The article is a bit myopic. Especially since Japanese expats have been a thing for decades. They are not immigrants. They only stay abroad for 5 year stints and go back. They make little to no effort to integrate into their host country.
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Yeah, I really think that the term “expat” should refer to people who are living overseas on work assignments that will end, while the term “immigrant” should refer to anyone who chooses to live in a foreign country for an indefinite amount of time.
And then, there are English teachers, whom we can simply refer to as “English teachers.” (No offense to English teachers, but they rarely stay for more than a couple of years.)
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That has always bern my understanding of the term.
Now “guestworker” is a misnomer. Although the country sponsoring them usually intends they return to their original country, that is generally never the case.
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I think that term could be applied to people on working holiday programs, which the United States does not do, but many other countries do. (I know several people in Japan who did working holidays in Canada or Australia without intending to stay in those countries for longer than the term of the working holiday visa.)
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Yeah, I’m still banking the extra $$ but I probably won’t end my career in the US, it’s only fair to pay into another country’s single payer healthcare before benefiting from it in retirement
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Yup, that’s both a problem and an as yet unsolved mystery.
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I’m from the UK, I’ve worked for a couple of British companies that have US subsidiaries, and in both cases I think the UK company gave the same holiday benefits to the USA team that they had themselves, with general astonishment that often they wouldn’t use every day of holiday available.
My current one has just added 13 weeks paid parental leave for both parents that have/adopt a new baby, and implemented that world-wide which I’m very proud of. I know Germany offers better as standard, but it’s a big step up.
I realise these aren’t the norm and I’m lucky. And that the current UK government is doing its best to erode the free healthcare… But I’m hoping the tide has turned against them
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Ditto for Taiwan, no big draw to go back, though the summers here are brutal.
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Because they get trained on “Sure, I’ve got these rights – on paper. But they may hold it against me.” (Unless it’s possible to “sell” these benefits, of course. Would be pointless in Germany, as they get paid badly, if at all. Where I work, managers make the rounds at the beginning of December, reminding ist to take our effing vacation. Because on April 1st, they will get nulled, in accordance with the law.)
And it’s not even the best in Germany. Quite a few countries with better parental leave benefits, and somehow they don’t get broke.
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Mexican food, dim sum, korean bbq, pho.
Of course, given that lack of these are the semi-worst parts of living in Germany, I’ll take it.
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It’s amazing how American cuisine is so famous for having so many different types of ethnic food that all taste distinctly different from how they taste in their respective countries of origin. I have been to China many times and I have never found anything even close to the Chinese food I grew up eating in the States. ETA: Of course, I love both versions and think that they are both perfectly valid cuisines. I apologize to those who saw this comment before this edit and read it differently.
Disclaimer: I didn’t look up actual data to back my claim up. I don’t know where to look for reliable figures, quickly.
I think that the vast majority of people dying from COVID-19 right now in the US are people with preexisting conditions, regardless of their political inclination.
I would bet social situation and social background to be much more at the core of this.
Obviously a part of white middle class suburbia is very vocal among those who deny the existence of SARS-CoV-2, refuse vaccination, and are generally opposed to non-pharmaceutical interventions (starting with masks).
However, I fully expect the majority of people who suffer and die not to be from this very visible group, and as well not being neo-fascists which use them and try push their own agenda in their misguided protests.
And that’s just my opinion on what’s happening in the US. I am convinced that the probability of the majority of people killed by COVID-19 are neo-fascists or open neo-Nazis is even lower elsewhere.
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The level of authenticity of various foreign foods depends a lot on where you grew up in the states and which restaurants you frequent. For example, there are plenty of Americans who are laboring under the misconception that Taco Bell is Mexican food. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t excellent, authentic Mexican food available in lots of neighborhoods where the locals demand it. Same goes for Chinese, Japanese and Korean restaurants. If your point of reference is Panda Express or American style Chop Suey then yeah, your experience in China will be significantly different.
