Homesick Teachers and Students

[Niko]

Home away from home... the struggles

Do you sometimes feel down because you wish you were back in your home country? Are the strange cultures and food of another country finally getting to you?

Teaching or studying overseas can at times lead to homesickness. More than likely, you will have experienced homesickness if you have lived overseas for an extended period of time.

It's been interesting to note however, due to the advances in the internet and cheap telephone calls, homesickness is not as tough as it used to be.

Manfred, a Chinese student in Taiwan, had this to say:

Everynow and then, I so much wish I could just sit back on the front porch of my parents home, looking over the green pastures and listening to the sounds of nature. Instead, here I am sitting in my tiny apartment with an idiot box (aka TV) which I cannot understand.

Being in different surrounds, with different faces, strange foods, a language you cannot understand are some of the pressures facing those studying and teaching abroad.

Sure the internet and cheap phonecalls now help, but don't be surprised if you find yourself becoming homesick when overseas. It happens to all of us, even the most experienced of travellers.

[AdvantageEnglish]

I've done two stints of English teaching in Japan... I spent 3 years from 1998-2000 and came back again in 2005 and am still in Japan...

10 years ago I had no cable TV, no internet at home, Skype and VOIP were unknown to me or nonexistent and BOY did I feel the homesickness !

But now, thanks to globalisation and innovations in technology I find more and more international products sold in local stores - I can eat vegemite on toast or get a pack of TimTams whenever I like... I can chat anytime online with family... I listen to my old radio station LIVE over the internet... I read the online newspaper and watch the main news report videos online... and thanks to cable TV (oops...better make this quick...Battlestar Galactica is about to start !!! ), I can watch all the English TV that I like...

Obviously if you miss your family you miss your family... But going home once a year is fine for me.

I try to envelope myself in Japanese lifestyle, food, culture etc when out of the house...but when I get home (to my apartment in Japan), I'm on Australian Sovereign Territory. And I've never really felt homesick this time round.

[exported_kiwi]

Yeah, ain't modern comms good! I was homesick for a little while when I first arrived in China, but the culture shock and the job sort of let me concentrate on those things rather than how muc I missed home etc. Now, after 4 years, i doubt I could ever live back home again....it'll be fine to visit, but not to live!

[studynz2008]

Adjustment period will take a month or more, but i guess you'll be homesick whenever you think of your hometown, your family and your friends.

[Teaching Supply]

I frequently have what I call China days and Shanghai moments. Where everything is so strange an unfamiliar you just think what the hell am I doing here, I could be home. TV would make a big difference my grasp of chinese isn't so good that I can watch TV unless you count the cartoons.