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Expats may appear condescending due to their expanded worldview, romanticization of foreign life, and personal growth, but this often stems from their own experiences and insecurities rather than an intention to belittle others.
The video explores why some expats are perceived as condescending, attributing this perception to several factors. Firstly, expats often develop an expanded worldview through their experiences abroad, which can lead them to share insights that may seem dismissive of the perspectives of those who haven't lived internationally. This difference in frame of reference can create a disconnect, making it appear as though expats believe they are superior due to their global experiences.
Secondly, the romanticization of life in foreign countries can play a role. Expats may emphasize the positives of their new life and downplay the negatives, which can be interpreted as a dismissal of their home country. This self-selection of individuals who move abroad, often due to underlying issues rather than mere boredom, contributes to this perception. The video also touches on the nuance of experiences, suggesting that generalizations about life in any country are often inaccurate and that acknowledging challenges is important.
Furthermore, cultural adaptation and identity reinforcement can contribute to the perception of condescension. Expats may adopt new coping mechanisms and perspectives from their host cultures, which, when shared, might seem to invalidate the frustrations of people back home. Additionally, underlying insecurities, such as the rising cost of living and housing markets in their home countries, can drive expats to justify their decisions, sometimes leading to comments that are perceived as condescending. Ultimately, the video suggests that while the intention may not be to belittle, the sharing of personal experiences and the validation of one's choices can inadvertently come across as condescending.
Expats may seem condescending due to their expanded worldviews gained from living abroad, which can lead to comparisons that dismiss others' experiences. The romanticization of life abroad also plays a role, as they often highlight positives and can inadvertently seem to devalue life in their home country. These perceptions often stem from their personal journey and growth rather than an intent to belittle.
Expats might appear to act superior because their experiences abroad have broadened their perspectives, leading them to share insights that can be perceived as dismissive of those with a more limited frame of reference. Their personal growth and adaptation to new cultures can also result in different viewpoints on resilience and problem-solving. This can inadvertently come across as a sense of superiority, though it often stems from their unique journey.
Expats often romanticize life abroad as a way to justify their significant life change and highlight the positives of their new environment. This focus on the benefits can inadvertently lead to downplaying the challenges or value of life in their home country. It's a common coping mechanism and a way to validate their decision to pursue a different lifestyle.
Expats may justify moving abroad due to various factors, including seeking a better quality of life, personal growth opportunities, or escaping issues like the rising cost of living or housing markets in their home countries. Their experiences and the personal validation they derive from adapting to new cultures can reinforce their decision, sometimes leading to comments that seem condescending to others.
Expats develop different worldviews by immersing themselves in new cultures and facing unique challenges, leading to a broader perspective on life. This expanded frame of reference can cause them to make comparisons that seem condescending to those who haven't had similar experiences. Their adaptation and personal growth abroad often shape these distinct viewpoints.
Expats can seem condescending due to their expanded worldviews from living abroad, which can lead to comparisons that dismiss others' experiences. They may also romanticize life overseas, focusing on positives and downplaying negatives. This can be interpreted as devaluing life in their home country, even if the intention is simply to share personal growth and justify their choices.
Expats may justify their decision to live abroad due to underlying insecurities, such as financial concerns or the high cost of living in their home countries. Sharing their positive experiences and highlighting the benefits of their new life can be a way to validate their choice. This is often part of their personal journey and pursuit of well-being, rather than a judgment on others.
The video suggests that living abroad can lead to personal growth and adaptation to new cultures. Expats may develop different perspectives on resilience and problem-solving, which can sometimes be perceived as dismissive of frustrations faced by people back home. However, this is presented as a result of adaptation and a broadened frame of reference, not necessarily a negative impact on growth.
Leaving one's country can imply that it's not good enough, which might be misconstrued as arrogance. However, expats often leave to improve their own lives and seek better opportunities elsewhere, rather than to criticize their home country. Their decision is typically driven by personal advancement and well-being.
