Are you someone who has left their country of birth to move and settle somewhere else, or who is thinking of doing so in the future? What led you to take that decision, or what is making you consider it? What have your experiences been until now, and what do you expect and hope for in the future?
I was born in Hong Kong and raised with a colonizer mentality, and then moved ‘home’ to the UK shortly after '97. So a bit of a weird perspective. I spent my early life thinking I was born into being an expat, and then had a massive reality check when the people in my ‘home’ country treated me like an immigrant.
I lived there for just over 10 years and then got class consciousness during the 2008 financial crisis, and fucked off back to Hong Kong. This place definitely is home, but I’m still a foreigner here.
I think the identity crisis that happened when I originally moved back to the UK was good for me. Citizenship is a legal matter that is difficult to change, but nationality is a state of mind, and you can divest yourself of it.
I would say to anyone considering migration: don’t be afraid of the social impact it’ll have on your life. Capitalism is descending fast and it’ll start destroying your social comforts soon if it hasn’t already, and when it comes to adjusting to foreign culture I think if you’re here on Lemmygrad you’re well equipped to mentally handle that.
Also, if you’re looking to migrate to China and daunted by the barriers, have a look at Hong Kong and Macau as well because the requirements are very different.