Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country? • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by alangibson » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

4ad wrote: post #98

alangibson wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in village so small the streets don't have names, but today I talked to an Ethiopian guy living around here and said Servus to a couple of kids adopted from Tanzania walking down the street. The chances of them getting shot by a police officer rounds off to 0%. Austria has racism, but the US has Racism.

Very few people are racist, although you will find that if immigrants come from eastern europe instead of exotic countries like Ethiopia and Tanzania, the percentage of racist people towards them increases dramatically. Even so, few are overtly racist, yet somehow the society behaves in a way that precludes true integration. My friends from Romania are paid significantly less than their native Austrian collegues. Are…

People are to polite to be overtly racist. You're totally right about eastern Europeans though. Hungarians, Romanians, etc. do a lot of the crap work so they get looked down on. (Pretty standard Marxist analysis there). What I mean about Racism vs racism though is they don't get red lined put of home ownership or disproportionately harassed by the cops though. At least as far as I am aware.

> true integration

I don't believe full integration happens until the second generation. We immigrants will always be from somewhere else. Their kids have a foot in both worlds. Their kids are fully from where they live. I could be wrong; these were my observations living with a large number of immigrants in Seattle.

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

#102

Post by smoe » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:51 PM UTC

BigRedDog1669 wrote: post #59

smoe wrote: post #28

Swiss living in Colombia for a bit over 5 years. There is not that much of a path or sophisticated plan to it. I was tired of Switzerland/Europe and wanted to try different things for at least a while. I have travelled Latin America extensively before and had a short list of potential countries/cities. After that it was basically a couple of months for finding a job I'm exited about and winding down obligations and c…

I just spent about a year in Colombia and really enjoyed it. People there are more friendly than anywhere else I've been in the world. Money goes a lot further there too (if you have a foreign source of money). The thing that I couldn't get used to is in the cities, you could always be subjected to loud reggaeton blasting or other loud noises, even in residential areas, rich or poor. Weekdays, weekends, 8am or 1pm or…

Agreed. It is a very noisy country, wherever there are humans. There are neighborhoods / streets that are on average nicer, but you are as you mentioned not in control of it. The street I live in is actually almost dead quiet at night. The loudest sound I hear is my fridge. On the flip side, in the 3 story house I grew up in Switzerland we got complaints from the neighbor downstairs because apparently we closed the water faucets to harshly after 10pm.

I usually balance city living, which I very much enjoy (if there doesn't happen to be a pandemic), with spending longer weekends in nature.

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

#103

Post by erdo » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

BrandiATMuhkuh wrote: post #55

alangibson wrote: post #3

I married an Austrian while living with her in Texas. I made exactly zero plans before moving. She had the better degree by far so it only made sense to move to Austria. Getting a job was easy by local standards due to a tight local market for programmers. Getting through German classes to earn the permanent residency was the toughest part. I would never consider moving back to the USA. I was always a sceptic of the…

Tip for any EU citizens marrying a non EU citizens. For the EU citizen, make sure you execute your European right before your partner applies for residency. That way your partner does not have to learn the local language etc. The reason for that is, that EU family law is pretty liberal. And EU law is "higher" then local law. But that only applies if you executed your European right. To execute your European right, yo…

I think this is referred to as the Surinder Singh principle, here's more about it:

https://www.freemovement.org.uk/surinder-singh-immigration-r...

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

#104

Post by azangru » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

alangibson wrote: post #89

radicalbyte wrote: post #16

Met my now wife playing online games back in 1999. Moved to The Netherlands from the UK in 2006. Learnt the language, integrated and settled here. We're absolutely killing it here - it was the best decision of my life. We live in a safe stable country which isn't dominated by the wishes of the selfish elderly. We have a fairly well functioning state with a strong social safety net. We're both business owners, have a…

> selfish elderly No one wants to say it, but this is a huge problem on the US too. They used to talk about the Soviet Union being run by a gerontocracy, but Biden makes Brezhnev look like a young upstart.

