[expats] you can never come home

Do you remember the 2004 San Diego Acura Women’s Tennis Classic? Neither did I until I read a piece on some very bitchy comments which are now burnt into the psyche.

In a nutshell, there was a bit of stick between the Russian women players. Yelena Dementyeva said fellow countrywoman Maria Sharapova was "not really Russian."

Then French Open champion, Anastasia Myskina, joined the debate with: "Maria lives in the United States and she's more comfortable speaking English than she is speaking Russian," Myskina said. "I doubt she's been back to Russia since the age of seven."

It was Sharapova's reply which got me: "I don't feel American at all. I feel this is part of my job. Even though I train in America, I'm still Russian. I came to the United States because of my tennis. I moved here because of my tennis, not for anything else."

Now I don't know how you feel about it but to me this is a little, well, ungrateful and ungracious. That country has given her succour and helped her reach and win two major championship titles - doesn't she feel the least bit American?

I'm more than grateful that Russia, for all its internal flaws, tolerates me and so far appears to value my contribution. It doesn't make me Russian but I can tell you I'd never go to war against this country. Nor against Britain, America, Australia or Canada.

It's possibly best to feel this way about your adoptive country as research shows almost a third of repatriates end up abroad again, illustrating that coming home from an overseas assignment is often harder than leaving in the first place.

When expats return, there's a tendency to expect that life will continue just the way it was, that they can pick up from where they left off but their friends may have moved on and new co-workers and others get tired of hearing stories about life abroad.

Repats are often placed in specially constructed, temporary jobs and those in regular employment often feel threatened by returnees who might have advised prime ministers or worked for NASA, say.

They're rarely appreciated and often go back overseas, greatly disappointed. That's when the reality of their ghostly existence comes home to them.

Unwanted at home, never really accepted by their hosts, they live in a twilight world where their status is that of the eternal guest. Welcome guest, maybe but guest nonetheless.

It's not unlike a group of humans on an orbiting space station, discovering that the earth has been obliterated. There's a certain adjustment each crew member must personally make.

Somerset Maugham's The Lotus Eater springs to mind here. Would that that situation never arises.

Sharapova in Nationality Feud, Monday, Reuters, August 2, 2004;

Repatriation, Leslie Gross Klaff, Looksmart [U.S.A.], July, 2002.