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In this episode, Jason talks with Dr. Cathy Tsung Feign, a Hong Kong based psychologist and consultant on living abroad who works with companies around the globe to educate their workforce about expatriate psychology and issues facing employees sent to work in foreign countries. Her new book, Living Abroad, outlines the stages of learning to live in another country, from initial elation and excitement to homesickness and despair and finally, to acculturation and learning to like the new country.

Dr. Tsang Feign also discusses problems facing married couples relocating for work and reasons affairs happen, and the plight of single workers who focus too much on the job. Finally, she describes the little known problems of “reverse culture shock” that happens when these workers return home and find that it isn’t easy to pick up their old lives again.

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the JetSetter Show, where we explore lifestyle-friendly destinations worldwide. Enjoy and learn from a variety of experts on topics ranging from upscale travel at wholesale prices, to retiring overseas, to global real estate and business opportunities, to tax havens and expatriate opportunities. You’ll get great ideas on unique cultures, causes, and cruise vacations. Whether you’re wealthy or just want to live a wealthy lifestyle, the JetSetter Show is for you. Here’s your host, Jason Hartman.

JASON HARTMAN: Welcome to the JetSetter Show! This is Jason Hartman, your host, where we explore lifestyle-friendly destinations worldwide. I think you’ll enjoy the interview we have for you today, and we will be back with that, in less than 60 seconds, here on the JetSetter Show.

JASON HARTMAN: It’s my pleasure to welcome Dr. Cathy Tsung Feign, and she is coming to us today from Hong Kong. She’s a psychologist and leading international expert in the field of expatriate psychology. Now there’s a specialty for you. And adjustment, based on over 25 years of experience in working with international executives and diplomats and their families in Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia; she provides psychological counseling and relocation consulting to the international expatriate community from her office in Hong Kong, and I look forward to hearing more about this. Cathy, welcome, how are you?

DR. CATHY TSUNG FEIGN: I’m very good, thank you.

JASON HARTMAN: Good! Thank you for joining us today, from very far away. So, tell us a little bit about your manual, which is entitled Living Abroad, and just what it is you do in helping people adjust.

DR. CATHY TSUNG FEIGN: Okay. Now, the most important thing is, moving abroad has become such a very normal thing for companies to relocate their executives to different locations. The world is getting smaller and smaller as global businesses are growing bigger and bigger. So, part of that is, relocating people, or people travel. Nowadays a lot of people travel; they think hey look, just because I can travel to Europe, to different parts of the world, I can live abroad without problems. This whole, the manual, the Living Abroad, is really addressing the issues that people are not aware of, such as the simple things such as, let’s say, for Jason—let’s say if you were to relocate to Belgium—so you say, hey look, I visited Belgium before many times, so moving there is no problem.

But the first thing is—yes, the first couple of weeks are what we call, is the elation. People are just, and get there by traveling, say hey, no problem, exciting, and everything sounds great. But two weeks later, or three weeks later, and people begin to realize, hey, I am not traveling to just visit this new country. I’m gonna have to stay here for one, two years, or longer. And that’s how things start becoming different. Suddenly you feel hey, I have to made myself like this place, work in this place, and even like everything here to make it work, or working with people from this country, or my whole team could be quite diverse, with different people from different countries.

So, this is the part that most people don’t think about. Now, people read a little bit on culture shock. But culture shock isn’t just a culture shock per se. But it’s a whole process, which can include a number of stages, which I would simply mention. About the first stage, elation, the first couple of weeks, it’s excited. The second and third week, one would say, oh my goodness, I will be here. Some people may even feel stuck, like oh, I didn’t realize this. There’s so much I don’t like. Beyond the language, okay? So, if people don’t stop to realize, this is just simply they need to go through the homesickness, and adjustment, and maybe at the, you know, two months later, some people, I actually work with some countries, some executives request to be relocated home. Or sometimes these executives may not be just coming with themselves; they will move the whole family with them. And either the spouse, or the children, are not adjusting. People are thinking, oh my goodness, I gotta go home. So therefore, preparing them to realize, there are stages.

Getting to the third month, even up to six to nine months, is the first part of adjustment. People will go through hard times. Homesick, not liking the place, finding people don’t seem to accept them, and everything hits them all at once. So, but if people can realize this ahead of time, if they can go through these changes, and accepting something has to be kind of slowly adjust—after they get through the stage, and enter the first stage, what we call the transformation, which is, can be by then, is eight, nine months down the road, and slowly people get used to it, and liking what we call the host country. Let’s say Belgium. You know, if you were to move to Belgium, would be the host country.

Your liking it, getting used to it, and then sometimes even compare it to back home, let’s say, the US, oh gee, back home people don’t do this, we like it here in Belgium. So, how to enjoy the host country, and yet not reject your own home country, you know, where you come from. And slowly, and then people settling in, and then maybe by a year, one and a half years, people felt really, really home, and that’s the stage we call, basically, acculturation. People accepting the new culture, and also appreciating their home culture, okay? The simple things seem simple, and yet, I can tell you, from the last 20 something years, moving family, executives, and their family abroad, many many families don’t adjust well, and especially if they’re not prepared for it. So, if we can prepare them, if people become more aware of them, if will make the whole relocation and living abroad experience much better, and beneficial.

JASON HARTMAN: You have some interesting entries in your table of contents, or really the topics you cover. Affairs, and other marriage busters? Are affairs more common in—well, certainly in some countries over others. France, in France they’re like a way of life, right?

DR. CATHY TSUNG FEIGN: Well, in the first glance, everybody blames oh, like, London is a graveyard for marriage. Or, Hong Kong is a graveyard for marriage. Oh boy, if we move abroad, expect fear. Like I said, in my book, I spend a whole chapter talking about this. It’s really to educate people, and also to prepare them, so that affairs don’t necessarily happen when people live abroad, okay? Let me explain to you. Why this particular issue becomes so big, especially among expatriates, executives move abroad. Now, what the first thing we talk about is, identity insulation. Okay? That’s my term, okay? What it means, let’s say, Joe, back home, is a middle manager in Middle America, being promoted and relocated to Jakarta, okay?

And so, when he moves there, suddenly, he has [unintelligible], and now becomes the regional manager. Okay? For him, it’s a big move. Career wise as well as for himself, of his own confidence, and everything. So he moves with his wife, and maybe a child, without a child, doesn’t matter. So, when he gets there, because he is an expatriate in a new country, the job that he’s doing, the company will do everything to help him to settle in. Meaning, they will have the right kind of people to assist him with the work, and to either show him, support him, guide him, so that he can just hit the ground running, to do his job. And so, Joe’s fine, doing really well, and he’s after three weeks in Jakarta, he starts traveling in Asia, and meet clients. For him, all suddenly, from a middle management in the south, to becoming a regional manager, you can imagine how excited he gets, right? And at the same time, the attention he gets, wherever he goes now, is not the old, you know, just simply him.

Now Joe is the regional manager, which manage Jakarta’s office, or maybe even Australia’s office, okay? So, he gets all the attention, and this is really great. However, his wife, let’s say his wife is Mary Ann. Mary Ann was a teacher, let’s say, back home, and happy working. Because of Joe’s promotion, of course Mary Ann quit the job quickly to support her husband, and move with him. However, when she moves to Jakarta, well, she also needs to settle in, and also in her own role as what we call the training spouse. Her role is also to support Joe to get settled, and then