The Unexpected Expat - How The Journey Began

Career advice 101 - be careful what you wish for

“I want to get some international experience.”

If I remember correctly, these were the very words I used and the catalyst for what happened next.

Honestly, though, my memory remains a bit foggy about the actual conversation, but I think it was on the back of a job offer from a competitor where I was discussing my somewhat weak reasoning for resigning from a job that I enjoyed and a boss that I greatly admired.

Clearly, I wasn’t convincing anyone and in the end, I rejected the offer and stayed in place, content and frankly a bit relieved.

It had all but forgotten until the unexpected and now infamous, (to me anyway), “do you want to work in Penang” call came some months later.

Penang, where is Penang?

I’d never even heard of Penang and in the age of internet dial-up back in the summer of 2000, the closest that I could narrow it down to was a pinprick off the west coast of Malaysia that was so small on the page of the Sunday Times Atlas of the World, the whole island was obscured by the name of its main town, Georgetown.

There was no zoom-in feature of Google Earth back then.

3 months later, my family had packed up our first house, halfway through its renovation, into a shipping container and set off on what was supposed to be a two-year assignment with two young boys of 5 and 18 months.

This brings me to my first lesson in managing the expat dream, don’t pack up your home with a flight booked to the other side of the world all on the same day.

24 years later, I’m still not back, the young boys are now men, one of whom is about to start his own international adventure, (more on that to follow shortly).

Accepting that first international role, and leaving your family, friends and home behind isn’t for everyone.

It’s hard.

Hard as in you're already in the 1% of dreamers who are actually brave enough to get on a plane and take that leap of faith in the first place.

Of course, much will depend on where you set off to.

For me, Malaysia was on the face of it quite simple. English was widely spoken. They used the same electrical plug and drove on the left side of the road.

All things that created a sense of familiarity.

A lot of the same. A lot though very different, especially the weather when you’ve spent a life so far, enjoying the unpredictability of the best Britain has to offer.

Simple things that you have taken for granted and built up over the years before leaving suddenly were urgent all at the same time.

New cell phone plan, new bank account, new doctor and dentist and of course somewhere new to live.

How to set up accounts for electricity, gas, water, and internet?

How do we find a new school?

All with no real contacts and no credit history.

And so began an adventure that here writing in Hong Kong, 24 years in and wondering what and where next.

And you know what?

I’m comfortable with that.