Class structure can influence expat experiences, particularly in the US where individual worth is often equated with net worth. Some expats may encounter financial difficulties abroad, sometimes leading to them being taken advantage of. Recognizing class structures is important for a nuanced understanding of different life choices and experiences.
0:01 Hey YouTube, Alex here. And in today's video, I want to cover the topic: why are so many expats condescending? I've been accused of this a couple times. I have to be self-aware, that's not my intention. And I have to admit, some of the things that I talk about could come across in a condescending way. I'm not here to put people down, I'm not here to make people feel bad. But this YouTube is, in some ways, like a diary for me, something that I share publicly, but is often discussing things that are top of mind that I think some of you may relate to.
0:35 So that being said, let me go ahead and get into this topic and explore some different reasons as to why some people get this sense that some of us are being condescending. The number one reason is that many expats have an expanded worldview. I found that some people that I talked to back home, they want to relate to me. They start bringing up, 'Well, I saw this about that country.' I have boots-on-the-ground experience, so I'm going to share with them, 'Well, this is my perception.' It's not my intention to make them feel like their experience is less legitimate, but rather to point out, I mean, there's a lot of experiences that it works in reverse. There's a lot of experiences that you can have in the US that are going to be different than what a news story online will cover, right?
1:23 I mean, there's many different examples that if you look at the people who actually experienced that event, like the pandemic in America, they're going to have a different perspective than people who watched some random news organization covering one small experience and is doing so in such a way to create a certain narrative that may be different. And so this expanded worldview can, I think, make people feel like, 'Oh, you think you're better than me because you're over there experiencing life in a way that I can't?' And so there's this disconnection there where you're talking about things from a global perspective, and they may only have the frame of reference of living in their own country.
2:13 In many ways, I feel like we who have the privilege to live overseas, I think that we feel like we've grown in certain ways. The people back home feel like they may have not grown. It's almost like we're getting to participate in that personal growth that in some ways they feel that they aren't being able to participate in. Because when you go abroad, I found in some ways it can force you to think critically. It can contradict what you want to believe. I've had that experience many times in many countries.
2:41 I had that experience when I went to Mexico where I talked to Americans, 'Oh no, don't go there. Don't go there. Oh, it's so bad.' And I went there, it was fantastic. Now, I do feel like if somebody was secure in their love for the United States, they'd have no problem with saying, 'Hey, I went to Mexico, it was a lot better than what I was told.' But for whatever reason, talking about Mexico in a positive light seems to elicit either a negative response or a positive response depending on who you're talking to back home. And to me, it just is what it is. It's not positive, it's not negative, it's different.
3:14 I mean, I've had good experiences there. I'm sure some people have had different kinds of experiences. But you know, it's like, should I just not talk about that? And maybe that's the conclusion I come to, is to just don't talk about it. Because one of my friends that's a traveler, he's traveled to many different places. He tells me, 'Look, I don't even talk about my travels anymore to people back home because it seems like unless they bring it up to me, nothing ever good comes of it.'
3:43 Number two is the romanticization of foreign life. I think for some of us, and I'm guilty of this one for sure, we play up the positives and we downplay the negatives. And it comes across as being dismissive of back home when we do the reverse, when all we focus on is the reverse back home. But, and I talked to one of my friends about this, and he mentioned, 'The guy with the perfect life ain't coming over here. The guy that's got the happy family and the grandkids and the nice home and the cars, what appeal is there to come over here?'
4:14 So naturally, you have a self-selecting group of people that they've come over here. They have strong reasons for that. It's not just, 'Oh, I got bored.' Boredom is the tip of the iceberg for most of us. I don't think it's just I got bored. I think for most of us, boredom is the tip of the iceberg that is alongside many other issues that we're dealing with back home. This attitude can suggest that foreign cultures are more enriching than the cultures back home. And this implication can really make people feel upset, I think, especially those who may feel especially patriotic or proud of the United States, as though I'm dismissive of their life in general. And that's not my intention.
