'Expat Blues'

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Hi Scott

You mention that where you live there aren't many 'Jones' to keep up with or want to keep up with you, where we live 'KL City' it seems that everyone is called 'Jones' and they all want more than you, or think they have more than you or if they haven't got more than you take great pleasure in knocking you down! This was one of the reasons we decided to leave England, jealousy, back stabbing, oneupmanship etc, out of the frying pan and into the fire!

I'm never one to disagree with your comments as I view you as a bit of a 'guru' but in our opinion many of the people here where we live are no different than England, we have been really shocked at how much the chinese and malays have jumped on the capitalist band wagon. Showing off about wealth, wanting more and better than the next, talking people down, flaunting money...

I'm sure that people will disagree with me and people will have different experiences depending on where they live. If you live somewhere that isn't the financial and econmic hub of a country then you get a different type of person. Here its money, agression, image etc etc

Paul

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hi, corporateangel,

You're back!

I was adding to my post just now to include in an article on the US property market. It's about "what if the housing market doesn't bounce back".

You're more than welcome to disagree with any of my posts. These days I'm more concerned with choices, and informed decision-making, rather than being right or wrong or in-between. It don't amount to a hill of beans.

Where I am in Malaysia (Perak, in a small town) there aren't many angmos. And there aren't any datuks. The politicians only come around every 4 or 5 years at election time. Then the roads get a new layer of tarmac.

There's nothing to keep up with even if I wanted to. And I can leave stuff in the motorbike basket and it won't be touched.

I have been thinking of going back to the UK now that property prices, and sterling, have gone down. I can now afford a 2-bed house in, say, Lincolnshire. What worries me is falling back into the comparison mode. Who has got what, and how did they afford that! Still thinking about it all. 

regards, Scott

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Hi Paul

Hope the roof was OK during Sundays storm!?

Down here in the back & beyond of Melaka we have not met any "Jones" at all. The wealth here is, no surprise, mainly in the hands of the Chinese section.  They all drive new or nearly new cars and all the big restaurants are Chinese too.  All 'consumer goods' shops we have been to are, again,  100% Chinese.  It doesn't matter if its a bed, a sofa, a TV or building materials its never a Malay or Indian controller business.

I do detect that these more "wealthy" types look down at the '"Others".  Many is the time at Tescos that  the Chinese (allways female) customer just stands there and expects the cashier to scan everything and then pack the bags too - thus holding everyone else up.  That annoys me.  How can anyone be so arrogant.  But thats the way it is here - a sort of Class System I guess.

Also everyone seems to have no problem in asking you 'how much did you pay'.  From house rental, land purchase, flights etc etc.  I just make up a figure thats about half what I really paid and 'people' then seem impressed..............

Status is everything here.  I mean, I must have seen more Organisation Charts (on the wall) in the past 12 months here than in 25 years working in the UK.   Mmm I'll have to put one up in my new house...........


Luckily we have not come across the 'City Life' you are experiencing.  Hopefully it will be decades before Melaka catches up.  I expect the UK is even worse than we all remember it so I have no desire to go back to Blighty.

Enjoy your Easter Eggs & keep smiling:)

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Hi Scott

Where you're living certainly sounds a lot different from where we are, what you have there sounds like what we thought we were going to get here and wanted to get, we've got a Dato in front, one 'sort of?' at the side and an Embassy behind, all a bunch of arrogant s*ds! weekly parties, cars parking outside our bungalow (though no where near as much now after I lost my temper).

We have also been glancing at Lincolnshire funnily enough, around the Stamford area (best value property in the Lincolnshire area can be found in Wrangle, Outskirts of Boston, Spilsby and South of Spalding). You're right about UK property being good value, and although the Nationwide said that property prices increased in the UK last month by 0.9%, the Halifax countered this figure by saying that their figures showed a 1.9% drop last month, so as the Halifax represents a significantly larger share of the UK mortgage market than Nationwide (21% to 9.6%) I know which one I'd take as more accurate!

Homes are still 4.34 times salary which is too high, the UK needs property prices to go down to at least 4 times salary otherwise we will just get into the same mess again.

I don't think that anywhere in the UK is going to be free from 'oneupmanship' its bred into all Brits in my opinion and I'm as guilty as the rest!

Cheers

Paul

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Hi Shane

Its good to hear from you, I think you hit the nail on the head when you mention 'Status' thats the word that was eluding me, its everywhere, I too have come across those annoying types in Tescos, they drive you mad, and the ones that waltz around with their heads in the air expecting you to move out of the way.... gggrrrrr 

A Canadian friend of mine from the Gym physically picked up an arrogant Chinese business woman and moved her when she dismissively waved her hand at him to move out of the way when walking along the pavement pavement chatting away on the phone, I believe she tried to say something along the lines of 'do you know who I am' but when you're looking into the chest of a 6'3 angry Canadian, she I guess thought better of it!

Cheers

Paul

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Hi Paul

Seems like you are not enjoying yourself as much as you expected

On hindsight would you say that you moved too fast in choosing the country and place to Live in Malaysia

and in hindsight would/what would you have done different

Cheers

JJ

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Hi JJ

'did I/we move too fast in choosing Malaysia?' Thats a great question and something that has cropped up in conversation at home from time to time, the short answer is no, Malaysia is still the best of the places that were available for me/us to move to, the big problem that we had was our ages, being 29 and 39 and wanting to put our feet up made the choices quite limited. The MM2H program was (as far as I can recall) the only retirement type program that we were eligible to join based on our personal circumstances. We did do our homework and visited the country on a few occassions, the last being November 2006 where we made up our mind to join the program. On this visit we were able to pool thoughts, views and information with Qjumper and his wonderful wife who were also holidaying at the same time in Penang. So moving to Malaysia was the right move for us.

