Migratory Patterns

Kira Sirois can kick my ass. At least that's the feeling that I had when we sat down for our chat. It's not that she's mean or puts off an "I'm ready to fight you" vibe. Rather, there's a "solid-ness" to her, an inner strength that demands to be recognized & dealt with. So what happens when a tough-as-nails military brat finds herself butting heads with a machismo-filled culture? Frustration, tat's what. Kira & I talk about her journey from bouncing around the US as a kid to the better part of a decade spent in Hawaii, then to her new life in Tasmania, and how she's done it all while staying true to herself. It's an engaging #MigrationStory filled with lots of twists and turns, and it opened my eyes to the extra level of difficulty that women can face when they strike out on their own. It's something that I've read about and have been able to intellectualize, but I've never sat down and talked with somebody who was able to so passionately communicate the essence of what it means to try to stand your ground when everybody around you just wishes that you'd stop it already.   Get in touch with comments, suggestions or interview recommendations:   Twitter: @zax2000 eMail: [email protected]   Check out all of the shows in the Migration Media network on the web: www.migrationmedia.net   Please take a moment to "Like" us and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Podbean or wherever you get your podcasts... and subscribe!

Richard Robinson isn't a guest on this week's show because of his status as a legend in Chinese entrepreneurial circles. Nor is it because we went to the same high school (though about a decade removed from each other). He's on because he represents a phenomenon among many expats that I've noticed within myself: We grasp onto and amplify the cultural traits that connect us to our places of origin. For myself and Richard, who hasn't lived in Boston since he was 18 years old, this still manifests as a distinct regional accent, a love of local sports teams and an identification with the "gritty" and "self-important" attitudes of our shared hometown. And this core identity endures for him even after years spent doing odd jobs all across Europe, Africa and Asia, right through his experiences building companies during he dawn of the social media & e-commerce industries in China, through marriage, divorce, re-marriage and raising a family to mentoring newer entrepreneurs and teaching at a major university in Beijing.   Get in touch with comments, suggestions or interview recommendations:   Twitter: @zax2000 eMail: [email protected]   Check out all of the shows in the Migration Media network on the web: www.migrationmedia.net   Please take a moment to "Like" us and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Podbean or wherever you get your podcasts... and subscribe!

Migratory Patterns' 2-part Season 2 kick-off continues as I chat with another one of my BFFs from college, Josh Gardner. Josh first traveled to China in the mid 1990s as an anthropology student where he almost died when he caught typhoid while conducting research in rural Yunan province. But this didn't deter him. He came back for a short stint after graduation, and then settled into a life of middle class bliss in West Hartford, CT where he ran a China-based sourcing business & made frequent trips back. But the call of the #ExpatLife never died down, so after over a decade of hard work, during which he achieved the American Dream, he and his family sold everything and moved over to China for good.   Follow Josh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshagardner   Get in touch with comments, suggestions or interview recommendations:   Twitter: @zax2000 eMail: [email protected]   Check out all of the shows in the Migration Media network on the web: www.migrationmedia.net   Please take a moment to "Like" us and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Podbean or wherever you get your podcasts... and subscribe!

Season 2 of Migratory Patterns kicks off with a twist: On a trip back to my hometown of Boston in December for my BFF's wedding, she took the reins of the show when we sat down to talk about what life overseas is like for me. I've known Virginia Johnson since she started college, and we've been close friends for 20+ years (my wife calls her my "sister-friend," which we both love). In our discussion, we explore how I feel about my own #MigrationStory through the questions of a loved one who has been "left behind." What was it like to make the move? What does it feel like when you come back for a visit? And what can't you talk about because you don't know how to? It was a much more challenging conversation than I thought it would be.   Get in touch with comments, suggestions or interview recommendations:   Twitter: @zax2000 eMail: [email protected]   Check out all of the shows in the Migration Media network on the web: www.migrationmedia.net   Please take a moment to "Like" us and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Podbean or wherever you get your podcasts... and subscribe!

To wrap us Season 1 of Migratory Patterns we end where we began: by welcoming my amazing wife & partner, Alisa (Margaret!) Rutherford-Fortunati, onto the show. A lot has changed since we recorded what was supposed to be a test interview in early April. Now, one move across town, a Masters degree, and 19 episodes later, we sit down to... well, I don't know, really. Alisa surprised me with the topic, which was supposed to be a rap session about which of our memories anchor us to our individual identities, and what sensory experiences go along with them. As we quickly discovered, my brain doesn't hang onto experiences the same way that hers does, and the resulting conversation that we have about this clash causes us to reflect on what makes us feel safe and "at home," and how we're able to blend our lives together while each processing the migration experience in our own way.   Get in touch with comments, suggestions or interview recommendations:   Twitter: @zax2000 eMail: [email protected]    Check out all of the shows in the Migration Media network on the web: www.migrationmedia.net   Please take a moment to "Like" us and leave a review on iTunes... and subscribe!

