It isn’t too far away, most people know some French and it’s easy to commute back to the UK.  To make up for these embarrassing shortfalls in the kudos rating, Francophiles buy properties with no running water.  Better still, they buy properties with no water or electricity.  A house with no roof is a good proposition, especially if the property boasts a completely unmade track and a total absence of local amenities.  Buying an air conditioned flat in up-town Lyon isn’t a challenge at all.  The British are spending large amounts of money on properties that the French think should be bulldozed.  The French may be laughing at us, but there are primeval factors at work. 

These primeval factors turn a disparate and diverse collection of human beings into a cohesive, if not coherent, troupe.  Rather like monkeys.  There is a structure to it, a hierarchy.  Competition is rife.  Two opposing forces are at play.  A common language and shared nationality force them together in an alien environment, and the difficulties of sharing a life with so few people not of their own choosing tries to force them apart.  When you ask an ex-pat for advice, you are not simply asking a normal person for directions to the post-office.  You are asking to join the group, and he may give two different people two different pieces of advice.  An ex-pat has formed very strong social bonds with a select group of people who, most of the time, he finds irritating.  Think of it this way.  If you plan to move to Bulgaria, don’t think that you are going to live amongst Bulgarians.  You are going to live amongst maybe ten strangers from your own country who have also chosen to live in Bulgaria.  That is a different situation.

The hierarchy of the group depends on many factors.  First and foremost is how long they have lived there.  Someone who has been there for ten years will be higher up the scale than someone who has been there for only two.  That is why ex-pats are so helpful to newcomers.  Newcomers put them all up a grade.  It would seem impossible then, for a two-year person to outrank a five-year person.  Not so.  There are many tricks available.  One is the language trick.  A grasp of the language can send you straight up the scale and seriously annoy other people.  Picture the scene.  A group of ex-pats in Greece are sitting drinking coffee and one mentions that he’s popped out to his nearest skoopythenikes and, well, would you believe it, it wasn’t there!  Heaven’s, they all exclaim, and raise their eyes as though they know what a skoopythenikes is.  They immediately rush home, thumb through the dictionary and inwardly fume at how someone who’s been there less time than them seems to know more Greek.  The simple technique of learning a word for a totally obscure object throws the whole colony into panic and the subtleties of social ranking suddenly change.  A skoopythenikes is, by the way, a wheelie-bin.

Another way to score social points is to claim a greater number of friends among the indigenous population.  Get invited to a local wedding and your fellow countrymen will speak of you in revered, hushed tones.  They speak of you, but may never again speak to you.  If locals acknowledge you but not another ex-pat, you gain points.  That is how I lost points by admitting that I didn’t know an Albanian chef.  I hadn’t appreciated how important it was.  I had slipped down a snake in this game of snakes and ladders by failing to integrate fully into the local community.

Language is hard.  Integrating into the local community is hard.  Getting things done is hard.  An ex-pat will grab any chance he can to outdo his competitors is this genetic game of “doing difficult things well”.

If you consider the anthropology of an ex-pat colony when seeking advice about your intended new home, the information and practical help they will give can make the difference between success and failure.  Never tell them that you are fluent in the language, because they can’t play the language trick on you.  Never tell them that you have good friends among the indigenous population because they need to have more local friends than you.  Never tell them that you spent ten years up the Amazon because that sounds hard and you will be instantly hated.  They need to be respected for their achievements, and they will expect you to start life in this group at the very bottom.  Give that impression and they will become a formidable force, swinging into action with help and advice.  They will become the most important, useful, and irritating part of your new life.