Foreign Service Reading List
The Expert Expatriate: Your Guide to Successful Relocation Abroad
By Patricia Linderman and Melissa Hess.
Living and working in another country can be one of the most exciting and enriching experiences of your life -- but also one of the most challenging.
Fortunately, this book is here to help. The authors -- who have lived abroad for a total of more than 31 years, in eleven different countries -- have distilled their own experiences and those of many others around the world into a comprehensive, step-by-step guidebook, packed with practical suggestions and real-life examples.
The Expert Expatriate: Your Guide to Successful Relocation Abroad will help you:
- get organized quickly and find the support you need;
- pack and move without unnecessary stress;
- recognize and avoid cross-cultural pitfalls;
- maximize your success in learning the local language;
- help children adjust and get the most out of their overseas experience;
- overcome "transition shock" as you adjust to your new environment;
- identify employment and other opportunities for accompanying spouses;
- confidently face security and health issues abroad;
- avoid separating from a beloved pet;
- maintain your morale and keep your marriage and family relationships strong;
- minimize the surprising difficulties of the "reentry" move, and much more.
Published in March 2002, the book covers up-to-date issues such as the concerns of accompanying male spouses and the exciting opportunities opened up by the Internet for researching your new country; keeping in touch with family, friends and colleagues; building support networks; and even working as an accompanying spouse where local job prospects are limited or nonexistent.
I wish that The Expert Expatriate had been available when we first joined the U.S. Foreign Service some 30 years ago. This is not yet another dispassionate and footnoted treatise on moving and cultural adaptation. Rather, The Expert Expatriate is brimming with wise, compassionate and usable advice from its sensitive and perceptive co-authors. Because the two authors have either lived or are living this life, their comments all have the ring of authenticity. Anyone who is about to embark upon an expatriate existence should read this book before doing so. His or her capacity to adjust and to thrive will be all the more enhanced for having done so.
-- Mette Beecroft, President Emerita, AAFSW
Melissa Hess is a former managing editor of this website, as well as a Registered Nurse, English professor, and Foreign Service spouse.
Patricia Linderman is a freelance writer, editor and translator and Foreign Service spouse.
More information about the Expert Expatriate can be found at the authors' website, http://www.expatguide.info.