In my heart I’ve always wanted to believe that racists are simply radicals who comprise a very small percentage of the population back in my native U.S.A. Sadly, that hope has been increasingly hard to hold onto over the years and it looks like 2015 might just be the year I have to admit that I’ve been wrong. (more…)
The first time it happened to me, I was ‘broken up with’ via a message in 2011. I remember feeling truly gutted and genuinely hurt that this man – with whom I had shared more time than any other since around 2004 – ended up having so little respect for me that he could say goodbye with such coldness. Instead of talking to me, looking me in the eye when he said goodbye … he ended something special in a most undignified and impersonal way. No goodbye kiss, no respectful ‘I’ll miss you and wish you well’ and definitely no kindness. Of course, he came back a few weeks later after he’d cooled down but the hurt of his emotional heartlessness lingered. (more…)
We all have a past. Sure they range from fantastic to tragic to inspiring or even painfully heart-breaking but we all have one. Depending on the situation, our history can be summed up in either short- or long-tail form regardless if we are talking about who we are, where we’re from or what we do. (more…)
You’ll have to forgive me here from the beginning. What started a couple of weeks ago as a post about simply being grateful has turned into a melting pot of emotions. As I’m sure you know, this month marked the 70th year since the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, killing around 200,000 civilians and injuring another 70,000 (many of whom died from complications later). While I was sharing the idea for this blog post with an American mate back in the U.S., his gut reaction comment was, ‘We ended a war they started’ so now my initial being grateful post is gone and I’m riled up. (more…)
Whenever something new happens I always feel a rush of happiness. Yet something happened recently that has made me insanely happy even though nothing new has happened to me recently. In fact, I’ve had a bit more stress lately so that makes this even more interesting to me. (more…)
There is an undeniable thrill that accompanies all forms of opt-in change. A new job, new car, or certainly settling into a new home all have the power to breathe new life and energy back into us. Now … supercharge that change on some crazy bionic level and that is the exhilaration someone feels when settling into a new country as an expat.
My guess is that being happy as an expat depends greatly on if you CHOSE to be one in the first place. We’ve all met the grumpy ones who bitch and moan about everything, who insist on only eating food from their homeland, and who don’t find joy in the cultural differences or challenges of living in a foreign country. Normally they are someone who was forced to move by their company but didn’t want to (or in a surprisingly large amount of cases its the spouse of that person). Anyway, hopefully that’s not you! (more…)
Inspired by Cecil the Lion, this week I wrote all about it, encouraging others to take to social media … not only on that day for Cecil’s sake but hopefully in the future again for any other cause that needed it.
It’s every citizen of the world’s responsibility to stand up and be heard when we care about an issue, see an injustice taking place or are bothered by something when no one else around us is.
People across the globe have read with heartbreak this week about the illegal hunting and killing of Cecil the Lion. We learned about the consequences that this hunter’s single action will have on the ecosystem of that entire pride, and especially on the many, many sons of Cecil who will now be killed by the next alpha male.
Although I’m not an activist, like so many this week I rallied. I read the news reports and was so outraged by it all that I Googled the now infamous dentist Walter Palmer and then took to social media to help spread the word and give my opinion, for what it was worth. (more…)
First things first, please. Ask yourself…as a teenager were you your parent’s dream-come-true or a total nightmare that cost them hours of sleep and a whole lot of heartache? Well, I was the latter. Not that I’m proud of it but I want to establish my expertise on this topic here at the start. I thought that parties, skipping school to hang out at the beach and boys with blue eyes trumped anything else during high school and I caused my Mom a ton of grief.
Fast forward 28 years, and you’d be in the centre of my own daughter’s first years in university. Her dad and I divorced when she was just a baby and for the most part it has been just she and I over the years. Well, I’m proud to say that over those years that my little angel told me – I’m hoping VERY close – to everything fun and exciting and amazing that has happened to her. I can still recall her first kiss, and exactly how she told me about it. It was so sweet, and made me remember mine. (more…)
![Read more about the article Dressing Up as a Traditional Chinese Opera Singer in Hong Kong [video + photos]](https://www.angela-carson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/angela-carson-expat-travel-blog-cantonese-opera-costume-makeup-hong-kong.jpg)
Actually living in a foreign country instead of just visiting it paves the way for a whole slew of fabulous ‘local’ experiences that one wouldn’t normally be able to experience … and that time I dressed up and performed in traditional Chinese opera makeup and costume now sits high on my list of treasured experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life. This wonderful afternoon and evening took place earlier this year during the first Chinese New Year I celebrated while actually living in greater China and it was so damn fun…I hope to have the chance to do it again (and again and again!). I’ve saved the costume and headpiece so if anyone want to do it next year, I’m in!! (more…)
That photo with my daughter was taken six years ago and I love it even more today than I did back when she was 13! She is my biggest joy in life and there is honestly no scenario I can imagine where a man or a job or an experience could ever even come close to replacing the unending happiness that her mere existence brings me. (more…)
Last week I saw two different writer friends in India sharing an article on social media and it made me want to click over to see what I was missing. Then I read it and walked away feeling personally disparaged. The author was coming off of a writing hiatus and essentially blaming ME (well, not me exactly but ‘foreign writers living in India’ during the time of the Delhi gang rape who wrote about it, which I was and DID) as one of the key culprits for her move away from the writing scene. (more…)
