Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

Background: normal indian software dude mid 20's. Always wanted to go abroad from childhood but poverty.

Recently got the urge to do something with my life (probably because the whole pandemic situation was really monotonous). Tried hard and got an opportunity to move to Amsterdam and I took it. I went with almost zero preparation because, I mean its a first world country, I can buy everything there and what could go wrong?

Its been more than a month and here are my thoughts. Abroad is good, its definitely not India, things actually work. Public transport works! If you want to reach anywhere within Netherlands (or even in EU), google maps will show you the correct route for public transport and the timings will be correct to the minute. It's really convenient.

All the laws here make sense and you feel like some one has put some thought into it and the people making the laws are competent. There's no pollution whatsoever and the air feels clean. It feels almost exactly like the time I travelled across Himachal and Uttarakhand, but this I feel everywhere in the city.

I can see that there's a lot of trust put into people, for example, in grocery shops, you can buy your stuff and scan them on your own and pay them on your own and take the stuff outside. Literally no one checks (or if they do discreetly, I'm not sure). And on a related note, compared to India, very few people work to "serve" you. In the sense that in a huge decathlon or a grocery shop there will be like 2-3 employees only and even they don't do much. Everything works by card and almost no one takes cash (save for one haircut I got).

Now to the "bad" parts.

The place seems a bit dead, I'm not gonna lie. I'm not great at socialising but I don't absolutely suck at it. That said, it is very hard to mingle and socialise with people. Having come alone to this city, man... its so hard to get stuff done when you have no friends. There's no soul in any conversation, people will help you but that's it. Don't expect friendship with the locals at all. In fact I'm finding it hard to make friends with anyone. Where am I supposed to find them? And the worst part is, office is closed due to covid so that's one door closed. I have gone 3-4 days where I literally talked to no one. It does get creepily lonely sometimes but I have learned to deal with it.

Everything is soo costly here, think 5 to 6 times that of India on average. I literally spend 2 euros on a 20 minute bus ride. 2 euros will get me a private Uber in India. I cry every time I buy vegetables and don't get me started on the fruits. I know I earn in euros but still, I'm not used to caring about grocery costs. Ironically, I'm saving less money in Europe than in India even with the Dutch 30% ruling for skilled immigrants.

Overall, I honestly think abroad very overrated. Once you actually start experiencing day to day, you will eventually realise this.

I had a comfortable life in India. I was earning enough, I had no struggles and I had my family and a few friends. I don't know what the fuck got into me but here I am. I hope things get better but I won't bank on it. I have made a plan to come back to India every 3 months or so and to come back permanently by 2 years in the worst case.

What is the salary difference? Japan isn't so cheap either right?

Co-founded a 2-person tech company in Korea while residing in the US. My co-founder is Korean living in Seoul. We started during the pandemic, with no capital, working remotely out of our homes. Now 18 months later we have modern offices in a tech district of Seoul, with 14 people working on multiple tech products and projects.

I very much agree with the commenter who described the US as a third-world country, when compared with advanced nations such as Korea (as well as other nations mentioned in this thread).

There are many reasons to back up this observation: health care system, education, culture, social values, transportation, digital infrastructure.

Korea is not a perfect country, but it is years ahead of the US in the areas that matter.

EDIT: Added clarification: After 12 months working remotely from the US, I immigrated to Korea and have not left.

Moved from the UK to France after the Brexit vote (the last chance to easily move my family to another country and have my kids grow up as Europeans with the ability to work and live in the EU country of their choice, access low cost or free university education etc.)

I'm a contractor and felt reasonably sure I could find work as an android developer in most large cities - Paris is also close enough that if things really went sideways I could commute to London for work. That turned out to be true, although the rate for developers is a little lower in Paris (and now I work remotely from Paris for a UK company anyway).

Finding an apartment was one of the hardest things, in the end I had to pay someone to find us one. Dealing with all the admin was pretty tough, but visa wise it was straight forward (because it was still within the EU). I hired an accountant to set me up a small business and do the tax work (exactly the same as I had done in London). I also pay another accountant to handle the personal tax (it got complicated for a while because some of my income was UK based and the UK and French financial year is different)

I think I underestimated how much french language skills would help, but also underestimated how much my french would come back to me (I studied french at school as a kid) so it worked out.

It was tough at times but I don't regret it one bit, life is better here in so many ways.

Sitting by the Seine on a summer's evening with friends and a bottle of wine is amazing. Try to do the same in London, you'll be moved on a by a security guard because the Thames river side is all privately owned despite its appearances. That sums up the difference for me, France truly is a republic, and it feels like it.

> I had a comfortable life in India. I was earning enough, I had no struggles and I had my family and a few friends. I don't know what the fuck got into me but here I am

I think you should just go back. I did the same move to NL from a different place. Here's the thing; some things there's no getting used to

1) The weather is absolutely horrendous. If you're used to Indian sun forget it, you will be miserable for big parts of the year.

2) The language: It's just better to be born in NL. English is too comfortable to get by there so you don't invest enough in learning Dutch. I heard stories of people living 20 years there without knowing proper Dutch. Sure you can work on it and it's up to you but it's a struggle that many people lose.

3) The mentality: there will always be some annoying barrier making it extremely difficult to befriends actual locals. The ones who are open to meet you are sadly often times super weird. The "normal" ones don't really need a "weird" immigrant friend it seems. And on top of that they would prefer to speak Dutch after long day's work which makes sense.

4) The taxes: Are simply brutal. The country is amazing so some of the taxes is used wisely, but still. Why do kindergartens cost so much? In Berlin they are free! As a tech worker you are real middle class since it's not a luxurious job in NL (most accountants, lawyers and even school teachers make more or the same as you in NL), you will feel the squeeze a bit.

5) Most tech companies don't offer any shares/options. For such a socialist country this is a head scratcher to me.

6) But mostly dude the weather ...made it unlivable to me and we decided to move back after 3.5 years. Those freaking winds and endless gray skies, I'd cry every time I'd look at the weather forecast. I suggest you look at it as an adventure, try have some fun and if you discover life in India was actually working out good - just go back. Immigrant life is way way overrated.