Edit: you also need to keep in mind that China is huge with lots of different regional cuisines, so even if you had perfectly authentic food representative of one region, the stuff you’ll eat in another region could be quite different.
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Just a quick question before this topic closes in a day: several mutants here mentioned they lived (currently or at some point in their lives) in Germany. And liked it.
I would be interested where you guys lived, roughly, to consider it the locality had a stronger impact on your assessments.
And just FTR, the statement that you fellow mutants liked living in Germany a couple of years ago would have elicited a hearty yikesbutwhy… from me. Most of my reasoning is still valid, but I have yet to find a country which I would like move to permanently, and I have to acknowledge that Germany does pretty good in comparison to many other places.
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I lived in Munich for a couple of years in the 90s and loved it. That said, my rent was paid for so I didn’t have the shock of paying for an apartment in a prime location.
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I lived in Berlin for a year as a young idealistic idiot in the mid-nineties and have visited every few years ever since and I love that city. A big part is obviously the emotional/personal ties I have there, but beyond that, the history, culture, public transportation, how well-behaved the pet dogs are (and, okay, most of the people, too 
) all play a role. The great food, fact that in the summer I can get from a great swimming hole (Schlachtensee) to a world-class museum in an hour without a car, it’s a forking great city. I hope to live there again someday.
Not German, but nearby, I stayed in Vienna for a few months in the early oughts, and I don’t have at all the same feelings about that city. Beautiful, but felt more exclusionary.
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If I had had beer in my mouth while reading this, I would have been glad that my device can be rinsed. 
Berlin, in the 90s and early 00’s, was known as the dog-shit capital of the European continent.
I personally disliked Berlin for living and working there. Changing trains at the Ostkreuz at around 6ish to 9ish on any weekday in the 90s and 00’s literally gave me nightmares. I understand it’s a bit better nowadays, but I still feel alienation from myself in this city.
That said, Berlin truly has a niche for everyone, and of you find or found it, I can totally understand why you dig the city. All the other things you said are true.
Living in Vienna is something else entirely than visiting, and of you don’t have connections to people already living for basically their whole life, you will be no part of it. “Exclusive” is fitting.
The same is true for Munich, in my (albeit limited) experience.
I think it’s a matter of social classicism. Berlin and the Ruhrgebiet are basically the only true metropolitan areas in Germany, and both are heavily leaning on a working class cultural self-esteem in the “true” local population. As far as I know, the “red Vienna” doesn’t have this in the same extent. That said, I definitely would prefer living in Vienna over Berlin, even if Austria in general is a terrible political mess.
As an immigrant from the US, Berlin will always welcome you with a rough laugh (sometimes in your expense), Munich with a beer (and a sneer), and Vienna with a raised eyebrow. But all will take you, and none will try to shoot you or kill you by proxy of medical bills or higher education fees. So, that’s that.
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Hadn’t thought about dogs in terms of poop…
In the US, I’ve often been jumped on by random pet dogs. Like, big dogs. With dirty paws and scary maws.
That has never, ever happened to me in Berlin. Or, I guess, Europe in general.
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That is all true. I did not mean to suggest that you cannot find authentic Chinese food in America (and in big cities, you can find authentic anything), but rather that the dominant style of Chinese food in America is quite different from what is found in China (and the same of course goes for Mexican food), and that this is a really interesting aspect of American cuisine.
In my experience that’s nothing unique to America though. For example the least-authentic Chinese food I’ve ever eaten was when I was traveling in Ireland and what passed for Chinese food was spaghetti noodles slathered with curry sauce. (I don’t know if it’s still the case these days but for a long time the UK in general had a habit of putting liberal amounts of curry sauce on all kinds of stuff and calling it foreign food.) And when traveling in Korea I went to a “Mexican” bar that had a lot of pirate decor for some reason. Plus no actual Mexican beers, despite signs indicating otherwise.
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