4:59 I can only talk about my own experiences, right? To me, this channel is not just about me. This channel is about us and all of our shared experiences. And so many of the things that I talk about, it's not saying, 'I'm having this experience, you have to have this experience.' It's more like, 'I'm having this experience or I've had this experience, and you may also share that experience.' But I think that for those who don't ever see themselves being able to leave, they feel like, 'Well, this is the best I've got. Don't rub it in my face that you're able to go somewhere else.'
5:29 Of course, this doesn't even get into the people that say, 'Well, what about what about what about?' Yes, I know there are people struggling in every country, but I can only speak to my own struggles. I will never be a local person here. I'm not from here, if you can't tell. I'm not from here, and so I can't speak to their experience. 'Oh yes, you can.' I'm not going to make a documentary video where I go into neighborhoods of modest means and, 'Oh, look at how bad it is,' and this and that. Because you think I get hate now? I would get a ton of hate if I did that. And I don't want to put those people down. And I don't think that's particularly helpful to, 'Oh, look at how America is so amazing compared to this.'
6:07 A lot of times, I think people, I don't know if it's that they feel so proud of America that they don't want to acknowledge any challenges. I don't know if it's that they need to buy into some kind of delusion about how their life is awesome, so everybody's life should be awesome in America. If they watch some TV show about how life is hard in some other country, then everybody in that country's life should be hard. There's a lot more nuance to it than that. I mean, it's almost like some people want me to go around saying, 'Oh, look at how bad it is here. Oh, I wish I was back in America. Oh, this proves that America is so much better.'
6:38 No, there are some things I miss from back home. Overall, there's not a lot that I miss back home. Sorry, not sorry. I'm not intending to be condescending, but everybody's life back home is so individualized. And it's not realistic to say, 'My life is awesome, so your life is awesome too.' No, that's just projection. If you want me to cover the struggles of life here, feel free to connect me with a Filipino person who can speak more to the struggles of the average local person. I only understand so much as a foreigner.
7:14 I'm not opposed to covering that, but I wouldn't be speaking from personal experience. It's just not realistic for me to say, 'Oh, I know how bad it is.' No, people's struggles are unique to the individual. No two people's problems are the same. One person might have a physical disability, one person might struggle with their mental well-being, another person may have gone through some tragic circumstances, maybe a combination of the three. But I think sometimes some Americans get it in their head, 'Everybody's like me,' and it causes or creates severe cognitive dissonance when they're confronted with people that have a different opinion.
7:48 I think this part of the assumption that expats are condescending, or many expats are condescending, is that people expect everybody from the United States to be the same. And it's not. It's a multicultural society by definition. There are people of different cultures, different experiences that have different ways of thinking. And that's just part of life in America. Pretending all Americans are the same, even a couple hundred years ago, there was a class structure in the United States. And that's not changed, and that's not going to ever change from what I can tell.
8:18 I just don't see that as being likely. People get really upset when I talk about the class structure in America, as though I am putting them down to point it out. It's something that some people say, 'Oh, America's a classless society.' Not anymore, okay? Not anymore. Let's, you have to be willfully ignorant to not see the decline of social mobility in the United States, the income inequality, the percentage of Americans living paycheck to paycheck who can't afford a $400 emergency is substantial. So to pretend that these aren't an issue is just doing mental gymnastics to avoid confronting the reality of the situation.
9:01 When people talk about how you're romanticizing life overseas, well, in many of the countries that I've spent time in or lived in, the difference between those countries and the United States is in those countries, there's a cultural norm of helping out family or supporting family. I've got so many different examples of this around the world. Like in Peru, I had dated a woman briefly, and she wanted to start a restaurant, so she opened a popup restaurant in her mom's restaurant. Another country I've been to, some had some financial difficulties, they moved back in with their parents. These kinds of things are looked down upon by many Americans. Not all, but many Americans would look down on this kind of behavior.
