Geopats Abroad : Living overseas conversations

Send us Fan MailHave you ever wondered why your immigrant parent(s) didn't prepare you for being a global citizen? Chelsea thought this when she was struggling in her first expat place. Over time she began to understand the distinct difference between her mother's immigrant experience and her expat one. In this conversation, we unpack the lasting impression that Chelsea's mom had on her expat life and which influences she kept and discarded. Original publication date: August 27, 202200:00 – Growing Up With Immigrant Parents 02:25 – Moving Abroad During the Pandemic 04:50 – Leaving China for Thailand 07:15 – Stability, Jobs, and Expat Life 09:40 – Becoming a Pandemic Parent Abroad 12:05 – First Expat Experience in China 14:30 – Teaching Abroad After University 16:55 – Why Staying Abroad Makes Sense 19:20 – American Work Culture vs Expat Life 21:45 – Having a German Mother in America 24:10 – Language Loss and Assimilation 26:35 – Immigrant Parents and Identity 29:00 – Raising a Third Culture Child 31:25 – Seeing Immigration Through Expat Life 33:50 – When Everything Comes Full CircleMore: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailHow much do our immigrant parents impact our adult expat experiences? This is what we're exploring in this conversation with return guest Alison. Alison and I dig into growing up with two unequal cultures in one household, the racial struggles she's seen in many countries during her years living outside of her passport country of the U.S. and her coming to terms with the differences between her mother's immigrant experience and her own expat life. Original publication date: August 26, 2022More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailQuestions about family can be triggering if the experience was not ideal. This is one of the reasons that Steph's talked about her family in tiny drips here and there but not in depth. But it felt disingenuous to ask other expats to open up about their early family life growing up with immigrant parents without diving into these experiences herself. So to help with this tabled turned interview, Melissa was kind enough to hop in and guide the conversation. Melissa's podcast: Tired In My Twenties: https://tiredtwenties.substack.com/Original publication date: August 29, 2022More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailHave your immigrant parents ever visited you in any of your expat places? Georges' parents have and it shifted how he understood their struggles moving from Greece to Canada. We cover a lot more ground on his parents' immigrant story and how it has both positively and negatively influenced his own expat experience. Original publication date: July 28, 2022More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailThis episode is really special for me. Last month for NaPodPoMo I had the extreme pleasure of chatting with Damon Castillo for this episode. Yes, THE Damon Castillo of the Mess of Me album that we've been using for the past 2 years in all of the Geopats Podcast Network shows. We talk about the longevity of the Damon Castillo Band, his geopatness, my favorite song on the Mess of Me Album (Saint Cecilia), his recording studio in San Luis Obispo, what music he listens to and some creative struggles. In short, we cover the elements that make up the language of music, lovely, lovely music. Original publication date: December 24, 2020More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailKen Hirano was born in Japan but his family moved to the U.S. before he started school. He returned to Japan to live a few times in his life, and now is one of them. He moved back to Tokyo about a year ago and recently (wrote a post on LinkedIn) on this geographic anniversary about his cultural and language identity. And that is what we are digging into today. This identity path took us through how he feels in different languages, why he feels more simple and defenseless in Japanese than English, how Japanese locals versus expats in Japan treat his Japanese & Americanness and where he is the most comfortable. Spoiler: none of these issues have a clearly defined answer and that is what made this nuanced discussion with Ken so interesting to have. Original publication date: September 28, 2020More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailAlison Maciejewski made me think long and hard about food photos in our shifting expat lives. How does our wanderlust come through online? But the conversation is not all serious, we have some fun comparing emoji options on Line (in Thailand) and WeChat (in China), what and where “ugly delicious food” is, and how using teen dramas are a good way to learn the Thai language.original publication date: December 13, 2018More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailHas a song ever carried you through a rough time in your life? That's exactly what happened to British international Karl when he moved to Denmark. original publication date: November 12, 2018More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailCan you imagine taking 35,000 photos in one year? Photographer Thomas Sandfield did this his first year in Hong Kong. Join us on this Expat Rewind show for a flashback to this first year as an expat for Thomas and all the flicker fun he had.Original publication date: September 4, 2018Thomas Sandfield:https://www.instagram.com/thomassandfieldMore: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailLanguage podcaster Craig is from the UK but has been podcasting in Spain for many years. Alternatively business podcaster Pilar has the opposite geographical podcasting experience being from Spain and podcasting from the UK for a long time. And yet they found each other and created a podcast about the scene in Spain some years ago. In this conversation with Craig and Pilar we dig into what they learned about podcasting in these two countries, how the space has changed since their podcast was live and how indy podcasting differs from business podcasting. These two folks are knowledgeable and are tapped into the space in a passion led way so there's a lot to learn from them. Let's get to it!Pilar's podcast: Adventures in PodcastingCraig's podcast: InglespodcastTheir podcast on the Spanish podcasting space: https://enclavedepodcast.wordpress.com/Original publication date: July 22, 2022More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailIf you've ever wondered what it's like to live, work, and podcast in Kathmandu, Nepal, this episode are for you!Big & White, their podcasting nicknames, are two American Linguists who, until very recently were living in Nepal and creating a rather hilarious audio account of their daily lives. Their episodes covered much of what expat podcasts cover like food, weather, language, and cultural differences but there is an extra kick to their podcast. Their connection and how they bounce off each other is so much fun to