Homesick

[Neeranam]

I was looking at my hometown on Google Earth and got homesick.

This is the first time that I remember getting homesick. Is it possible homesickness takes more than a decade to strike?

Do you get homesick?

[mackayae]

This is my home.

[jackmuu]

I have spent my whole life in a permanent state of transit, the trouble is that you spend time in any one place and you start missing the parts of another.

Now I am here it annoys me in many ways, and all of the things that annoy me here make me yearn for the UK, but then there are the good points too.

Home for me is where the missus is.

Homesick isn't exactly how I would describe it, more like nostalgia.

I have become aware that nowhere in the world is perfect enough to be 100% happy. If not for the financial benefits of living here I think I would try the UK again. Maybe not homesick, but some kind of sick.

[Ulysses G.]

Do you get homesick?

NEVER!

[Suszzy]

yes, i do

but not very often.

this is my home now but i'm still thai at heart.

i love los as much as i love uk (strange but true)

so, torn between two countries..really!!

[tuky]

I do not really know where home is, so it is hard to feel homesick for somewhere that doesn't exist.

Sure I have country a where I came from, and I have spent 2/3 of my life there but does that make it more home than anywhere else?

Dunno...

[highonthai]

Yes, I am right now. I'm in Los Angeles and cant wait to get back to my home in Chiang mai!

[November Rain]

Like Tuky, I only have a home country - not a home there (I don't even have a hometown; I moved a lot). So, no, I don't get homesick. I've been living overseas for 13 years now, and so much has changed in UK, I have no real feeling for it anymore.

I guess Thailand's my home, for as long as they'll have me. I hope that's for a long time.

[ColPyat]

I was looking at my hometown on Google Earth and got homesick.

This is the first time that I remember getting homesick. Is it possible homesickness takes more than a decade to strike?

Do you get homesick?

To my surprise, yes, the first time in nearly 2 decades.

I guess it's a combination of several factors. One is the messy political and social situation here right now, which is bound to get worse. Next problem are worries about education for my son, how i can avoid nationalist brainwashing, and the enormous pressures of the Thai school system. When i look into the schools and see the military style scout training, the endless hours of rote learning, i feel already sorry for the little one even though it's gonna be a few years before he's gotta go. I can afford a good private school, but no good international school here.

The last few times i visited my place of birth i really enjoyed it there, which i never did before. And over the last two years or so i enjoy Bangkok a lot less than before.

I don't know yet, i will give it a few more years, and see how i feel about it then. Maybe it's just temporary, or things might get better here.

[Zeid]

i am in my originaly country should you call it home call it home, but i am feeling home sick.

so i am not sure if that is justified as home sick for anyone but it is for me

[tijnebijn]

Until now I do not have any feelings of homesickness , until now it has been the opposite in fact .

When I do travel to my home country I cannot wait to come back home here and stay with my family .

But who knows how things turn out in the future , my first decade in Thailand is still a few years short and

how things turn out in the future in Thailand itself could be a big factor , may well be the last drop for many of us expats to reconsider .

Hope it never will go that road though , not for me and nobody .

If forced in whatever way to go back it will not be impossible for me to feel happy even in a third country I guess.

Happiness first of all comes from within , but of course it will be hard to start a new life , no job etc , not least bringing your family over . No Thailand is home .

[Krub]

Barly 20 I moved from Europe to Tokyo to get married to my gf (Japanese I met in Europe) and to start work in a travel agency.

Got home sick 5 months later (I kept remembering things as better in Europe). Went back for 3 weeks during which I realized that most of the 'things' were actually really better in Tokyo.

I have never felt home sick since and feel home anywhere me and my partner are together

[tuky]

Went back for 3 weeks during which I realized that most of the 'things' were actually really better in Tokyo.

It is amazing how it works like that mate.

I am not even in a country at the moment (I am at sea) and for now my cabin is my home.

No, my name is not Roger.....

[WaiWai]

When i look into the schools and see the military style scout training, the endless hours of rote learning, i feel already sorry for the little one even though it's gonna be a few years before he's gotta go. I can afford a good private school, but no good international school here.

Where is that ? You can't move to some city with a good school ? That is truly a big concern.

I was looking at Australian movies on Amazon.com earlier & thinking how unique the country is & how strongly I do feel connected to the country itself- the land, the flora & fauna, the distinctive smells of the bush or the beach... other Aussies will understand what I mean, I am sure. I was wondering whether people from other countries had this this feeling to such an extent.

I love the natural environment here, too btw.

Edited August 12, 2007 by WaiWai

[Jingthing]

I live so many places in the US that I can't isolate one of them to focus any possible homesickness. Already conditioned to feel that wherever I am is home and have learned that I am the same person wherever I am. Geographical cures are an illusion. I do miss certain specific things from the US sometimes, like being able to read the words on cleaning products and really good Mexican food.

[ColPyat]

When i look into the schools and see the military style scout training, the endless hours of rote learning, i feel already sorry for the little one even though it's gonna be a few years before he's gotta go. I can afford a good private school, but no good international school here.

Where is that ? You can't move to some city with a good school ? That is truly a big concern.

I was looking at Australian movies on Amazon.com earlier & thinking how unique the country is & how strongly I do feel connected to the country itself- the land, the flora & fauna, the distinctive smells of the bush or the beach... other Aussies will understand what I mean, I am sure. I was wondering whether people from other countries had this this feeling to such an extent.

I love the natural environment here, too btw.

I live in Bangkok, basically, the best schools in Thailand, and the biggest choice.

