Why Shouldn't I Emigrate?

luka

Well-known member
england, it's quite shit innit. narrow, cramped, damp, dingy, cold, grey, oppressive, stultifying, suffocating, paranoid. vicious, mercenary, decayed, petty, tawdry, grubby, grasping, infantile, rigid, defensive, depressed, joyless...

i could go on...

can you think of any reason why i should stay? why do you stay?
the climates horrible, the people are unpleasant, the food is appalling, the culture is debased, the prices are expensive, housing is ridiculous...
 

martin

----
Yeah, emigrate! I've just seen a pagan folk metal band called Skyforger playing a free live gig in a square in Riga, being cheered on by Latvian punks, greasers and skinheads so terrifying you seriously wouldn't want to cross their path. Fags cost 75p a pack. The girls are all into wearing long boots etc. I would emigrate but for 4 things 1) I'd miss Kit kats 2) I'd miss Spurs 3) I'm a bit lazy at heart and keep making excuses not to learn other languages 4) you still bump into fucking Kiwis wherever you go.

Just don't end up in Gibraltar, it's shit.
 

owen

Well-known member
luka said:
england, it's quite shit innit. narrow, cramped, damp, dingy, cold, grey, oppressive, stultifying, suffocating, paranoid. vicious, mercenary, decayed, petty, tawdry, grubby, grasping, infantile, rigid, defensive, depressed, joyless...

i could go on...

can you think of any reason why i should stay? why do you stay?
the climates horrible, the people are unpleasant, the food is appalling, the culture is debased, the prices are expensive, housing is ridiculous...

this is all true.

i stay because i can't be arsed to learn a foreign language. you?
 

Canada J Soup

Monkey Man
You could always go somewhere where English is the first language. Failing that, you could go somewhere with a large enough expatriate population that learning a new language isn't an issue. I lived in Brussels for a few years and a good 50% of the British and Irish people I knew there could barely speak a word of French or Flemish (for some reason most of the Americans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders had actually bothered to learn 2nd languages...all the non-native English speakers seemed to be on their 3rd or 4th). I have friends currently living in Barcelona, Berlin and Tokyo who claim they haven't progressed beyond ordering a drink / saying thank you in Spanish, German or Japanese (despite some of them being resident well beyond the two year mark).

I can't really think of a reason not to emigrate if you're starting to feel bored of home. You can always go back you know. If you go somewhere in the industrialized world it is unlikely to be as wildly different as might be hoped, but the differences are at least interesting. You get a different perspective on the world and being an 'exotic foreginer' creates a surprising level of interest.

(I'm pretty sure you can get Kit-Kats everywhere in the US and Canada by the way.)
 

originaldrum

from start till done
luka said:
england, it's quite shit innit. narrow, cramped, damp, dingy, cold, grey, oppressive, stultifying, suffocating, paranoid. vicious, mercenary, decayed, petty, tawdry, grubby, grasping, infantile, rigid, defensive, depressed, joyless...

ever thought of moving to scotland
 

Trollbass

Member
sorry can't think of one, best emigrate then.

I just left the Uk last year. I can report that i now eat better, drink better, do more sport, stopped smoking, suffer from less pollution than london etc. Of course not all of these are due to moving, but I treat life as a package deal.

Trollbass
 

owen

Well-known member
i am currently trying to learn german with intention of moving to berlin (ha along with the 9 million other london art students) in the autumn...though am betting that i'll be in a bedsit in deptford by the end of the year regardless

i'm not doing it so i can 'do more sport' mind you
 

Woebot

Well-known member
luka said:
england, it's quite shit innit. narrow, cramped, damp, dingy, cold, grey, oppressive, stultifying, suffocating, paranoid. vicious, mercenary, decayed, petty, tawdry, grubby, grasping, infantile, rigid, defensive, depressed, joyless...

i could go on...

can you think of any reason why i should stay? why do you stay?
the climates horrible, the people are unpleasant, the food is appalling, the culture is debased, the prices are expensive, housing is ridiculous...

yeah go on. fak off. we wont miss you ;)
 

Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
moving to scotland is not recommended. the first 17 years of my life were enough for me.

i've been thinking about this myself recently. i'm not getting anywhere much here at the moment. however i have dual uk/italian nationality and italian is *little known fact alert* my first language so i've been considering moving back there. but my mum is not keen on moving back and i'm worried about being too far away from her, so odds on i'll do bugger all about it and continue to rot slowly in various unfashionable areas of london.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
Rachel Verinder said:
but my mum is not keen on moving back and i'm worried about being too far away from her

well, you could take her with you! i'll wager the pound goes a long way out there MC.
 

Rachel Verinder

Well-known member
well no, my mum is very firm about this. her friends are here now. also after her aneurysm in '96 she will not fly anywhere. if she went back to italy now she'd practically be a stranger in her old community. two of her three sisters live in paris, and i suggested that option, but she's not keen on that either. she's been in scotland since 1953, i.e. vast majority of her life, so you can't really blame her.

the paris option isn't particularly attractive to me at the moment either, for various personal/historical reasons too labyrinthine to go into here.
 

francesco

Minerva Estassi
Per motivi di lavoro lascero l'Italia alla fine dell'estate o al massimo all'inizio dell'anno nuovo. Chiunque lascia questo Paese prima o poi si lascia prendere dalla nostalgia, molte città (non certo Milano dove vivo adesso però! forse perchè sono siciliano) sono bellissime, e lo stesso vale per la natura soprattutto al centro e al sud d'Italia. Ma questo è anche un paese che non solo economicamente e politicamente ma anche culturalmente vedo ogni giorno andare sempre più in rovina, non è più l'italia dei film degli anni '60, è un paese in grave decadenza, anche fisica. La natura, soprattutto le spiagge, soprattutto quelle della mia Sicila, è stata distrutta dal cemento e dalla speculazione edilizia. Sento che l'Italia sta divenendo un posto vuoto, la mia coinquilina inglese dice che "ha perso la sua identità" e che la popolazione "è in uno stato di stupore, o di disperazione, o di stupidità". Detto questo Rachel Verinder probabilmente sei già stato in Italia qualche volta, magari in vacanza, magari conosci queste mie veloci impressioni meglio di me.

I always dreamed to live in Island, but then i think that if will be here I will be as unhappy as ever, probably, because everyone had a dream of a far away land, a "never never land", but then reality is harsh everywhere.

Leopardi sognava dal suo piccolo paese di Roma come la città della bellezza e della poesia. Non sarebbe mai dovuto andarci!
 
O

Omaar

Guest
I was planning on emigrating to England. I hope this is not foolish. Otherwise China.

Anyone here lived in China? Or just visited?
 

jenks

thread death
Omaar said:
I was planning on emigrating to England. I hope this is not foolish. Otherwise China.

Anyone here lived in China? Or just visited?

my wife lived in china - said it was the maddest place she ahd evr visited, infuriating on nearly every level but at the same time fscinating. she could not get round the degree ofr social contol and despite what soem in the media present as an opening up of china it is still an incredibly repressive regime see previous threads about china/japan and recent stuff about censorship and the web and... and....
 
Top