expats

According to the crap canadian-english dictionary left in my flat by a previous occupant, and expat is someone « voluntarily living in a foreign country » the same dictionary lists an immigrant as one who « comes to a foreign county and takes up residence. » these are classic definitions, the ones you give to non native speaker students is they ask….but I find them very unsatisfying, and I have for several years. I had the debate with tony and cam last month in paris. Tony claims and expat plans on returning home, and an immigrant doesn’t. yet, this is also an unsatisfactory explanation in my mind. My old flatmates father worked in france for a couple of decades with the clear goal and intention of retiring to his native Vietnam, which he did. Yet nobody in paris talks about “Vietnamese expats” just as no one ever talks about “congelese expats” or “Malian expats.” no no, those guys are “immigrants” even when they have no intention of staying france for more than a few years, At the same time, doug, an acquaintance of mine here in Moscow, has been here nearly a decade and has no intention of ever leaving. Yet, he is an expat, and he is no alone…I know plenty such types in Moscow…and they are not only here. So I propose an alternative definition: and immigrant is a person from a poorer country residing in a richer one. And expat is a person from a richer country living in a poorer one. And expat often enjoys social and economic advantages over people from the local population, whereas an immigrant is more frequently economically disadvantaged compared to the native born population. An immigrant works long hours for low pay in hopes of one day having a better life….and expat sits, overpaid and overfed, in Moscow cocktail bars and hits on local girls in his native language.
Such was the scene last night. I went to a cocktail bar with ilia, asad, and a few Russian blokes whose names I missed (friends of ilias) and, just my luck, we got a table next to a bunch of expats. They were moscow’s worst: fat, loud, American, and incapable of ordering their own drinks in Russian. There were about 4 of them, all males, all trying to talk to whatever Russian female came near their table. At one point they started singing, and periodically filled the whole bar with informative exclamations like “Moscow is so cool dude, you can do whatever you fucking want.”
The Russian guys I was with rolled their eyes and sent over some dirty looks: they all have to work with expats and consequently cant stand them. …I meanwhile was transported back to the late 1990s and the years of the hungry duck and ultimate expat hooliganism. Yuck. Those are days I certainly don’t want to see again.
I have lived in several different countries, and this feature of Moscow that always irked me. Western expats are a widely acknowledged category here, living separately from the locals. When I was living in Budapest or montreal, no one ever called me and expat! It would have seemed absurd in the context of those societies, and it never would have occurred to me to call myself one. So what is it with Moscow? Is this the legacy of the early 1990s when the country was in economic freefall, and foreigners were invited in, supposedly to clean things up? I know Moscow isn’t the only place with such a mentality, Thailand was the same…but there racial issues came into play as well, and the differences between foreigners and locals seemed so much greater. Or maybe I just feel this way as I am a bit stuck in the middle here, with my Russian university degree and my funny name. Dunno.
But if last night I was drinking with the Russian boys, today was purely expatella: long brunch with Caitlin, followed by a cruise through all the major malls in the downtown area, then an equally long dinner in an outdoor courtyard café. Forward to my past.