On expats (expatriates)
Expat is a national of one country working/living in another. A friend told me once that there are three kinds of expats working in developing countries: missionaries, mercenaries, and misfits. The Ukrainian landscape presents all three types. (As any generalization, this classification is rude and unfair to many wonderful people working in the development. I don’t want them feel under appreciated and mistreated; and I definitely don’t want to insult anyone.)
Missionary: a foreigner who honestly thinks that he can change something, make world a better place, etc. They normally work in remote locations while getting paid nearly nothing. American Peacecore volunteers can often be enlisted to this category unless they belong to the last one. Hey, with our internship allowance I could be enlisted as one. There are many wonderful people in this group. However, I just want to quote a phrase that another friend has told me. It was heard during a discussion in one international organization about volunteers: “if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”.
Mercenary: in developing countries they can be described as a foreigner working and living in a poor country while getting (usually) their ‘developed home-country’ salary. Their prime reason is money – old-fashioned dollar. Like Europeans that used to go to work in India and Africa couple of centuries ago, new generation does the same. I would be the last person to criticize them: to afford a really nice lifestyle here one needs less money than in the so-called ‘developed’ world. I actually like this category – they usually have a clear idea what they are doing and why.
Misfit: the domineering category. Financially can belong to either of the above categories. The psychological background is what separates them from the two categories above. These are the people who want attention and/or power. Many of them can be described as losers. These are the people who were small fish in a big pond back home. Coming to Ukraine they suddenly find the situation reversed, and they love it. They embark on a power trip and become often unrecognizable to those who knew them at home.
Absolute majority of this category in Ukraine are males. A guy who would have never been looked at twice suddenly finds himself surrounded by beautiful women who were always way out of his league. He starts badmouthing them, becomes arrogant and mean. The best example I have seen in Ukraine so far was forty something year old, Australian male who came to Ukraine for holiday and decided to teach English here for undetermined time. I have never seen the guy with the same woman twice. However, I have seen him with underage girls.
The worst kind of all is an American male coming to Ukraine in search of a wife, or so he says. It is usually a man in his late forties or fifties. He has relatively low or no education. He works in a dead end, boring, meaningless job in the US. Here he tries to project ‘I am a very successful American businessmen planning/doing business in Ukraine’ image. He thinks he is a god’s gift to women and acts accordingly. He hits on any female below age of 25. He badmouths North American women constantly. Usually comes on a numerous ‘marriage’ visits, meets number of women during each of them, and leaves without picking one.
The sad part is these people comprise a relatively high percentage of foreigners
and especially Americans here. The result of the exposure of local people to
this category is that it creates impression that the majority, if not all Americans,
are like that. People from this category, while hardly visible at home, give
bad reputation to all Americans abroad. I wish all those normal people, who
actually make up the majority of population, start traveling more to show that
they exist.
©Lidia Bhaskar, 2003