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[dundee]

Oh, I guess I just imagined the previous posts about "Crapella" and the grammatical mistakes in the author's bio.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Oh, I guess I just imagined the previous posts about "Crapella" and the grammatical mistakes in the author's bio.

What you imagined was that they applied to the OP.  I suspect that Danny_boy has a brick & mortar PhD, and he has not posted any links to any ads for books he has written. - DvF

[expatinuk]

I do consider myself an expat... duh look at my handle here....

But as soon as I raise the £655 I will be a Brit citizen. Will that make me an immigrant? No... I'll still be an expat.

altough spell check wants me to be an expiate

[baka_janai]

What you imagined was that they applied to the OP.  I suspect that Danny_boy has a brick & mortar PhD, and he has not posted any links to any ads for books he has written. - DvF

You'd be "kind of right."  I have a Ph.D. degree from the University of York, which is absolutely a "brick & mortar" institution with a strong reputation.  My advisors were both leaders in their fields and had the connections to put me together with other leaders in my field during my sabbatical.  I also have a traditional on-campus MA from an ordinary US university.

But the Ph.D., being a typical UK "research" degree, had no coursework (which the Brits sees as silly at the Ph.D. level).  You just got on with the research and writing the thesis (dissertation in US terminology).  I did almost all the work from my home university in Japan and only "stopped by" at York once a year for some mandated "residence requirements" and face-to-face advising.

So I have some sympathy with ajarn.  Capella may well be crap.  But that doesn't necessarily mean that the research ajarn has done is crap.  In fact, from private conversations with him, I find him knowledgeable and what he says resonates well with my own 25 years of overseas living. 

But like a lot of us "expats," ajarn doesn't quite fit the mold for US academics and so would probably be viewed with suspicion when applying for US positions.  Yet his (and our) non-traditional set of experiences (vs. the standard package of US grad school experiences) may provide us with insights and perspectives that traditionally schooled academics can't have.

Also to be fair to ajarn, I specifically asked him to post a link to where I could get a copy of his book.  He did so.  I don't see anything wrong with this.

I refer to myself as an expat in discussions like this because it's the only term that seems suitable.  There are always local "slangy" versions like "gaijin" in Japan, "ajnabi" or "farengi" in Arabia, "guailo" in China and "gringo" in parts of the Spanish-speaking world.  But those are different.  I like ajarn's term "independent expat" to distinguish my situation from the people sent by the "home company" for an "overseas posting."

I suppose that deep down I have a sort of "Jesuit-father" complex where I imagine that I'm bringing the world's knowledge to the corners of the world in which I have taught.  I try not to allow this to slip into colonial style condescension -- but I suppose I have acted like a prima donna from time to time, from the perspective of my "local" colleagues.

[baka_janai]

I'll also add that my own "rise to professordom" is akin to those cases from the military where an enlisted "grunt" in the trenches ends up (though war and survival) as a general.   Those of us who rose from the trenches can't ever fully leave behind our prior identity (in my case as a "grunt overseas EFL teacher") and we don't ever fully relinquish our distrust (and even distaste) for "the brass."

I've formally been "a professor" for the last 12 years but I always feel deep down that I'm really just "a language teacher."  And I wear my scars proudly.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

What you imagined was that they applied to the OP.  I suspect that Danny_boy has a brick & mortar PhD, and he has not posted any links to any ads for books he has written. - DvF

You'd be "kind of right."  I have a Ph.D. degree from the University of York, which is absolutely a "brick & mortar" institution with a strong reputation.

York is a fine university, except for all the duck droppings on the sidewalks.

The point though is that the negative comments - the rant from windchimes, and my little comment about the grammar in the book ad - were about ajarn, not about your preincarnation as the OP.

I rather enjoyed my years as a "Yank" in Yorkshire, though the weekly visits from the local police got a bit tiresome.  (For a year or so after the US used UK airbases to refuel before bombing Libya, the Home Office mandated regular checking on all resident aliens.  There were so few of us resident aliens in my town that we ended up with the police practically living on our doorsteps.  I tried to point out that as an American Jew it was unlikely that I would seek revenge on the UK for their complicity in the bombing, but to no avail.) - DvF

[baka_janai]

The point though is that the negative comments - the rant from windchimes, and my little comment about the grammar in the book ad - were about ajarn, not about your preincarnation as the OP.

I realized that but just felt nevertheless that ajarn had been given an overly rough time (by windchimes).  Many of us expats don't happen to find outselves in a life-situation where we can drop out of our lives and attend a traditional brick and mortar Ph.D. program in the US for as long as a decade.  As so we look for other options.  Thanks to past British colleagues from Oman I was aware of UK style research degrees.  But many expats are not.  And so they find themselves sucked into the marketing of places like Capella. 

Additionally, it's not always so clear what's a fraud and what's not.  I have a friend here (smart, hardworking, and ambitious) who has an online degree from a place I personally would consider worse than UofP and whom, "upon graduation" was offered a job teaching an online grad course for said school.  It sounds like a total scam.  Yet, his MA supervisor was one of the best-known scholars (a key figure on the conference trail) in this area of study -- and even invited my friend to come to his university to pursue a Ph.D.  A quick check of the school's website turned up other top names.  I did read my friend's MA thesis and it's as legitimate as any other.

