Happier Abroad Forum Community

Good video by an American expat who explains why whenever she comes back to the USA to visit family and friends, she has reverse culture shock!

The woman from the first video explains why she moved from the United States to Italy.

This woman who moved to the Netherlands explains why she will never work or live in the United States ever again.

In this video she gives a rant explaining the 6 lies America told her.

What a shame that, for persons with disabilities that have an especially hard time keeping a job, America is exactly like a prison cell.

Regarding the first video... I mostly agree. However, she needs to supply proof for the claim that Americans are not happy. In the recent World Happiness Report 2021, the USA actually improved its happiness ranking from the previous year, which was already higher than most of the world. It's certainly possible to dispute the methodology for that report, which relies on some amount of subjective data (surveys), but what do we have that is better.

Ironically, the #1 ranked country for 4 years running is Finland--a country which I have never even seen mentioned on this "Happier Abroad" board. Whereas the country that is mentioned the most on this board--Philippines--dropped in the happiness rankings significantly for 2021. The irony.

USA is for sure not a place you expect to be a first class world country.
However there are many places in the world which are worse for living than USA, too. This also has to be said.

USA is somehow between - if you are lucky, maybe fine - but if you get a problem you can end up badly.

There are some issues which are pointing often to USA to be an underdeveloped country with greedy corrupt leadership - you don't expect that from an advanced country.

Particularly what comes to my mind....for sure USA in this sense is rather different from Europe and Japan where I am living now.

1 - medical bills are a horror, not regulated, overpriced, same with prescription drugs.
2 - health insurances do exist, but they kick you out in case you are getting old or getting seriously sick
3 - an unrealistic huge prison population, street crime, gun culture
4 - a high number of homeless people
5 - overpriced higher education
6 - a legal mess, federal states with different laws and overpriced fees for legal assistance
7 - missing labor rights, people working even only for tips - missing minimum public retirement allowance
8 - serious racial tensions which often turn violent

I am sure you can continue this list with other serious issues, but those are the most frequent ones for people like myself, who are not living in USA and are not US citizens. These are also major reasons, why I do not want to live in USA.

Mercury wrote: ↑

April 14th, 2021, 5:45 pm

What a shame that, for persons with disabilities that have an especially hard time keeping a job, America is exactly like a prison cell.

Except America is the prison cell that you can leave anytime.

yick wrote: ↑

April 14th, 2021, 11:07 pm

Except America is the prison cell that you can leave anytime.

True, you can apply for a passport and leave anytime USA.
USA passport is a fairly good passport, you can enter many countries as a tourist even often without any visa for 1 to 3 months..

The question is more about where to go if you consider to move out of the States and prefer to stay elsewhere for long-term - and of course it's also about how much money you have, what kind of qualification you have and what work you can do, your language skills, and so on. Long-term visa and working permit is much more difficult than a tourist visa to obtain.

yick wrote: ↑

April 14th, 2021, 11:07 pm

Mercury wrote: ↑

April 14th, 2021, 5:45 pm

What a shame that, for persons with disabilities that have an especially hard time keeping a job, America is exactly like a prison cell.

Except America is the prison cell that you can leave anytime.

Travelling abroad is expensive. Passports, air fares, Visas, those who can't work and receive disability every month, especially those born with a disability that disrupts their ability to work, are out of luck as you will need a job if you want to live outside the USA. Especially now that international travel is impossible due to Covid-19.

Generally, only the middle and upper class (those that make at least 30k or more a year) are capable of international travel and moving abroad.

Mercury wrote: ↑

April 15th, 2021, 12:34 pm

yick wrote: ↑

April 14th, 2021, 11:07 pm

Mercury wrote: ↑

April 14th, 2021, 5:45 pm

What a shame that, for persons with disabilities that have an especially hard time keeping a job, America is exactly like a prison cell.

Except America is the prison cell that you can leave anytime.

Travelling abroad is expensive. Passports, air fares, Visas, those who can't work and receive disability every month, especially those born with a disability that disrupts their ability to work, are out of luck as you will need a job if you want to live outside the USA. Especially now that international travel is impossible due to Covid-19.

Generally, only the middle and upper class (those that make at least 30k or more a year) are capable of international travel and moving abroad.

Travelling abroad isn't expensive but it costs money and you probably need a job to pay for it and yes, you will need to make an income once abroad - this is elementary stuff, Mercury - if you are on disability or the dole then no, you'll stay right where you are - what are you doing on this site if you can't/won't make an elementary effort to go abroad by getting a job? Disabled people do actually work and go abroad.

And you complain about women not giving you the time of day because you won't work well guess what? Women in more or less every country won't give you the time of day either if all you do is sit on your arse all day and cry about how unfair life is.

yick wrote: ↑

April 15th, 2021, 3:22 pm

Mercury wrote: ↑

April 15th, 2021, 12:34 pm

Travelling abroad is expensive. Passports, air fares, Visas,

Especially now that international travel is impossible due to Covid-19.

Generally, only the middle and upper class (those that make at least 30k or more a year) are capable of international travel and moving abroad.

Travelling abroad isn't expensive but it costs money and you probably need a job to pay for it and yes, you will need to make an income once abroad - this is elementary stuff, Mercury -
.....
And you complain about women not giving you the time of day because you won't work well guess what? Women in more or less every country won't give you the time of day either if all you do is sit on your arse all day and cry about how unfair life is.

Of course at this moment we can only talk about the situation before and hopefully how fast it will recover after covid-19 is gone.

Travelling abroad as a tourist is not expensive, there are plenty of cheap air tickets and cheap hotels online, guidebooks with some good advice where to go, what to do etc.

Mercury should start with that I think.

If you are from the States and never been abroad and totally unexperienced and unable to speak foreign languages to book some budget package tour to various destinations, which include air-ticket, hotel/breakfast for one week and some sightseeing is not such a bad idea to get a first impression how is life outside of the paradise of the States.

Many Chinese do that, and also many Japanese and Korean people do that to get away without paying too much money from the place they are living for about 5 to 10 days.

US-passport is a fairly good passport for short time tourist travel, most destinations do not require visa application for 1 up to 3 months.

--------------

However to relocate to abroad is a different issue - it depends on your qualification, if jobs are available in the foreign country, working permits are in general required, even if ok, payment can be low, or cost of housing can be high, health insurance is another important issue, no knowledge of the local language might make you an illiterate... and you will find out quickly that women are the very least significant point of concern as you will be busy - maybe even for several years - to stabilize your life in a new country.

This is not so easy to do if you do not have a regular income without working - like a good retirement allowance.
It requires good planning in advance, otherwise you are back home and bankrupt after a few months.

jamesbond wrote: ↑

April 12th, 2021, 8:50 pm

Good video by an American expat who explains why whenever she comes back to the USA to visit family and friends, she has reverse culture shock!

Reverse culture shock? Same with this black woman from the States.

This video is bi-lingual, the first half is in spoken Japanese with English subtitles and the second part is in spoken English with Japanese subtitles.
This woman is really very fluent in both languages.

It is a good video about a 100 % black American woman, who was born and living in Japan, and her parents were also living in Japan in a small city (about 18.000 people) in Northern Japan.

It is said, that Japan is so discriminating, but her video comments are strongly questioning that.

Her first sentence in the interview is that she never felt excluded in Japan as a child, followed by a comment from her that the first time she noticed discrimination was in USA - considered because her behavior was 'not black enough'. Her last sentence is 'So I think it totally depends on you' - she continues to live in Japan.

Americans living in South Korea



20:32​ - Are you planning to go back to America?

This girl lived abroad for 15 years and she explains how she now see's the USA after living abroad for so long.