Be a true ambassador of your country

In the last 20 years I have been frequently travelling abroad for work or leisure, but I really left my home country a bit more than three years ago.

 I recall how different it was when - after work - you would not go back in your home but in an house you have rented. At the beginning it was like a long stay in an hotel and sometimes it might even resembled to a vacation.

After a while you get used to it and start realizing that your rented house becomes your home, and the new environment, with its landscape and peoples, welcomes you.

 During the past three years I have traveled across the world, more than 100 days per year across Asia, US and Europe and I have been lucky to meet, work and become friend with people of different nationalities, genders, races, cultures and heritages.

 When you are an expat you grow an ability to recognize people in situations similar to yours and not because of their physiognomy: they might be an Aussie in Hanoi, a Thai in Tokyo, a Kiwi in Malaysia, a French in Indonesia or an Italian in Singapore, it doesn’t matter, you instinctively spot them. Immediately!

 Most of them show peculiarities that, at the beginning, I didn’t understand. Few of them had different behaviors when met at work or outside the office, but almost all of them have one thing in common: they all want to share with you their experience. Despite the fact that we are living in a world in which too frequently our interactions are reduced to a post, a tweet, an image or a short acronym, majority of expats is always keen in talking and in getting together.

 It is always enriching to interact with initial strangers: I smile when they share their latest family vacations. I eagerly assimilate their stories on customers negotiation. I listen carefully when they confide their troubles in finding a school for their kids. I learn when they tell me the required behavior when dining in Tokyo or in Seoul or in Jakarta. I thank them when they involve me in building a school in Cambodia. I actively participate when they show me videos of the latest dive in Borneo or in Australia.

 Above all I love them when they share glimpses of their home country, always suggesting me to enjoy them for:

A rugby game at the Eden stadium in Auckland

A diving trip in Philippines

A road journey at the twelve apostles in Victoria

A freezing walk on the Great Wall in Beijing

A shopping Saturday in Seoul

A sail trip facing the Opera House in Sydney

A sweating visit at the temples of Angkor Vat

A dizzy feeling looking at the Petronas in Kuala Lumpur

I am sharing this cause I just cannot stand it when, going back in Italy for vacation, I hear people blaming the instable government, the lazy politicians, the greedy business families, the spreading of nepotism, the lack of meritocracy at work and sometimes even that our country is at the border of a cliff toward a complete disaster. Complaining without doing anything about it.

A dear friend yesterday reminded me a song that says “you miss home when you hit the road”. Well, I think that people complaining about their home country should “hit the road” to understand why they should appreciate it, and, most important, that we should all be positively describing the beauty of our country.

 As an Italian abroad, I have seen that most of the world citizens looks at us as representatives of culture, art, fashion, food, friendliness and beautiful landscape. Whenever they spot me as an Italian, they share the love for their country and then ask me, with huge curiosity, tons of questions about Italy, among which:

Is San Peter Cathedral the home of the Pope ?

Is the Portofino village real ?

Does everyone bike in Tuscany ?

Is the Ferrari’s factory red ?

How big is the David in Florence ?

I laugh when answering questions like these and even the one that always comes up: “do you regret having left Italy ?”

My answer is “no, I don't regret having left Italy, living abroad made me appreciate it even more, I feel proud to be my home country’ ambassador and I believe every Italian should be.”

Teo