A selection of this week’s expat-related stories

Into the Wild… of Hong Kong?

Idiot Patrol to the rescue

A 27-year-old British expat living in Hong Kong was rescued by helicopter after somehow getting lost in the woods at Hong Kong’s Victoria Peak. The story describes him as “drunk”, which strikes me as an understatement, not only because he couldn’t find his way out to the densely populated city literally surrounding the park, but also because he claimed that he somehow got his foot tangled in a rope, as if that explains anything.

New Jersey DMV vs. Chinese Bureaucracy

Abandon all hope, ye who enter. It helps!

Living overseas often lends perspective to the life you left, and returning home can also cast your overseas experience in a new light. Alan Paul, a former expat who once struggled to get a Chinese driver’s license, gets a large dose of perspective at the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles, when his 17-year-old son gets caught in a bureaucratic nightmare that Kafka would have appreciated.

Paul observes that it’s sometimes easier to laugh off problems like this overseas. “In China, I would have been laughing under my frustration and thinking through a column outline. In Springfield, N.J., I felt my temples pounding and my temper turning.” Expecting life overseas to be hard is certainly a helpful attitude; what I’m wondering is why he apparently expected negotiating the New Jersey DMV to be easy.

I Shoulda Been One of Them There Computer People

The 21st century cubicle?

It was hard not to be jealous reading this piece written by a British freelance writer who fled Old Blighty to set up shop at Hubud (Hub in Ubud), a work space shared by expat professionals in Bali, Indonesia. With nothing tying them to a particular locale, these “digital nomads” live cheaply in paradise while living on a Western payscale. No word yet on how well they manage the work-beach balance.

Off With his Beard!

I wonder what this guy did to deserve that.

Two Qataris were sentenced to a year in jail for accosting an expat driver and shaving his head and facial hair. The men went after the driver, identified only as “Asian”, because they said he was driving recklessly and almost caused them to crash by failing to signal a lane change and cutting them off. The victim was quoted as saying he was driving ‘normally’, though he neglected to say in which country his driving is considered normal.