I was talking with some colleagues last night, and elfstar's comment made me wonder this as well. What are the words that people use to describe you where you are currently living (or have lived in the past)?

In Democratic Republic of the Congo, I have heard "muzungu," "mondele," and when I lived in Japan, it was "gaijin."

"Why do you talk that way? I can't understand you," the annoyed Singaporean taxi driver said to me as I repeated my destination for the third time.

"Oh, sorry. I'm American. I guess I have a heavy American accent," I replied.
( Read more... )

Is it just me, or does it sound really weird to call yourself a foreigner ( Read more... )

Today was the first in a series of goodbyes I'll be saying. Giuliana is our cleaning lady, and today was her last day at our house. To call her a cleaning lady is to make it sound like she's someone who serves us, someone I keep my distance from, someone I don't know. But it's not like that. She's like an aunt to me, I have huge respect for her. ( Read more... )

We have two sets of guests coming in the next two weeks: my best friend (Inga) and her family, and Cedric's best friend (Jerome)and his family ( Read more... )

Went down to St. Johns today for some shopping. St. Johns is the capital of Antigua as well as the only town on this small island. Its also where the cruise ships dock as a port of call. So in the area around the dock its full of tourist and also full of locals selling to the tourist. Well in a community thats largely black I stick out being the ( Read more... )

I'm an American expat in Ireland. Here for four years ( Read more... )

I remember in my younger days, when I was living in Rome, a few of my classmates (American, British, Italian-American, Indian, etc.) would go and hang out at the Spanish Steps. We would help out tourists with directions. Some reason we always felt like being helpful, doing good! Not that we never caused trouble! ;) But it's amazing the look of a ( Read more... )

I am an American from New Orleans teaching english in Wuhan, China. After graduating from University with two Batchelor's degrees I found myself still working my student job. My best friend has dreamed of moving to China all of her life and so when she got a job offer I decided to hitch on to her dream and check it out. As did another listless ( Read more... )

I realized today that I'm going through another level of acclimatization (dude, is that even a word?) here in Japan after two years. It's a different sort of change than before, and deeper in a lot of ways. And my guess is, because of this, going back to America for any length of time will be more difficult ( Read more... )