[bewildered]

I do consider myself an expat... duh look at my handle here....

But as soon as I raise the £655 I will be a Brit citizen. Will that make me an immigrant? No... I'll still be an expat.

Why?  What "disqualifies" you from being an immigrant?

[baka_janai]

I do consider myself an expat... duh look at my handle here....

But as soon as I raise the £655 I will be a Brit citizen. Will that make me an immigrant? No... I'll still be an expat.

Why?  What "disqualifies" you from being an immigrant?

Denial.

[baka_janai]

The problem is that we associate "immigrant" with the lower classes, as if it were "ima-grunt."  While expatinuk's application for British citizenship, doesn't suddenly make her British, I think it's fair to say that it legally makes her an immigrant.  And it does make a certain claim about the future.  What is doesn't do is make any claim about any willing intension to assimilate to mainstream British society. 

I've actually been in Japan long enough that I can officially apply for Permenant Resident status -- and if fact find the idea of having a Japanese "green card" somewhat appealing.   Meanwhile my wife, with her US green card, is considering applying for US citizenship.  This is so very odd since she is Mexican down to her very core -- including a healthy dislike for just about every aspect of Mexico as a political entity.  But she has now (or at least for the moment) decided the returning to Mexico (for example, for retirement) would be a blatant admission that her entire life was a failure -- perhaps because our children would of course have lives in the US (or even overseas).  So I guess that makes her a typical first-generation immigrant -- doomed to be trapped between two worlds, neither of which she really likes.

[octoprof]

Well, my 2 satang on the subject

I just finished a book on expatriates (should be out soon), and I used the label “independent expatriate” to refer to those of us living abroad, are receiving local salaries, and who were not sent abroad by MNCs.
 
The concept used in business academic research of the expat is too limiting and outdated in my opinion and does not cover the reality of the majority of foreign workers around the world, in my humble opinion.

Immigrant?

For me living in Asia, there is no way I ever think of myself as an immigrant. It is possible to become American, Canadian or Australian. But one can not become Japanese, Chinese or Thai (unless one is from that particular ethnic background).

American may not be a race, but in most countries in the world race and nationality are intertwined.

So, maybe we can use terms like permanent expatriate (I stole this from an interviewee) or semi-permanent expat. These are nicer terms then some that have been used to describe me .

But my question is, next month I will be leaving Thailand for Vietnam, but can I still use the title Ajarn on this forum?

This phrase in your book blurb: "The colonial paradigm, what it is and how it is reinforced" is interesting for someone living in Thailand (which has never been colonized by a western nation).

[baka_janai]

This phrase in your book blurb: "The colonial paradigm, what it is and how it is reinforced" is interesting for someone living in Thailand (which has never been colonized by a western nation).

Yet "colonial" is precisely the word that describes the life of many "expats" in countries like Thailand.  It certainly described the atmosphere in the Sultanate of Oman, which has also never really been colonized - though the ancient Persians and then later the Portuguese did briefly occupy some of the coastal areas.

In short, "colonial" is a state of mind.  Expats all over the world reflect a colonial attitude when they refer to "the locals" and when they shop at specialized shops, for example, in Omani supermarkets in the capital area which included a special "pork room" where expats could buy "haraam" pork products in this Moslem country.  It is also often reflected in a two (or more) tiered class system with "western" expats at the top such that all you have to do is show your (hopefully white) face in some government office to get preferential treatment. 

One of the reason we finally left the Arabian Gulf (after 12 years) is that we didn't like the colonial atmosphere were expats had Indian and Philipino "servants" and got used to special treatment and all too often started acting in the sorts of bigoted, pig-headed ways we make fun of in the British Raj or Colonial East Africa.

[baka_janai]

The culture of the "sahib" is alive and well in many, many countries.

[octoprof]

In short, "colonial" is a state of mind. 

Not in my dictionary, or my mind.  I think another word would better serve your purpose here and avoid causing confusion with a country that is colonized or is or has been a colony (which Thailand, for example, has not).

Rude behavior should just be called that and not misconstrued with the actual colonization of a country.

[baka_janai]

Rude behavior should just be called that and not misconstrued with the actual colonization of a country.

But it's not just "rude behavior."  It's socially sanctioned and enforced separation.  It's about not being allowed (for a range of reasons) some idealistic American sense of "blending in to local culture."  Out of the same idealism that I had brought with me as an American exchange student in Germany, when I took a job in Kuwait, I decided to blend in (as we expected the Kuwaiti students I had taught in the US to do) by wearing the disdasha at all times (both at home, around town, and at work).  But this was naive -- in a great many ways.

It was also technically against the law.  By law ONLY KUWAITIS are allowed to wear Kuwaiti national dress while in government buildings.

The fact is that the colonial barriers are enforced from both sides.  It's not just an arrogant attitude on one side.  And it's not only arrogant people who live colonial lives.  One finds oneself inside a self-perpetuating system that discourages both overtly and covertly "fraternization" with the locals.  You can try to fight against the system (as we did by not hiring a maid, whom we would then have been forced to treat as "invisible") but, are you REALLY going to miss ALL of your classes today because you have to stand in line at some government office ALL DAY LONG along with several hundred manual workers from the sub-continent becasue you REFUSE to accept the preferential treatment thrust upon you? 

I stick by the word "colonial."