listen to. This is the main reason I became a fan of The Big & White Podcast in the first place and definitely why I asked to interview them for the show.Don't worry, we also talk about podcasting bits like technology, social media, podcast learning curve, editing, audience feedback, Nepali podcasts, guests, and advice for new Podcasters also. But this conversation is a bit more free-flowing than some of the other Geopats Podcasting episodes because we dipped into some of their content topics too like their visual stickoutness in Nepal (thus the name of the podcast), weight lifting and so much more.And since they are Linguists that were doing field work all over Nepal, there is an episode coming on Geopats Language podcast with that geeking out aspect as well.Original publication date: January 19, 2021More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailDavid Humphreys and Melissa Joulwan are the hosts of Strong Sense of Place, a podcast and web site dedicated to literary travel and books with vivid settings. In each episode of their show, they explore one destination and talk about what makes that place different from everywhere else on earth. Then they recommend books set in that destination and talk to a special guest.Original publication date: March 6, 2020More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailWhat do you do as an expat when your life goal is to collect and share experiences and information? You start a podcast! And that is exactly what American expat in Germany Nicole Palazzo did just after her first year in Freiburg, Germany. We recorded this mini episode on the new Podbean Live app, which was in Beta version. There were some technical issues but we pushed through and I think there is so much useful and interesting information in Nicole's audio story. In fact, she is going to come back and in the future and update us on her expat podcasting life and adventures. Hurrah. ​Original publication date: September 26, 2019More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailYuki and I sat down to have this conversation far too long ago. Life has been crazy and, to be honest, I even stopped drinking coffee for awhile. So it felt weird publishing this episode during that time.But things feel a little more frothy these days, so here it is! And here SHE is:)Yuki has sought out, enjoyed and brewed coffee in many locations globally. She's more known for her Book Nerd Tokyo Instagram account cause she's also a bookworm (yet another reason to adore her) but you'll often see coffee in her IG posts as well.Cause books and coffee go very well together.But if you're reading this, you are well aware of this glorious pairing.Let me tell you a few things you don't already know.Original publication date: February 9, 2022More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailErin and I met in Vietnam many years ago, the place where both of our coffee obsession hit a peak, so it only made sense to have her on the podcast. In this episode we dive into her coffee explorations in Australia, many countries in Asia, Italy and Canada. Original publication date: July 24, 2020More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailTravis lived in Germany and the Czech Republic for 20 years and podcasts about history on podcastnik.com. After talking about alchemy and witches as a ghost-tour guide in Prague, he teamed up with Pete Collman to figure out podcasting as a medium to tell stories from history. Travis has a long and complicatedly long adoration with coffee that started in his childhood upbringing in Germany. Now, he now lives in Oregon, where he partakes in specialty and 7-11 coffee.Original publication date: June 19, 2020More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailMarielle is a Data Scientist in Berlin. She is also a long-distance coffee farmer because her family started a coffee farm in our ancestral home in the Philippines (in Mankayan, Benguet). They practice organic and sustainable Agroforestry and they hope to one day export their coffee through a transparent supply chain.Original publication date: February 29, 2020More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailAna Blackstad has experienced coffee culture in so many different places that I ran out of ink during our chat yesterday. Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit but seriously, Ana moved to Prague, Czech Republic only 3 years ago but she has made the caffeinated most out of her time there by exploring both local Prague cafes (many of which are listed down below) and those in neighboring countries like Italy, Greece, the UK, Norway, Finland and Turkey. Her love of this beany goodness comes through loud and clear. Ohhhhh, just wait until you reach the part where she describes the best latte she ever had. She speaks of “peak coffee experiences” and the “theatricality” of cafes so eloquently that I think we should all adopt this vocabulary to share the coffee goodness going forward. Who’s with me on this idea? Original publication date: October 25, 2019More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailLanguage, love, identity, everything shifting at once. Two Americans who barely traveled before the Peace Corps ended up mastering Albanian, building lives in tiny towns, and falling for a place that completely changed how they see themselves. Their stories about learning Albanian in real Albanian villages, picking up slang and dialects, switching between Albanian and Greek, and figuring out daily expat life through immersion and community are wild, and honestly it reminded me how much language is tied to belonging. If you want to hear what fluency looks like when it grows out of real life in Albania, not textbooks, and how learning a language can change who you are, listen to the full episode.Original publication date: March 21, 2021More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio

Send us Fan MailLanguage can be a lens into culture, a way to share our experiences and a tool to help others. These are some of the aspects of language that we discuss with guest Elizabeth Gowing. She worked in primary education in inner London before moving to the Balkans in 2006. From then until very recently she split her time between Kosovo, Albania and the UK. During her time in the Balkans she immersed herself in many of the languages used there and shares the cultural insights that she learned. One of these experiences while she was in Kosovo was co-founding the http://theideaspartnership.org/wp/ (Ideas Partnership) non-profit. She is also the owner of the https://www.facebook.com/sapuneKS (Sapune social enterprise), offering employment to village and minority community women and support to the education of their children. Elizabeth is also an author of five travel bookshttps: www.elizabethgowing.com/my-books and has translated two books from Albanian. Original publication date: March 5, 2021More: https://linktr.ee/stephfuccio