9:39 So this idea that, 'Oh, the struggles are the same,' and, 'Oh, you're overlooking.' At no, I mean, I went to a community party at Fiesta a couple days ago. A friend invited me, and the whole neighborhood showed up. Everybody's enjoying having food together.
9:56 Enjoying having food together, enjoying beverages, singing karaoke, and really just having a wonderful time in a community. I compare that to back in the US, and there's just less and less of a sense of community over time. Now, I know some people get offended by this. They have a great community; that's awesome. If you have a great community in the US, that's fantastic. I know many of us do not.
10:17 The next point, point number three, is overcompensation for cultural adaptation. One of the things that the Filipinos have taught me is to chill out, to be more calm, to be more resilient, to be willing to overlook imperfections, to make the best of things, and to have a positive attitude. Sometimes when I talk to people back home, they're so frustrated in the grind that they are not only frustrated, but if you tell them, 'Man, just chill out,' or 'Just relax,' or 'Just calm down,' it's almost like you're being accused of being condescending or dismissive of their frustrations.
10:57 It's like, look, I can't help but learn from the Filipinos. I can't help but appreciate their insight and their emotional intelligence and their wisdom. I can't help it. I'm not trying to be ugly, but it's really given me a lot of peace of mind to learn from the way that they handle things in such a calm manner. In many cases, not always, but in many cases, in times where previously I would have acted with frustration, I would have acted with anger. I don't know what they expect me to say. Should I say, 'Oh, these Filipinos are too calm in the face of difficulty? They should be more frustrated?'
11:31 The fourth point is identity reinforcement. I found that people have this strong, 'You're a traitor if you go over there. You should stand and fight in the United States.' We're a nation of immigrants, and everybody is either an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants, unless you're a Native American, unless you're an indigenous person. Then you came from somebody who came from somewhere else. And I'm thinking, your ancestors didn't stand and fight.
11:54 Now, of course, I know there are many refugees. I'm not here to put down refugees or people in that situation. For the majority of Americans, you left seeking a better life, which is the case for the majority of expats. Most of us are seeking a better life than what we could have in our home country, and there's some vulnerability in that. There's some risk-taking in that. There is the chance that we fail, right? Not everybody succeeds over here. That's a misconception that it works out for everybody.
12:22 If you feel that expats are condescending, shouldn't you be happy that they're not living in the United States anymore or in the UK anymore? Shouldn't you feel great that they're not using public resources like public transportation?
12:32 The fifth point is that many of us expats are dealing with insecurity, and I think that that can cause us to engage in condescending behavior. I'm often hearing about people in my home city, Nashville, bragging to me about how many people are moving there. And then I immediately get into the cost about how expensive Nashville has gotten, how it's become a very costly place to live, and it's no longer affordable for a lot of people.
13:02 And then they admit, 'Well, I plan to eventually take over my parents' house.' But if you're in my case, you aren't so fortunate to have parents who will leave you a home. Then prices on housing skyrocketing just makes it less appealing for me to go back, right? If houses were $250,000 and now they're $500,000 on average, that only reinforces my sense of insecurity of, 'Okay, so that's awesome that you're going to have a place to live, but I'm going to pay higher and higher rent while not being able to save as much money or to plan for my future.'
13:37 So yeah, there is some level of insecurity there. The skyrocketing cost of housing only reaffirms my decision to spend time overseas because my rent here is a fraction of what it would be back home. That's not going to change. Yes, rent may go up. Rent in many other countries will never be comparable to the United States because the United States has policies designed to create artificial pressure on the housing market. There are rules and laws that prevent the construction of new housing, and you have the policy of mass immigration that brings lots and lots of demand to the supply.
