EAC Book of the Week – Expat & Travel Stories

The EAC has a new librarian, Maria Charitou. Every week she selects a book from our library. We’ve reserved a little corner at the EAC for our book of the week, and thought you might like to hear about it too.

Henk Dam (ed.).

Expat and Travel Stories, The Netherlands: Global Connection, 2009.

-Stories to make you laugh or shiver!

-Expats, frequent flyers and (business) travelers’ point of view.

A series of stories describing feelings, adventures and the experience of living abroad. Expatriates and travelers tell about their unexpected, unusual and enriching experiences: what it is like to live in a foreign country? How does it feel when you return home?

More precisely, it is a book about the difficulties, any cultural differences, and misunderstandings that appear as a result of the language barrier, or, misunderstandings that simply involve clash of cultures. It deals with topics such as ‘Work and office’, ‘House and home’, ‘Children schools’, ‘Home again’, ‘Relocation’, ‘Fraud’ ‘Travelling’, etc.

 “House and Home”, p.134-42:

“You don’t realize just how familiar and comfortable you are with everything at home until you arrive in your expat country and move into your new house. You may anticipate life will be different than at home, but the most unexpected things can take you completely unawares. Electricity, gas, water, building materials, landscaping – you have to get used to everything […].”

“Home again”, p. 174-81:

“It’s not always easy to leave for far flung places, but returning home again after spending a few years abroad isn’t simple either. For a while after coming back, many people feel like a ‘foreigner in their own country’ and they are amazed at all sorts of things they used to consider very ordinary […]”.

Main subjects/keywords:

Travelling

Immigration