When you consider that, according to the U.N., there are over 250 million people living outside of their country of legal residence, it's pretty shocking that there hasn't been very much social research conducted on them. This week's guest, Tanya Crossman, is one of the people trying to change this. 2 years ago she vented her curiosity and frustration at the lack of scientific literature on the subject into a large study of Third Culture Kids (TCKs) that became her revealing book, Misunderstood: The Impact of Growing Up Overseas In the 21st Century. In it, she explores the attitudes of Millennials who have grown up as TCKs,and uncovers some surprising trends, including the fact that 85%-90% of adult TCKs have a positive feeling about their childhood and that kids being raised overseas have more in common, and share more common cultural milestones, with other kids being raised overseas -no matter where they're living or where their parents are from- than they do with kids being raised in their "home culture," or even their parents! These trends, and the overall growth of the global migrant population, are direct challenges to traditional notions of things like home, patriotism and the very concept of a national identity being defined by one's citizenship within a nation-state.   Find Tanya's book, Misunderstood: The Impact of Growing Up Overseas In the 21st Century, here: https://tinyurl.com/Misunderstood-Book   Get in touch with comments, suggestions or interview recommendations:   Twitter: @zax2000 eMail: [email protected]    Check out all of the shows in the Migration Media network on the web: www.migrationmedia.net   Please take a moment to "Like" us and leave a review on Apple Podcasts... and subscribe!

Like many people who choose to live overseas, Katie Capstick never imagined that she'd leave her home in the northwest corner of England... until a chance conversation with a Chinese student at university led to an internship with the U.N in Beijing. After 6 months in China she was hooked, and for the last year and a half shes been doing the "Expat Two-step," scrambling to find jobs that would allow her to stay in the country. Now she's got her sights set on following her passion of working for gender equality around the world, but will she do it as an "expat" or a "migrant?" Or do we need a new word that doesn't carry any of their baggage?

 

Get in touch with comments, suggestions or interview recommendations:

 

Twitter: @zax2000 eMail: [email protected] 

 

Check out all of the shows in the Migration Media network on the web: www.migrationmedia.net 

 

Please take a moment to "Like" us and leave a review on Apple Podcasts... and subscribe!

Sarah Peel is one of my Beijing friends from way back, and one of the friends who I admire the most. Originally from a small town in Ontario, she's lived near Hiroshima, Japan, Beijing, and has been in Shanghai for 6 years. We met for a drink at our favorite Beijing bar to catch up, and so that she could tell me the details of her #MigrationStory. She's got a teaching career that she's built from scratch, even though it wasn't a path that she ever saw for herself until she moved overseas, and an amazing daughter who she has raised into a pretty amazing person- all while navigating the crazy world of cross-cultural living, international marriage and divorce, and single motherhood in a foreign country. She's got wisdom to spare and a story we can all learn from.   If/when you're in Beijing be sure to check out Revolution Bar for the best casual cocktails & Cultural Revolution kitsch in the city:   https://tinyurl.com/Revolution-Beijing   Get in touch with comments, suggestions or interview recommendations:   Twitter: @MigrationMedia_ eMail: [email protected]   Check out all of the shows in the Migration Media network on the web: www.migrationmedia.net   Please take a moment to "Like" us and leave a review on iTunes... and subscribe!

As if choosing the #ExpatLife wasn't a big enough change in one's life- imagine falling n love almost as soon as you get to your first new country. In one sense, taking a big life-changing leap may seem easier if you're thinking of doing it after just having taken another one, but all too often overseas relationships, especially those that come about during one's first year abroad, flame out. It's simply too intense of a period in a person's life, and there's way too much change going on, for things to turn out for he better. This week's guests, Cara & Liam are the exception that proves the rule. The couple met early on during their first stints as teachers in South Korea and have been together ever since.

Get in touch with comments, suggestions or interview recommendations:

Twitter: @MigrationMedia_ eMail: [email protected] 

Check out all of the shows in the Migration Media network on the web: www.migrationmedia.net 

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This week's guest has seen it all. 99 year-old Eleanor Liu might very well be the oldest foreigner in China, who's been living the #ExpatLife since the early 1980s. Born in Tennessee in the days after WWI, she came of age in the American South during the Great Depression and WWII. In the years that followed she would graduate from university, get her Masters degree and meet the love of her life, John Liu, a decommissioned Chinese solider who had been stationed in The U.K. during the war. Their mixed marriage, raising of their family & opening one of the first Chinese restaurants in Indiana would be amazing enough, but that's just where her story begins. Eleanor and John eventually found themselves in Taiwan, and then Mainland China, within a few years of Deng Xiaoping's opening of the country in 1979. They built a home in what was then the outskirts of the city, and spent the next 20 years splitting their time between Beijing and the US. Now they're in Beijing full-time, where 4 generations share the courtyard house that they built so many years ago.

Through it all, Eleanor's love of teaching has driven her and helped her make a meaningful impact, no matter where she's lived. She taught English to the first crop of Chinese students who were chosen to travel overseas for university after Deng's opening, and she's taught Tai Chi at a YWCA back in the US. And in this interview she teaches me that home is where you make your mark and where your loved ones are.

Buy Eleanor's memoir, The Red Thread, here: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Thread-Eleanor-Liu-ebook/dp/B079K6NN7K 

Get in touch with comments, suggestions or interview recommendations:

Twitter: @MigrationMedia_ eMail: [email protected] 

Check out all of the shows in the Migration Media network on the web: www.migrationmedia.net 

Please take a moment to "Like" us and leave a review on iTunes... and subscribe!