand. They speak English there don't they?

Mikeo....I'm in the San Fernando Valley....Van Nuys, to be exact....

I am hoping to find several such places to meet up in Santiago. My hubby and I are moving to Santiago in two weeks. He is a Chilean returning after a 35 yr. stint in the US. I am, of course a 'yank' and will need my 'fix' of speaking to other expats from time to time. So I will keep this spot in mind for sure.

Jill (aka storklady53)

They speak English there don't they?

A matter of interpretation.

I don't understand the reason for moving into another country to mingle with your own community.Might as well stay in one's home country

Asean
it is kind of like the forum, strangers in a strange land, get together and exchange information. Your next door neighbor in Chileis going to be less familiar with how to get stuff shipped or banking rules for non citizens than someone dealing with the same situation.
A couple of beers on a Friday night aren't going to make your experience any less authentic and it is just human nature.

Aesan, I can understand what your are saying. I think that in a number of other SA countries where there are large expat communities, they tend to stick themselves. But I don't think that in Chile there are any one large concentration of expats living in a neighborhood/area. People, correct me if I am wrong here.

I've seen large numbers of foreign tourists while visiting in Chile, but I don't know of any significant concentration of foreigners outside Las Condes.

Actually there are a lot of Brits, even though some have been in Chile for many many generations. There is a Golf Club in la Reina, I think it is called the Prince of Wales. There is large British community in Punta Arenas also. The British came ages ago and became involved in mining in the north and shipping and commerce in the south, there offspring remain as do there last names such as Wilson, Edwards etc.

There is also an American and a Canadian group that meet regularly in Santiago. El Nido is considered the American school, someone posted recently that most of the Australians sent their offspring to another private school.

I have run into gringos on my flights who told me that there are lots of English speakers in the la Serena area also.

But the obvious huge ex pat group are the Germans, every city and town in southern Chile has its Club Aleman, again a group that has been there in some cases, for generations but has maintained its identity.

Maybe ex pat in a lot of these cases is the wrong term , since there are generations involved.

There is definitely something different about Chile for immigrants normally racially exclusive for a couple generations - Japanese, Koreans - and recent expats from the Anglo and Euro spheres who normally form at least one center of expat exclusivity - as in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, etc. Chile seems to absorb immigrants rather than allowing separateness unless you form your own isolated compound like that Schaffer psychopath and pervert.

And those cultural orgs that survive for generations in Chile are FME with the Japanese center in Santiago run like any other hierarchical Chilean org with those foreign surnamed officials thinking and actng in very Chilean ways.

That American group in Santiago, the AAC has got to be the snobbiest, most exclusive, cuico, nose in the air a$$hole expats I've ever met in Chile.

helibel wrote:. . . . Maybe ex pat in a lot of these cases is the wrong term , since there are generations involved.

So I think. I'd call them "immigrants" instead, or descendants of immigrants.

Here in the States, once a family of immigrants' descendants has been well enough absorbed to stop calling themselves something hyphenated, I call them simply "Americans". After all, it's the rare group that doesn't have a mixed ancestry after four or five generations.

And that appears to be true in Chile, too.