thesmartexpat
Breast Cancer Awareness campaigns on Facebook asking women to make cryptic comments about bra colours and where you put your handbag have created hype and hyperbole in the press and the blogosphere in previous years. However, 2012′s campaign has caused minor havoc to erupt in the expat community. This year, women are asked to post ”I’m going to ________ for ___________ months” The number of months is the day of the month on which you were born and the place (a country or city) is assigned based on your month of birth – January is Mexico, February, London etc.
A reader of the announcement “I’m going to New York for 23 months” might raise an eyebrow and perhaps ask a question or two. But when the writer of the status is a globally mobile expat, someone (maybe more than one) is going to take it seriously. Thus, in recent weeks rumours have been spawned - “Have you heard that the XYZs are moving to New York for 2 years?”; e-mails have been written and phone calls made to find out exactly what is going on – ”OMG! New York for 2 years! How amazing!”
I have to confess that I was one of several people who were “sucked in” (as my children say) by the first Breast Cancer Awareness status update I saw this year. Of course, I should have been tipped off by the precision of the time-frame (23 months) but hey, it was a military family and they are precise. I was seconds off sending a note to a second friend when I realised that is was the breast cancer thing and she is not in fact “going to London for 11 months”. (What can I say, I was the kid who pulled out her Oxford English when a classmate asked “Did you know the word gullible isn’t in the dictionary?”!)
What it did make me realise is that when you’ve moved to another country once, your perspective on moving is altered. You don’t see it as such a scary proposition; after all you’ve done it before. Your friends and family view your mobility differently too – you’ve already moved to one other country so its easily conceivable that you might move to another. A serial expat is born?
I’ve moved countries 6 times already and I’d prefer to avoid the fallout so you won’t be seeing “I’m going to Austria for 10 months” on my Facebook status this spring.
Filed under: The Expat Experience Tagged: | accompanying partner, Expat, expat life
Aha, so that’s what it’s been about … thank you for enlightening me! I remember the previous campaigns but I obviously missed the email on this one
When you see it now, you won’t be fooled
I was seething with jealousy before I found out what was going on — I couldn’t understand why all my Facebook friends were suddenly moving to these exotic places. I won’t be participating in the game, although I must admit, I do like the idea of spending a year or so in St. Petersburg.
Glad I’m not the only one!! I’d be happy with my 10 months in Austria – a ski season and a summer
I fell for it when I saw a friend’s status (and inveterate global traveler pining to move overseas). Isn’t it funny that the originators view moving somewhere big/exotic/overseas as an attention grabber? The bra color and purse location were meant to sound cryptic and possibly risque. Like all of you, being an expat made me dismiss the thought of participating precisely because it COULD be true. (But sadly isn’t…)