I recently joined TNT Radio host Hrvoje Moric, himself the subject of an interesting international journey story, to discuss my recent memoir about expatdom and existentialism and civilizational anxieties, Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile.
Jul 22, 2023·edited Jul 22, 2023Liked by Ben Bartee
I listened to the interview it was quite resonant with my experiences. I left England as I had a sense of disillusionment with life in Suburbia of greater Manchester. The same faces, the same places, endless binge drinking was all we did - and all many friends still do back home. The homogeneity of everyone talking about the same shit from the MSM or boring shows like strictly come dancing and X factor shite. The endless FB posts of people screaming how happy they are with their perfect lives - tells of deep unhappiness and "shop window effect" put out to the world to hide their misery - said people shortly after had meltdowns or got divorced.
Felt a sense of belonging in Bangkok, and upon later returning to England for a couple of years to see if I could re-integrate into western society, I had massive reverse culture shock. Viewed my country through a different lens and all the previous disillusionments were amplified 100 fold. I paid bills, I existed, had less disposable income, everybody moaned, everybody is fed up - for the most part.
I returned to Thailand and vowed to make this my home. Now being fortunate enough to be near fluent in Thai, I enjoy chatting to locals and strangers - random people tell me "your heart is Thai, you are like a Thai". Although the special "token status" has been diminished. I think it's good that firms now hire Thai nationals more often for senior management roles - their level of education and English proficiency has come a long way in the past 20 years. Westerners often pass through - here for a good time not for a long time. A small core of long-term stayers is hard to come by, but I have a nice network of friends here - Thai and foreigners.
I fondly remember my English teaching days. I tried to care for the well-being of the students and enjoyed seeing them advance and become proficient in the English language. I also remember the numerous teachers for who the job was simply a means to an existence. Out of their heads on coke every other night, a couple of hours sleep, they'd turn up to teach reeking of Johnny Walker red label whiskey, disheveled, red-eyed, and generally a disgrace.
"It's a peculiar loneliness -- not the kind of being lost in the woods at night, but the kind a person feels in a huge, crowded room when, despite all the noise and chatter all around, there persists a detachment from the whole scene that can be at times infinitely more disturbing than the lost-in-a-national-park kind."
That describes perfectly how I (and many expats) feel about visiting the "homeland" :
- hopelessness which exceeds the ability to descrribe.
To foreigners you are regarded as merely foreign and they can listen and converse.
To kindred your knowledge and/or wisdom is perceived to exist deep in an "uncanny valley".
Example:
To be a geoscientist describing to relatives/etc. back in the homeland
how the spin of the planet is accelerating is received as pure blasphemy.
It is possible to carefully explain the math and physics to foreigners - they will listen.
Perhaps they will disagree, or assign the facts to the "suspended disbelief file".
But they will listen and respect the merits of the matter.
To begin such a discussion in the homeland is just as impossible
for any expatriate scientist regardless of which "nation" is the homeland.
That kind of perception keeps many of us from ever visiting again.
I listened to the interview it was quite resonant with my experiences. I left England as I had a sense of disillusionment with life in Suburbia of greater Manchester. The same faces, the same places, endless binge drinking was all we did - and all many friends still do back home. The homogeneity of everyone talking about the same shit from the MSM or boring shows like strictly come dancing and X factor shite. The endless FB posts of people screaming how happy they are with their perfect lives - tells of deep unhappiness and "shop window effect" put out to the world to hide their misery - said people shortly after had meltdowns or got divorced.
Felt a sense of belonging in Bangkok, and upon later returning to England for a couple of years to see if I could re-integrate into western society, I had massive reverse culture shock. Viewed my country through a different lens and all the previous disillusionments were amplified 100 fold. I paid bills, I existed, had less disposable income, everybody moaned, everybody is fed up - for the most part.
