Expats and sort-off expats

Since a little while I'm a member of the expat google group here in Myanmar. The group was established 2 years ago to share information for the foreigners living in Myanmar. This is a country where lots of things are possible to have/buy but it is,still, very difficult to find out where to go. For example, you might be looking or something relatively easy to find in the west and go to all major retailers and not find it. Then, by chance you might see what you were looking for in a tiny mom-and-pop store where you walked in by chance.

So, the group can be very very useful. Now, there are a lot of members and the questions asked can range from very good to plain dumb. That, of course happens to most groups and forums on the net.

What I find interesting, at least to me it is,  is the sometimes complete lack of local understanding. There is something about 'real' expats that baffles me continuously. The utter lack of regard to costs, the sharing of things that for most people are way out of league, and so on. Luckily those kind of topics don't come up too often but when they do I, for one, often wonder what people were thinking when they posted them.

With the fairly massive influx of 'real' expats at the moment, I think I better get used to seeing posts like that more often.

If I see a really good one again, I will post it here. Saw one the other day and deleted it but there'll be others for sure.

I have internet on my mobile!!!

Not that it is fast or anything...  I tried to read my email yesterday and I got nowhere. But I feel like I have suddenly jumped into the 21st century.

Of course I could use hubby's mobile but somehow that was too often too much trouble especially with the kids around. Now I can check emails at least anytime I want (in theory ;-) )

The next step will be, of course, to have a good working link at home from the computer or laptop so I can post anytime I feel like it. Like the other day when I woke at 12:30 in the morning and didn't really know what to do with myself...

At work the connection speed has been steadily declining and the internet is now almost as gridlocked as the roads in Yangon. The Myanmar schools are on holiday now and I noticed a much improved circulation on the streets but the internet has slowed even more...

So different

The other day I was downtown for the first quiz night in Yangon (that even I know off, there might have been previous attempts). It was a very successful attempt and the bar was full.

For me the most interesting feature of the evening was though the number of foreigners. Most of them fairly young (mid-twenties to early thirties) and I was wondering about what they were doing here.

Then yesterday I was at a workshop from a hardware/software giant and in the hotel there were so many westerners. Again.

Yangon/Myanmar is almost like a treasure chest. The last bastion of golden opportunities. There are masses of 'consultants' and 'specialists' in this country nowadays. People who have been here for a few months consider themselves old-timers and knowledgeable on the culture. On forums this was already a bit the case before especially for tourists with people giving advice who had visited the country years before. Nowadays though it seems like every other person I meet or hear about is here to make their fortune.

It is a fairly unsettling feeling and I wonder how many of them will be here in the next couple of years. If the quiz nights continue (once a month) how many will be able to say in a year's time that they were there during the first one?