The place to live part is where we may have come up a 'bit short'. If you have a little money and know of the impending problems that were going to hit the global economy, you need to find a suitable vehicle as a safeguard, for us it was the right type of property. The problem with this type of thinking is that you are limited as to what is regarded as 'safe'. The experts, business people, locals etc all say that historically the safest type of medium/longer term investment is Freehold landed property, and most importantly in the right location. We found the right property in a suitable location but its not the best place to be for a 'retirement'. Its nice to be able to lay in bed and look at the Petronas Towers, its nice to have the shops, but after you have done the shopping, and the sightseeing, had some nice meals etc, their doesn't seem to be a lot left. A friend once said to me would you go on holiday and stay in KL for a couple of weeks?

I'm not unhapppy here in Malaysia, just a little bored and sometimes frustrated

Cheers

Paul

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Thanks for the honesty

I would like to explore this a bit more - can a mod move theses posts to a new topic

Perhaps - "expat blues" in Chit Chat

Thanks

JJ

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Hmmmmm this could be an interesting thread.

I have been here now for over 10 years, and that's a long time to be anywhere.

I don't know if it frustration with the economy, or what but I can definitely feel 'tension' in the air!

Interestingly, it was only about 2 weeks ago, that I was chuntering to a few friends that 'I just need to get away from here for a while'. Maybe pop down to the cool calm shore of Queenstown & Lake Wakatipu for a couple of three months.
I am sure I would soon miss the 'hustle & bustle of KL/Malaysia/Asia. Not sure

I think I am going to have to give it a try

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Paul

Was wondering if this had anything to do with your age group as I take it most of your peers are working not retired and I am making a BIG assumption here that you don't have kids so Its just you and the Mrs

Did you travel much or live overseas before you retired?

Cheers

JJ

48, Married, 1 Boy 2 YO

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Hi all,

Very interesting. Although not as young as Paul ( by a long shot) I began to find Malaysia boring.  Indeed, I asked to be moved to KL from Singapore because I thought it might be more interesting. While I was working and based in Malaysia it was perfect as I was only there for short periods of time. However, once I packed up work (as the company wanted me to return to the UK -something I could not do) I started to be very restless and thought perhaps we had made a mistake. Our original decision was based on the fact that we had nearly 20 years experience of the Far East. However, living compared to working in a place is very different.

 Of course we are all different. I did not want to presume, but I did get the feeling, from some of his posts, like me, Paul seemed a bit bored. As I have posted earlier we gave up the Visa but will still be visiting Malaysia regularly (again in June). We are in the process of getting our visa in Oz (hopefully). I find life here great - plenty to do  (taken up boating/fishing) and have go involved with property investment which keeps me busy - I do the gardens, maintenance, pool cleaning etc. Only thing I realy miss from Malaysia is the tax free status. But you can't have everything I guess !

Cheers

Brian

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Where I come from we have a saying that goes "the pedestrian always has the right of way". Here in Penang it is "the Mercedez always has the right of way". I walk a lot and I enjoy challenging the rich, arrogant Chinese ladies who think because they have a few bucks they are superior to everyone else.

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Spot -on. Did anybody see that you-tube piece on the HK Chinese woman who missed her flight it was priceless. I have a Chinese mate in KL who I have known for 20 years - indeed I set him up in business. When I met him he was driving a very old proton and did not have a pot to piss in. In the 20 years ( and I must say with a lot of help from me) he has moved up in the world . Now is a Dato ( bought of course) and drives an S Class merc. What a change in a guy. He has actually become a bit of a pillock. He hates me telling the story about when I first met him etc . We actually stopped going out for dinner with him due to his arrogance with waiters etc. Sad really but I guess it's a cultural thing.

Cheers

Brian

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Hi All

Was wondering if this had anything to do with your age group as I take it most of your peers are working not retired and I am making a BIG assumption here that you don't have kids so Its just you and the Mrs

Hi JJ, Yes its just me and the Mrs, and you are quite right about most of my peers being in a different situation than we are, apart from the people in Gym we don't get to see people during the day. And as I mentioned in a prior post, the people we have met seem to have been the 'jones' which for us doesn't help in making quality friends. People always suggest to us the option of travelling, but for us, you really need to have the enthusiasm which we don't have at the moment! Maybe its just the weather!

Brians experience with KL/Malaysia does seem to closely mirror my own, the post about the Dato's attitude seems all too familiar, I don't mean the helping bit, more the arrogance that seems to engulf Malaysians that become very successful. In some ways its like they don't know how to to act and are trying to buy 'class', watch a Merchant Ivory film and thinks thats it! It seems that many of us have come accross this 'arrogance and superiority complex' that prevails throughout many of the more populated areas, and to me and others it does become a major 'wind-up'

Cheers

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I guess people who are really rich know they are and don't have to show others. There are a lot of people here with money, but no class. Warren Buffet has a lot of money, but drives an average car, lives in an average house and flies coach. Maybe that's why he is so rich.