I returned to Thailand and vowed to make this my home. Now being fortunate enough to be near fluent in Thai, I enjoy chatting to locals and strangers - random people tell me "your heart is Thai, you are like a Thai". Although the special "token status" has been diminished. I think it's good that firms now hire Thai nationals more often for senior management roles - their level of education and English proficiency has come a long way in the past 20 years. Westerners often pass through - here for a good time not for a long time. A small core of long-term stayers is hard to come by, but I have a nice network of friends here - Thai and foreigners.
I fondly remember my English teaching days. I tried to care for the well-being of the students and enjoyed seeing them advance and become proficient in the English language. I also remember the numerous teachers for who the job was simply a means to an existence. Out of their heads on coke every other night, a couple of hours sleep, they'd turn up to teach reeking of Johnny Walker red label whiskey, disheveled, red-eyed, and generally a disgrace.
Amazing Thailand.
"It's a peculiar loneliness -- not the kind of being lost in the woods at night, but the kind a person feels in a huge, crowded room when, despite all the noise and chatter all around, there persists a detachment from the whole scene that can be at times infinitely more disturbing than the lost-in-a-national-park kind."
That describes perfectly how I (and many expats) feel about visiting the "homeland" :
- hopelessness which exceeds the ability to descrribe.
To foreigners you are regarded as merely foreign and they can listen and converse.
To kindred your knowledge and/or wisdom is perceived to exist deep in an "uncanny valley".
Example:
To be a geoscientist describing to relatives/etc. back in the homeland
how the spin of the planet is accelerating is received as pure blasphemy.
It is possible to carefully explain the math and physics to foreigners - they will listen.
Perhaps they will disagree, or assign the facts to the "suspended disbelief file".
But they will listen and respect the merits of the matter.
To begin such a discussion in the homeland is just as impossible
for any expatriate scientist regardless of which "nation" is the homeland.
That kind of perception keeps many of us from ever visiting again.
thanks for sharing
i'm unfamiliar with the theory that the earth's rotation is accelerating
"Length of Day" is data, not theory
https://hpiers.obspm.fr/eop-pc/index.php?index=analysis&lang=en#ASTRO
https://archive.fo/c6kpd
we have lost 3 milliseconds in the past five decades.
That may seem infinitesimal
but the decreasing overburden containment ( increasing centriipetal force)
is measured in crustal chunks of hundreds of cubic kilometers
producing some sobering numbers.
This accelerated rotation is not caused by burning fsssil fuels/etc..
It is caused by something else a handful of astrnomers are beginning to examine.
Eventually the dynamics wil reverse,
as always down through the geological history,
but probably not until many volcanoes+earthquakes
begin singing in harmony.
Everyone can go back to sleep now,
No worrries mate - she'll be right (as my Austraian colleagues like to say).
So what are the practical implications of the earth speeding up its rotation exactly
As the planetary spin has increased
surface gravity (nearest the equator, not at the poles)
falls by a very small amount.
---------
That small amount is enough to allow volcanic and seismic energy to release.
---------
The forces that hold crustal platelets in place.
clamping volcanic and seismic activity,
is a balance between thermal forces under and
the weight of the material above compressing the thermal zones.
---------
The increased spin of the crust decreases weight at the equator,
the centrifugal force by increased spin counteracts the centripetal force of gravity,
by very small amounts almost immeasurable.
These very small changes
are magnified by large areas of the crust into observable energy releases,
---------
( A geologist would have a more jargonized description.
Geophysics is the study of the forces and structure of the planetary body.)
---------
The practical implications are graually rising (not catastrophic)
levels of volcanic activity and earthquakes.
---------
It is not a 'doomsday' event,
but it means more exciting news stories.
---------
And, for some locales, some unpleasant moments.
---------
Eventually,
as volcanic ash collects in the atmosphere the spin will begin to revert,
along with more atmospheric and other effects which will further act to
increase the "Length of Day" back over the next years to where it was before.
---------
It is a systemic oscillation, that has always existed,
long before anyone began keeping records.