Chile Forum

El pescado wrote:Very good observation NCFYM! Thanks for bringing this to light as same idea hit me about 5 years ago. I had lost a substantial amount of money in the real estate bubble, could not find a job to save my life, and was just recently married to a Chilena. So what did I do? I moved to Chile. My parents were still in pretty good health and traveling like snowbirds do so I really was not that concerned about them. 5 years with parkinsons & diabetes can start to take a toll on am 80 year old man which is about the only main reason I am wanting to go back. That and education is cheaper and I really dont want my boys growing up with concrete walls, fences, security alarms blasting all hours of the day & night and bars on the door/windows

I am only wanting to be there to spend a few remaining years with him and then return to Chile and return the reins to the Chilena. If she wants to stand in line to pay the water bill, thats her decesion!

Thanks again NCFYM! it really gave me something to think about.

no country for young men wrote: True the band is still playing and the lights are still on but the ship is doomed and up close it is going to be ugly by the lifeboats.

fahrvergnugen wrote:

El pescado wrote:Very good observation NCFYM! Thanks for bringing this to light as same idea hit me about 5 years ago. I had lost a substantial amount of money in the real estate bubble, could not find a job to save my life, and was just recently married to a Chilena. So what did I do? I moved to Chile. My parents were still in pretty good health and traveling like snowbirds do so I really was not that concerned about them. 5 years with parkinsons & diabetes can start to take a toll on am 80 year old man which is about the only main reason I am wanting to go back. That and education is cheaper and I really dont want my boys growing up with concrete walls, fences, security alarms blasting all hours of the day & night and bars on the door/windows

I am only wanting to be there to spend a few remaining years with him and then return to Chile and return the reins to the Chilena. If she wants to stand in line to pay the water bill, thats her decesion!

Thanks again NCFYM! it really gave me something to think about.

Question: WHY do you live in Santiago? Have you ever ventured further South? And if so why not try to make a life where you can actually breathe the air?

Once you go expat, you never can really go back.

no country for young men wrote:Once you go expat, you never can really go back.

That is what I was told by a permanent ex-pat Brit around my fifth year in east Asia. In about the only time I had a serious conversation with this man, he pulled me in his office, shut the door and told me it was time for me to go home. From 40 years of watching expats, he thought that for most, once you are outside for more than five years, you can never really go home.

I ignored the advice and went home after 11 years. A mistake. I have never "fit in" again. Not with the friends who stayed behind, not really even with family who travel widely, are multilingual and do business outside the US regularly.

I don't know what is different, I do know many other expats who have had trouble reintegrating and whether the too late rule is five years or seven, I don't know either. (Might be a good question for others like Px and G&J who have never gone home.)

At least in my case, it wasn't that the foreign settings were "better" than what I had left or returned to - Asian countries have a number of shortcomings and where I live in the States is very attractive.

It's just a matter of not feeling at home anymore. I think you should consider this before assuming that you can just move home and life will go on as if you didn't leave.

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Here's a second thing to consider. I returned to the US on biz trips on average 3 times a year. In retrospect, the gaps were just long enough to discern changes which one might miss if living full time in the US - kind of like a jumpy old movie at 15 frames per second. Most of these changes I saw were not in a favorable direction, from the coarsening of the culture to manias for war and financial bubbles.

I don't think the locals were as aware of what was happening as regular visitors were - or maybe it was just the warm welcome by US customs at 6 AM after 30 hours of travel....

Now, I think the rate of change has accelerated to the point where one can see these changes without leaving town. We are in a Quickening; it feels like a non-linear change process and I fear an event horizon right around the bend. I feel like a Jew in Munich in 1937... I am still looking out and it kind of shocks me to read about people returning voluntarily. True the band is still playing and the lights are still on but the ship is doomed and up close it is going to be ugly by the lifeboats.

If the US goes down one of the many rabbit holes up ahead, will you regret having returned or pat yourself on the back for looking around Chile for an alternative first?

At least buy a RT ticket on that side before you go.. for insurance.

murf wrote:

no country for young men wrote:Once you go expat, you never can really go back.

That is what I was told by a permanent ex-pat Brit around my fifth year in east Asia. In about the only time I had a serious conversation with this man, he pulled me in his office, shut the door and told me it was time for me to go home. From 40 years of watching expats, he thought that for most, once you are outside for more than five years, you can never really go home.

I ignored the advice and went home after 11 years. A mistake. I have never "fit in" again. Not with the friends who stayed behind, not really even with family who travel widely, are multilingual and do business outside the US regularly.

I don't know what is different, I do know many other expats who have had trouble reintegrating and whether the too late rule is five years or seven, I don't know either. (Might be a good question for others like Px and G&J who have never gone home.)

At least in my case, it wasn't that the foreign settings were "better" than what I had left or returned to - Asian countries have a number of shortcomings and where I live in the States is very attractive.

It's just a matter of not feeling at home anymore. I think you should consider this before assuming that you can just move home and life will go on as if you didn't leave.

peregrine77 wrote:Life is a series of compromises. Having lived in possibly the most safe and beautiful part of So. Cal. for 43 years I must agree with fahrvergnugn. The changes I see
when I leave the scenic Oregon coast where we have called home for 18 yrs. to visit family are unimaginable. You can cut the ambient anger now present with a knife, if they will still allow you to own one there.
Another issue ignored by the main stream media, owned and contolled by a few old wealthy families, completely ignor the radiation from Fukushima that many of
us with high tec radiation monitors are measuring. Extreemly high counts in Seattle, Boise, Vermont, Toronto had readings of 2200 counts per minute!! Back ground radiation levels on the coast are 31 CPM, +/-. We have detected with two seperate divises on one rainy day
903 CPM!!! In about a year aprox. 25 million tons of flotsam the size of California will arrive on our beachs. Welcome home!
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peregrine77 wrote: Extreemly high counts in Seattle, Boise, Vermont, Toronto had readings of 2200 counts per minute!! Back ground radiation levels on the coast are 31 CPM, +/-. We have detected with two seperate divises on one rainy day
903 CPM!!! In about a year aprox. 25 million tons of flotsam the size of California will arrive on our beachs. Welcome home!
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fahrvergnugen wrote:
Do you have any radiation data from SoCal? This is freaking me out...