It’s come to pass that my current employer has come to the descision that it won’t be extending my contract beyond the current termination date of the 31st of March, 2005. So in exactly 4 weeks time, I will be out of work once again though it’s never a bad thing, just a blessing indisguise!
I’ve for a while now pondered over the fact of gaining a TEFL and then go back over to 香港 (Hong Kong) and teach conversational English, which on discussion with my relatives whilst out over there, the current rates of pay are very favourable plus side benefits such as housing and so forth.
University College Northampton does said course and I’m just waiting on their new prospectus for this coming term, hoping to start the one month course more or less straight after my contract is up. So it may well be as soon as May ‘05 where I’ll say farewell to Blighty for the last time and make my old home, 香港 (Hong Kong), my new home.
Although 香港 (Hong Kong) isn’t how it used to be as when I was a child. For example the huge number of mainland Chinese in the area, how the economy isn’t doing “that great” having been given a good kicking by the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the brain drain which occured due to colony’s handover from the British back to the Chinese that same year, plus the more recent SARS outbreak in 2003… the place is, as my father puts it “alive”… a character which I cannot honestly attribute to United Kingdom.
I’ve no idea how things will pan out from now, though whatever the outcome, I’m sure it’ll be interesting! ;)
Wow. Thats a huge change of direction.
I commend you on having the courage to make this type of choice, its never easy to relocate to another country; I’ve done it enough times to know that :P
I just hope this doesn’t mean you leaving the phpBB teams. :P
NeoThermic
Comment by Ashley Pinner — 04:15:18 UTC on the 4th of March, 2005
the best of luck!
Comment by spoxy — 07:20:29 UTC on the 4th of March, 2005
NeoThermalPants: It’s been niggling away at me for a couple of years now and going back there for my 3 week visit, dispite it’s changes, I think things would work out better there though I know for a fact it’s not going to be an easy change! Then again, as I always say… nothing ever worth doing is ever easy! ;) Since you’ve done it a number of time… have you got any tips for a repatriating (to HK) ex-patriate (from UK) n00b? :P As for phpBB… hmmm, well… we’ll see! :D
Inese: Thanks & you’re welcome for a visit if you ever get that far around east in the world.
Comment by Jonathan Stanley — 09:32:05 UTC on the 4th of March, 2005
Yeah. Pack early, plan well, and take a break. The hardest thing about relocating across countries is unlike moving, once you get on the flight its not as easy to come back for things you’ve forgot. When we moved to America, we managed to pack our house into one container, boxes in all. The company that came with the container metioned that it was the best packed house they have ever seen.
It was due to great planning and alot of work ahead of the time to get it working.
NeoThermic
Comment by Ashley Pinner — 12:33:44 UTC on the 5th of March, 2005
Yes, reminds when I was little moving from Hong Kong to Blighty… after all our stuff was packed away into boxes, we stayed in a hotel for the last few days before actually flying out.
I’ve got the advantage this time that my father will still be in the UK so I don’t need to take everything in my house, only what I need really, most of which will go in the suitcase.
Only bummer right now is that University College Northampton don’t start their courses again till September ‘05 so will need to see if I can get my TEFL elsewhere. The next tricky thing is actually finding some place to live in Hong Kong…
Comment by Jonathan Stanley — 12:40:15 UTC on the 5th of March, 2005
sounds like i went to London just in time to catch you in your current “natural surroundings”… we did have a nice day and managed to see a lot, didn’t we?…
concerning planning before moving… so far the longest i have been away from home is for 4 months. the first time i made a very detailed list of what to pack and in which bag to find what. but the second time arround i think i packed in the last night. ;-)) besides that - as long as you have the most necessary things everything else just wasn’t meant to be! or your dad can send it to you… or you can buy it in Hong Kong.
i was thinking about your dad too. i thought you might take him with you. how’s he gonna manage without you?
Comment by spoxy — 07:07:08 UTC on the 9th of March, 2005
I wouldn’t call London my “natural surroundings”… that’s 10 000 kilometer that way *points east*. Would conceed that Hong Kong and London are both metropolitan cities, World Cities in fact… though their characters are very, very different. Plus most of the time in the UK I live in some rural nowhere called Northampton… pretty good I guess if it I was there 1200 years ago, was the capital of a kingdom called Mercia…
Glad you liked your very short visit to the current capital and we did manage to see a number of things, though always a case of too much to do in too little time. I had lived in London for three months or so when I was a wee lad, though the thing I remember most was how laid back it is compared to Hong Kong which generally had the English my family talked to run away screaming. Guess they don’t like even moderately busy places!
My greatest problems in no particular order are finding some form of sustainable employment, which may very well mean doing more things as a freelancer aside from teaching conversational English and then finding some place to live over there. I can probably pack just what I packed for the holiday, since I can actually buy a greater range of things out there than I could over here, plus it’s cheaper out that way and I wouldn’t have to pony up shipping costs. Does mean I’ll be needing to eBay of a number of things before I make the jump though…
As for Dad, it’s like trying to argue with myself, except over the years I’ve gotten less stubborn and more pragmatic, he hasn’t. He says he’ll be able to cope, though my condition is that he get himself onto the NHS waiting list to sort out his arthritic knee before I go anywhere. So I guess it’s a reasonable compromise as I’ve more or less been told I need to look after my own future first. Plus should I rake the money in back in Hong Kong, he’d rather me to send his out to a nice sunny villa in the Mediterranean anyway!
Comment by Jonathan Stanley — 10:46:26 UTC on the 9th of March, 2005