Far from home?

One article that caught my eye in the news today and which seems to be common to most of the papers whose sites I frequent (mainly the Guardian and the Telegraph - I like to strike an even balance between Pinko Commie Do-Gooder Propaganda and Foaming-at-the Mouth Little Englander Diatribes) is this rather interesting piece of news that 5.5 million Brits - nearly 10% of the population - live abroad on a permanent basis. I suppose, thinking about it, I'm one of them. I haven't really lived for any length of time in the UK in the last three and a half years, and with my position at Columbia secured for the medium term, I'm not likely to any time soon. Apparently, this puts the British diaspora (a strange term) on a par roughly with the Indians and the Chinese.

Anyway, the wonderful thing about these news websites is that they have caught on to the blogging revolution, and allow people to leave their comments at the bottom of a good number of articles. This does two things - firstly, confirm my long held suspicion that a good percentage of people who post on internet BBs or leave comments on newspaper articles are mentally unbalanced, and secondly, provide some food for thought. Particularly the hilariously rabid Telegraph comments - read them for yourself.

While I was increasingly amused at the flight from reality that some of the comments above displayed - a yearning for a sort of mythical England that never really existed - it did get me thinking about my own lot. Why did I leave, and am I coming back? If so, when, and under what circumstances?

Short answer: no. I don't plan to, at least. Once I get my doctorate, I want to find a teaching job in the US and build a career - if I'm lucky, a home and family as well - over here.

I didn't leave because I hate the UK or think, like the Telegraph readers, that it's been turned into a PC over-taxed Socialist hell-hole of a police state. I mean, there are things I don't like about my native land - the random drink-fuelled violence in most city centres on weekends, the fact that everything is ludicrously expensive, veneration of the lowest common denominator, the unbelievably inane celebrity culture, the weather - take your pick. But Japan and the U.S. have their faults, too - everywhere does (God knows the U.S. and Japan are way worse than the UK in terms of celebrity worship and dumbing down).

It's just a case of quality of life, really. I have my passion - Japanese literature - and I took a decision that the USA would be the place to pursue it. Money isn't my sole motivation, but over the course of a career in American academia I stand to earn 2-3 times more than I would in the UK. That makes a huge impact on quality of life, especially as it's worth so much more in real terms. Even now, that's true. My $23,000 p.a. PhD stipend in simple exchange terms is worth about one-third less than what I would get were I at SOAS in London (ca. ￡13,000, I think). But - and this is the key - it goes about one-third to a half further here. It ain't riches, but I have a higher quality of life over here than I would do doing the same thing back in the UK.

I do like it here, though. No doubt about it.

I know New York is not the USA. When I'm job searching later, I will do well to remember that, as I could possibly end up somewhere godawful like Arizona or Wisconsin, and then I'll probably look on things in a very different light. But right now it just seems a better option in so many ways...

• The food in the UK (London excepted) just doesn't compare. Here, it's cheap, varied, plentiful and usually delicious.
  
• New York is the safest big city in the USA. I don't feel, as I do out in London or Cambridge from time to time, that I could end up getting glassed just for looking at someone the wrong way.
  
• Americans (even New Yorkers) are just more friendly than Brits. People start conversations with strangers on the subway, they say "Bless you" when people they don't know sneeze; they talk to people. On a related point...
• They think the Brits are charming, sophisticated and (if female) incredibly sexy. I'm not going to argue with that...had I been an American in London, I doubt I would have had the same experience. I can get free drinks for being British and start up a conversation with almost anybody very easily.
  
• I've said this before, but it's WAY cheaper. $2 to anywhere in the city on the subway, vs. ￡3-5? A 2-bedroom apartment 20 mins from Times Square for $800 per month?
  

There's more I could go into, but I think I'd probably end up giving the impression I was bashing the UK, and I'm really not trying to do that. For one thing, I can't watch cricket in any capacity over here, and that's a serious problem.

'Course, I'll always visit the UK as much as I can; most of my friends and family live there, after all. But I think in the long term, I'll join the British diaspora in our attempts at global domination (once again). I guess in the final analysis, I'm not coming home.