14:08 Many other countries may have immigration, but they build plenty of housing. They may have a high birth rate, but they build plenty of housing, or they have a declining population and may have overbuilt in the past. Japan is an example of this, where people would say, 'Oh, Japan's housing is going to get really expensive.' No, it's not. They have too much housing. There's cheap houses all over the country, countryside, and in the big cities. They do not have NIMBYism.
14:30 People talk about how awesome their lives are back home. I am happy for many of them, but others I can tell they're playing this kind of game where they pretend things are better than they are, or that one day things will get better. And I'm wondering, 'Okay, I've been out of the country for over a year now, close to a year and a half. Have things gotten better in the last year and a half?' From what I can tell, they haven't. I doubt that there's been meaningful change in the last year and a half.
14:56 Some of it has also made hope coping with the challenges of living overseas. It's not perfect. You can tell the Philippines can be a bit noisy at times. You can tell it is hot sometimes. It rains too much for my liking. It's not always perfect. I said the word 'paradise,' and I'm going to do a video on that, qualifying that. I do have to remind myself sometimes of the challenges back home and why I'm here, because not every day is perfect.
15:21 I have to remind myself of the tradeoff that I make to live here and the tradeoffs that come with living over here for a long time. Part of that is seeing what's going on back home. So when I talk to people back home and I ask them about pricing or ask them about work, these are two of the things that come up all the time in conversations with people back home. Then the conversation gets kind of dark.
15:44 And I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that, right? I mean, if I didn't validate the experiences of other expats, how would it make any sense if I told these guys coming over here, 'Oh man, you need to just go back home'? I hate that attitude. You need to just stay home. You don't need to drive up the prices around here. No, I get it. I get why so many people want to leave the United States these days. More and more people that 10 years ago I never would have imagined would want to live outside the United States are now thinking, 'Man, I need to try my life over there.'
16:14 So yeah, it can come across as condescending when you can see my insecurities, and you can also see my desire to validate the reasons why I'm here. But that's just who I am. That's just the way I am. I know it's not for everybody, but I'm so thankful that this message is resonating with so many of you, as I can tell by the growth of the channel. When it boils down to it, I'm just trying to share my own experiences.
16:37 I was unhappy back home in many different ways. I will be unhappy when I have to go back home. I am happier over here. I am generally more content with life over here. It's not meant to dismiss the experiences of people back home, but you have to save yourself. And I found that living overseas is one of the ways in which I can save myself, that I can prioritize my own wellbeing, look out for my future, and live a better life.
17:03 I tend not to think that people here are super out of touch with life back home. Most of the people I know here have lived 30, 40 years of their lives back in the United States or in the UK or in Australia, and they're very familiar with the cost of living. They're very familiar with the lifestyle. I would say some Boomers have escaped some of these issues. They had certain protections or certain advantages that many of the younger generations don't have.
17:26 But even many of the Boomers have had some of their own fair share of challenges. And I have some Boomer friends here that acknowledge the challenges and the struggles back in the US. They haven't had these perfect, idyllic lives that they're accused of having, and they validate my perceptions and my feelings while still encouraging me to make good decisions.
17:45 So in closing, I think one of the biggest differences between me and non-Asian Americans is that I think more collectivistic. I know that individualism is important. I do value individualism, but I grew up in an Asian household. I grew up being taught the group is more important than the individual. Much of my channel and what I talk about is influenced by that perspective. It's not for everybody, but it is who I am.
18:10 Anyway, let me know what you think down in the comments below. Am I condescending? Am I a jerk? Totally fine for you to feel that way. I can be a jerk sometimes, but it's not intentional. I do have more personal growth to go for. I do have many improvements that I can make in my life. I'm far from a perfect person.
18:30 And I appreciate the feedback. The feedback that you have for me is a gift. It helps me to improve the channel, helps me to improve myself. I appreciate you so much for watching. Give us a thumbs up if you found this content to be helpful, and please subscribe to the channel down below if you want to see more content like this.
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