When Shane was about 2 years old, his father took a job in Okinawa, Japan.
Stories I've heard about that time make it seem like an exciting, if somewhat challenging adventure. (And I'm sure his mother will add some thoughts in the comments below. Hi, Marylou!)
One story, in particular, always stuck with me: To communicate with grandparents back home, Shane and his mom would record audio and VHS tapes and send them back to the States. His grandparents would do the same at their homes, and weeks or months later, Shane would get to hear his grandparents' voices or see their face on the TV screen.
Compare that with this experience:
Yesterday, when we were heading out to Takapuna Beach, my mom sent me a message asking if she could chat with the Adorable Girl. It had been a few days since they had talked, as the boy and I often call home when the girl's in school. So I gave my mom a ring, right then and there, using the video chat on WhatsApp.
We all talked with her, passing the phone around the car as we drove down the street toward the beach. We could see her sitting in her kitchen in Maryland, and she could see us driving down a road in New Zealand. No big deal, right??
When we crested the hill and peeked at the Pacific Ocean for the first time that day, I pointed the screen in the direction of the sea so my mom could see it too. It was like she was right there with us, from half a world away.
Technology is such an incredible tool, and we're lucky to be living abroad in an age when the world has been flattened by the power of digital communication.
All day long, I chat with friends and family living all around the globe. I check in with my best friend Caroline, who's now living in Amsterdam. I see if my good college friend back in the D.C. area has delivered her baby yet (still waiting). I talk to my sister, my mom, my best friend from growing up.
Caroline -- who has lived abroad off and on for the past 10 years -- first introduced me to WhatsApp, aptly describing it as a living room you drop in and out of to chat. She and I stop by this living room nearly every day, sharing a few funny stories, sending a photo or two. And then we go back to whatever it is we were doing on our own respective continents. The kids love to use WhatsApp to record voice messages for her, which she receives instantaneously and sends a funny reply back (we love you btw, Caroline! And miss you!).
I asked Caroline (over WhatsApp) if technology had changed her experience living abroad. "Oh my god, so much," she said. She described her first year abroad (in the UK for graduate school) as a "year in the wild." She didn't start using Facebook until her second year out of the country, and Skype didn't exist until after that.
During those early years, I would get calls from odd numbers and not answer, thinking they were scams. Really it was Caroline on the other end of the line, using a calling card (remember those??) to ring from England or Greece or whatever amazing place she was visiting. She would leave a message -- that likely said "Christy Neff! Pick up your phone!" -- and call right back. That was how we connected in those days.
And that was still an improvement over VHS tapes and whatever people did before that -- message in a bottle?
Which brings me to an experience I had when we first arrived in New Zealand.
To join the healthcare system here, we had to register with a general physician in our town. The doctor we signed up with was a lovely woman from East Asia who is passionate about mental health (something still stigmatized quite a bit in NZ; another post!).
Through the course of our visit, she became aware of my own history with depression and my interest in mental health, and she urged me to be careful, as research she did years ago showed a marked increase in depressive symptoms for immigrants in the months and years after they arrived. What made the difference and kept people healthy? Connecting, she said. Meeting people in the community, finding a job, a hobby, doing those things that keep people happy.
And while I absolutely agree that physical connections are important, I have to think the immigrant experience has been changed dramatically by the technology we use every day. Here in New Zealand, we are connected to friends and family back home -- through WhatsApp, Instagram, our blog. We feel their support, and we're excited to share our experiences with them in stories and photos.
It's this connection that buoys us as we make a new home in our new country. And if we're feeling homesick or sad, we can simply pull up an app and see Greenbean or Poppop on the other end, smiling back at us, cheering us on.
What an incredible thing. And what an incredible experience -- to live abroad and feel completely at home, too.