> Biden makes Brezhnev look like a young upstart.

You need to know Russian to compare the two; but, from video archives of the time, late Brezhnev was clearly in a far deeper mental decline than Biden currently is. Last December Tucker Carlson ran a video clip of Brezhnev, three years prior to his death, to draw a parallel with Biden. A person without Russian (as most of Tucker's audience must be) would miss on Brezhnev's trademark embarrassing slow slurred speech. Biden is in a better shape now than Brezhnev was (five years younger then than Biden is today).

[0] - https://youtu.be/XLVkBdAxGWQ

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

#105

Post by orwin » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

jseban wrote: post #85

4ad wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I could enumerate all the material things that are worse in Europe and better in the US (I have lived in the US enough time to have an informed opinion), but that would get old, and in the end it would miss the point, as I could just as well enumerate countless things which are better in Europe compared to US. The real issue (which causes all the above differences anyway) is cultural. What matters is not compari…

> For me, Europe is an socialist dystopia which punishes individualism, risk-taking, private businesses, and where people don't have a passion for much, no hobbies, and no aspirations. I'm from the EU and I totally agree with you, I'm always having trouble fitting in because you are required to be so passive. I need to have some sort of aspiration for every day, that's what gives me purpose and meaning, and in the en…

> I need to have some sort of aspiration for every day, that's what gives me purpose and meaning, and in the end happiness. And I get really depressed and demotivated when I'm forced to stagnate from idleness.

In 2015, first year with a good salary, i started learning a new hobby every year. River kayak, sea kayak, windsurf, kitesurf, skiing, paragliding (did not learn anything in 2020 coz covid).

You are absolutelly not required to be passive. I'm not. I went hiking three weeks ago, the weather over the Pyrenneans and Alps was shit, so we decided to continue to Spain. We biked through the Madrenas, then stopped at a lake (i dont' remember which one, i think it was west of Teruel) where we decided to do a water hike for a day, hiked around in a natural park near Cuenca then decided to go south and visit the Alhambra, then going north while hugging the Eastern coast of spain. Long story short, weather was starting to get messy when we got around Valencia, so we crossed spain again to get back to France through Vallaloid/Vitoria. 11 days of mostly hiking and canyoning unsupervised, i even found a non-managed river where we tried to do some hydrospeed (without the half-boat). Next year i'll learn rock-climbing, because we had some missed opportunities there, but it was fun and i most definitely will take unpaid leave again in spring to do the same when the rivers are more interesting. Just find stuff you like to do, and people you like to do the stuff with. Also, it will give you conversation subjects and help you discover people like-minded. My new manager seems to be as fond as me of canyoning and hiking, so i'll probably invite her and her friends next time around.

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

#106

Post by orwin » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:12 PM UTC

bovermyer wrote: post #92

pasabagi wrote: post #62

Moved to Germany from the UK. In practical terms, Germany is so far ahead it's not comparable. The quality of life here is better making minimum wage here than it is if you're on a decent wage in the UK. A lot of the difference is housing - in the UK, you're usually paying a lot of money to live in a shithole. Also, as other commentators have noted, everything is falling apart in the UK, so even if you have money, yo…

In your third paragraph you say Germans don't like foreigners, but then in your fifth paragraph you say they're very welcoming to foreigners. What's the context here?

Only went to Berlin, but i guess there is two different kind of foreigners: tourist/students, and immigrant workers. Also i think the night scene in berlin is quite pro-cultural differences, but its true than when i worked with Universities in (forgot the name, rhineland?), you could tell even immigrants were acting German, it was quite weird.

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

#107

Post by Sholmesy » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

hackpert wrote: post #51

erdo wrote: post #27

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 re…

About the bit regarding you possibly commuting from Paris to London for work, I'm curious - how would that even work? Would you go through customs every morning/evening? Has anyone here done this?

