Expat: Women's True Tales of Life Abroad

By Christina Henry De Tessan

Book Overview

For generations, literary figures from Ernest Hemingway to Frances Mayes have fueled our fantasies about the romance of expatriate life. But it's one thing to dream about living abroad and quite another to actually do it. In Expat a diverse group of women explores in vivid detail how the reality of life abroad matches up to the fantasy. Tonya Ward Singer craves a roasted chicken in China and must buy it alive and kicking. Karen Rosenberg reevaluates both her family's Judaism and her own when invited to a Passover seder in a remote Japanese village. Mandy Dowd tries to teach the French about Thanksgiving. Emily Miller admits that in Italy she craves the Hollywood entertainment she generally deplores when on U.S. soil. Tall and fair, Meg Wirth tries hard to blend in, in Borneo--to no avail. Expat taps into the bewilderment, joys, and surprises of life overseas, where challenges often take unexpected forms and overcoming obstacles (finding Drano in Ukraine, shrimp paste in Prague) feels all the more triumphant. Featuring an astonishing range of perspectives, destinations, and circumstances, Expat offers a beautiful portrait of life abroad.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1580050700
• ISBN13: 9781580050708
• Release Date: August 1970
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

Nice collection from around the world.

It is a nice collection of tales from around the world and how it is to be an Expat at that location. Funny insights into things that an expat might miss or why we recreate things that are important to us from our passport country. Aa very good read.

A First-time Expat's Best Friend

Headed abroad on your first expat experience? Wondering what expat. life is REALLY like? Curious whether the expat. lifestyle is for your family? Christina Henry de Tessan's collection of over twenty superbly written "true tales" about expat. life reveal the jagged mountain ranges and desert plateaus of the emotional geography known as the "expat experience." Six months into my own family's first expat. experience, I wish I had had this book to read and reflect upon prior to stepping onto that jet to Mexico. Especially for those undertaking an international move for the first time without adequate or knowledgeable corporate support, the no-holds-barred accounts of these women's experiences will help you consider your own emotional,physical, spiritual, and intellectual needs as you plan your move. A must read.

An engaging and impressive collection of true stories

Compiled and edited by Christian Henry de Tessan, Expat: Women's True Tales Of Life Abroad is an engaging and impressive collection of true stories about women who have lived in diverse nations around the world, and learned firsthand the delicate balance between keeping true to oneself while accommodating the ways of a different culture. Life in Mexico, Borneo, Japan, Egypt, England, Croatian, the Mediterranean, and more is brought to life from unforgettable perspectives in this original, fascinating, very highly recommended anthology.

Excellent compilation.

Expat: Women's True Tales of Life Abroad is a refreshing mix of points of view - motherhood, lesbianism, academia, the working world, religion. It is also a wonderful patchwork of unique and pleasing writing styles, diverse cultural experiences, and even varied outcomes. Some women stayed and fully embraced the countries they lived in. Some returned to the United States with a broadened vision of the world she thought she knew. But each woman continued on her life-path filled with new sight - a renewed acceptance of her spiritual or cultural identity, perhaps...or an enlightened recognition of her role as mother, partner, student, teacher, or daughter. As a traveler, a woman, a mother, and a former expat, I found myself nodding in agreement with so much of what I read in this book. When she finally sat back and watched her daughter flourish in Cairo, Laura Fokkena discovered a comfortable extended-family mothering atmosphere - somehow attentive yet intentionally disconnected at the same time - a far cry from the eagle-eyed, over-protective, Click-It-Or-Ticket parenting drilled into busy American families. This Egyptian philosophy I have vowed to make my own.Other contributors, too, wrote from places in their lives that felt familiar: Karen Rosenberg, who comes "from a family of reluctant Jews," followed a path from Amagi, Japan, back to her spiritual roots. Stephanie Loleng found her own Asian identity in Prague, where the food of home would have to be prepared herself. And Emmeline Chang, raised in the United States by Taiwanese parents, struggles to belong on either continent. And perhaps most recognizable, each woman in Expat expresses her frustration at linguistic difficulties. Each woman is a writer, after all, someone who depends on language - perhaps more than on people or money or timing - to make things run smoothly. And, certainly, as a foreigner, that taken-for-granted skill is slippery at best, even for bilingual expats. Editor Christina Henry de Tessan folds this phenomenon easily into her introduction: "...accustomed to being efficient, competent, articulate, and able to navigate the various logistics of American life," these women found themselves at sixes and sevens with everything around them. But armed with determination, great tolerance, a readiness for change, and often dozens of books, they learn to color outside of the lines they used to know, to create themselves anew.

Never Never leave home with out this book

This book, unassuming though it may appear, is a powerhouse of writing, emotion, adventure and literature. The women writers are strong voiced, sure of their actions and their words and they range across our globe in nimble sentences...looking for blankets, looking for chicken, looking for the quintessential puzzle pieces that make it all fit--the pat and ex-pat selves-- together in one... On the way they write of finding new identities, loosing old identities, and becoming who they really are. It is American travel writing at its beat best--On The Road, Travels With Charlie, Dharma Bums.... It's modern travel writing at its best, too--Bryson can't write as well as some of the writers in this anthology could--especially as these women are ex-pats, not merely tourists. My favourites were "First The Blanket" (Kate Baldus), "Never Never" (Juleigh Howard-Hobson) and "Before and After Mexico" (Gina Hyams) All in all, after reading these essays, you felt as if you, too, had just gotten back from where they were....ninety thumbs up, womyn!