(Living in a new country with a different language and culture)
“Moving to a new country is always an amazing experience, but also quite challenging!”
I’m sure it is one of those annoying facts that everyone knows, and I’m not going to remind it again! But if you are a sentimental artist who quickly can feel lost, I suggest you see it from my point of view.
Last year, My husband and I decided to move abroad. The reason was apparent! (I wish I could say better opportunities or new experience, …) But it wasn’t just that. Unfortunately, as you Might know, God is too busy to care about some parts of the world that he’s made (if he exists, actually)! And sadly, we used to live in one of those parts!
I don’t want to write about how we managed to move, but my husband had a job offer in the UK, and we decided to move. It seems it was the most challenging part (having lots of job interviews, proving you are qualified for the position, getting your visa during the lockdown,...); however, it was more difficult to make the new place your home!
I decided to explain the difficulties in four parts.
First:
A new place that you have to call HOME!
Have you ever got lost when you were a child? It exactly feels like that! You Can’t even ask people which way you should go, because you’re scared too much! Having a fresh start, it’s not that bad; You’d miss your previous home, though. For me, it was like missing a part of myself, and it’s not about the place you lived in before. It’s about all the memories you’d made there. How long does it take to make memories in your new home?
We lived almost a year in a home that we always thought it’s temporary! We knew that it shouldn’t be, but a part of our brains didn’t want to accept that. So, we didn’t pay much attention to how our home should look.
Second:
Communication
Whenever I think about this part, my hands are shaking! It was the most challenging part for me. If you were a 5-year-old kid, you wouldn’t know anything. And the best part would be that no one wouldn’t expect you to understand how to speak, how to act, how to behave and …!
Unfortunately, I am a 30-year-old woman who has as much information as a little girl! I wish I had a magic wand and I could change my appearance easily!
So, if you don’t know the culture and don’t have that much ability to communicate and also don’t have a magic wand, you’re not confident enough to communicate, and whenever someone tries to have a chat with you, you can’t wait for a moment that you can escape!
(just like me, when someone at work tries to speak with me, I always go to the toilet and wait for some minutes and when everywhere is safe (!) I come back!)
Third:
Making friends
Good friends and bad friends are everywhere! But, believe me, when you are fragile and alone, you can’t decide which one is your good friend!
When you are new in the country, there are always people who help you. You‘d be grateful, and sometimes you think how lucky you are that you have such good friends in a completely different place. But you would forget the fact that sometimes you choose them just because you feel lonely. One day, you would realize that they didn’t make friends with you, they invested in you! As time goes by, they will become more and more irritable, wanting to take advantage of what they have invested in!
So, someone who is smiling and offer help, it’s not always your best friend!
Forth:
Work
As I’ve told you, I moved by a partner visa. So, I didn’t have a job here. As you might not know, if you live in Iran, you can’t work with people or companies abroad because of the sanctions (or I’d better say because Iran is one of those areas that has been forgotten because God is too busy!) I started again as an unknown freelance illustrator in a new country. So imagine you’d worked for thirteen years and you didn’t have a choice but to start again just like it’s the first day after you graduated from university! I lost my self-confidence; I got hopeless sometimes; I was always worried, and the worst part was that people don’t know me here.
I’ve never been rejected in a job interview in Iran, so when I was rejected here, I thought it was because of the lack of skills, and I couldn’t see any other factors such as culture, communication and… .
I know what I’ve written so far was a little disappointing and sad, but it isn’t the end. In the following article, I will explain how I manage to overcome these challenges; remember what I’ve experienced at the beginning of immigration. It might be similar to what others have experienced or not, but of course, they are not facts!
As I mentioned with that annoying sentence initially, I wish you a life full of fantastic experiences, but when you are ready to have them!