It's somewhat common. The Eurostar (train) from Paris takes you to central London (Kings Cross) in just over 2 hours.

Doing it every other Monday/Friday is not uncommon.

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

#108

Post by lm28469 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

aborsy wrote: post #64

erdo wrote: post #27

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 re…

France can be tough! Low salaries, high taxes, high prices around Paris area, heavy administration (I don’t wish anyone going to a prefecture!), hard to find information about services, hard and expensive to find apartment or relocate, congested public transport, mono-lingual static culture, hard to make friend with French, public litter and lack of cleanliness, periodic strikes, small apartments (in EU in general),…

Disclaimer, I'm French.

It's tough but it's a reminder that every country have their quirks and identities. People seem to imagine that moving from California to Texas is the same as UK to France or Greece to Germany, but it isn't.

It's relatively easy to physically move but getting integrated is a whole other story. I moved from France to Germany, salaries aren't crazy here either, I pay more tax, bureaucracy is equally complex, and people are just different, culture plays a big role. People underestimate how conditioned we are from birth to things like philosophical/political views, ways of life, humour, &c. and even language, no matter how long you'll learn a language you'll never be able to express yourself as naturally as a native (I'm not talking about ordering a beer or filling tax reports, but more on an emotional side, having deep discussions about complex topics, &c.) and tbh I like it that way. I'd say it also is extremely dependant on which part of the country you move to, big cities are hell almost universally, Berlin is an open dumpster but take the train for 2 hours to Hamburg and it's much cleaner, on the flip side it's much easier to meet peopel in Berlin than Hamburg. Same thing with Paris and Strasbourg for example

Small apartments, regular strikes, the public system, they all take their roots in French history; the good, the bad and the ugly.

Moving to another country is a chance, but it equally is a sacrifice

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

#109

Post by radicalbyte » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

CodeGlitch wrote: post #73

radicalbyte wrote: post #16

Met my now wife playing online games back in 1999. Moved to The Netherlands from the UK in 2006. Learnt the language, integrated and settled here. We're absolutely killing it here - it was the best decision of my life. We live in a safe stable country which isn't dominated by the wishes of the selfish elderly. We have a fairly well functioning state with a strong social safety net. We're both business owners, have a…

> The UK in comparison feels like a third world country - everything seems to be falling down, and working-age people - particularly those under 40-45 have been absolutely screwed by the last 10-15 years of policy. Which part of the UK did you come from? I have to say I'm 41 and neither me or my friends/family have experienced what you describe.

We're the same age. I'm from the South West, but called Warwick my home. Before Corona I visited family in the South West regularly - driving along the M20 > M4 > M5 or M20 > M4 > A-roads.

Dover, Maidstone, Swindon, Bath, Bristol and Exeter all look and feel worse with every visit.

The shops are where you see it the most. In the past towns were full of boutique places. They have been replaced by "pound shops" and plastic fantastic chains (like Gregs). Or horrible fake pubs like Wetherspoons or whatever it's called.

The South West has just gotten so bloody old. I'm 41, and when I'm there I feel young.

People there are so angry - I'm constantly being sworn and shouted at by fat old (60+) guys because I have a European car.

The country has just turned into a shitshow, only like frogs being slowly cooked the people living there are blind to it.

It's not just me - it comes up all of the time in conversation with European friends.

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

#110

Post by archibaldJ » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:22 PM UTC

user_named wrote: post #2

European. Moved to China. Studied here for two years, went back to Europe and then returned to China once again. When I returned I did one semester at university, studying Mandarin while looking for a job. I've now been working in Chinese tech for six years. Liking it and probably staying. Job market is hot but as a foreigner your options are fewer and speaking Mandarin is growing in importance year by year.

Just curious: shanghai or shenzhen? and did you make the conscious decision for the city or just follow the flow? (I'm still deciding between a year in China or Estonia)