In walking distance from my house is a very good private school, with an excellent English program. And i can afford it.

But nationalism/patriotism is part of the curriculum, and the military style scout training. I recently had a conversation with a Thai teacher from that school about it. She was as opposed to it as i am, but there is nothing she can do about it.

Having some conversations with ten year olds about the perception of their own country is a sobering experience, being a combined product of the Thai education system, and their parents who went through the same ridiculous education system.

But trying to give a child a different perspective, especially at such a young age, will make him the odd one out. Now what is more damaging - having a product of nationalist brainwashing at home, or a kid that won't have many friends?

[WaiWai]

Now what is more damaging - having a product of nationalist brainwashing at home, or a kid that won't have many friends?

That is such a good question I am going to start a new thread for it (hope you don't mind for any reason.)

[ray23]

I think not unusual at all to miss the good times we had in our home countries and with time I think that is the part we remember. but the part we donlt remeber is why we made thi o move in the first palce. My life is good now. When I first game the adjustment was murder. So much so that I sit down and wrote out the reality of why I wanted change. I read it a lot in those days, not so much now.

I get those feelings from time to time. when I really look at it, it's not that I miss how things were, but more of what I wish they had been like. Two very different things.

After five years this really is home. If for some unknown reason I have to leave, I won't be going back to the states or where I came from L.A.

Miss my friend and my daughters you bet, but the reality is they are all so busy they don't have time. Just the way it is.

Was there more available, more activities sure were. But I never had the time to really enjoy them. So me I will take a little less and the time to savor it.

[Austhaied]

I have fond memories of the past (in my country of origin), but i don't live in it, i live in the here and now, much more enjoyable.

[qwertz]

IMO, home is the one place you can go back to when nobody else wants you.

I've been an expat for so long, I only occasionally look back at what I left behind - just to check if it has improved at all.

At the last check - it hadn't.

[duratanium]

Strangely enough I have never been homesick in 30+ years of travel though I do miss the odd things that are unavailable in other countries.

I have seen people in tears from being homesick.... not a pretty sight.

[lazeeboy]

Strangely enough I have never been homesick in 30+ years of travel though I do miss the odd things that are unavailable in other countries.

I have seen people in tears from being homesick.... not a pretty sight.

been out of the uk now for 15 years ,can say never get home sick . but often wonder what might have been if i never left .....

[rychrde]

Looks like most here are not so much ex-patriates as non-patriates.

Home is where my suitcase is empty.

rych

[Ulysses G.]

I I do miss certain specific things from the US sometimes, like being able to read the words on cleaning products and really good Mexican food.

Mission Street super-burritos!

[villagefarang]

I have found that feelings about things are seldom constant. They may be more positive or a bit negative depending on the day and circumstance. As several of you have said home is where you are, at the moment. Sometimes after an extended period of time ones memories of "home" get distorted and one longs for something that probably doesn't exist anymore, if it ever did. Usually a visit or two will set you straight again.

The wife and I had a great time in the States driving around the Western States and Parks and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. That made us contemplate living there until we realized that what we really liked was the traveling, not living there. Now we are even happier here than before.

After spending 3/5 of my life here I couldn't realistically call anywhere else "home". When the house we are building is finish by the end of the year then I will finally have a real home not just a condo.

[kat]

Yes, I do get homesick, and my limit seems to be 2 years. For me, that seems to be a threshold of how long I can go without seeing family and friends and checking in. I lived in LOS for 4 years, and only visited home once. I was homesick almost my entire last 2 years of LOS. I just didn't want to live in the country any longer, and needed to plan my return back. I have now been back home 10 months, and I am still undergoing the contortions of transition. But, I don't think I have missed LOS for a second.

[Tinkelbell]

When I'm travel overseas, after a month or so, the feeling of homesick starts creeping in. That's understandable since the novelty begins to worn off.

That's not the case when I'm in LOS visiting relatives, childhood friends e.t.

I observe after around two weeks of been there-done that scenario, I want to go back to US. I missed everything about living my life over there. I mean 'EVERYTHING, starts from the moment you open your eyes until you turn in at bedtime.

Long before, I miss TL for 2 reasons : TH foods and my relatives & friends.

But that feeling changed after we moved to NYC, and lived there for 15 yrs.

Now TH foods doesn't mean to me much any more, once you had the best TH food and Chinese foods, especially Dim-Sum in NY. I've been to Beijing, Shanghai, Guanzhou, Xian, Hangzhou..etc , I think I can say right out. But I rather to refer to most popular saying...... " All the great chefs had gone to NYC". Some dignitaries from TH Consular or chineses from UN always praised the dishes they were being served in some restaurants here, some even gone a step furture by asking the chef for a recepe of certaing dishes so that when they're back in BKK, they can tell a TH or chinese chef to created that special dishes.

[kat]

But you know what I do miss about Thailand Tinkerbell? The beautiful food that you can get so cheaply compared to NYC. I don't miss the service in restaurants, though.

[joeuk1]

Home is where you are happy and contented i am happy when i am in Thailand so i look as Thailand being my home , i dont miss anything about the UK as a country i do miss being able to see my kids when i want to but then they are all grown up now and getting on with there own lives . I am in uk at the moment till mid sept and climbing the walls to get back to Thailand as that is where i am most happy .

Sometimes people need to go to there birth countrys to get a reality check , and if thats where your heart is content stay there , being in the Uk my birthplace is not for me .

JB

[meadish_sweetball]

I find myself getting homesick this year. It's actually the first year I haven't been back since I first came out here.

I like both places, but I have the same doubts about raising children here as ColPyat.