Suchmita Mohapatra - Dear Ms Expat: Inspiring Tales From Women Who Built New Lives in a New Land

DEAR MS EXPAT

2017 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, Sushmita Mohapatra and SavithaVenugopal

Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions

An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Name(s): Mohapatra, Sushmita. | Venugopal, Savitha.

Title: Dear Ms Expat : inspiring tales from women who built new lives in a new land / Sushmita Mohapatra, Savitha Venugopal.

Other title(s): Inspiring tales from women who built new lives in a new land

Description: Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, [2017]

Identifier(s): OCN 981258434 | eISBN 978 981 4779 44 9

Subject(s): LCSH: Wives--Effect of husbands employment on--Singapore
Anecdotes. | Resilience (Personality trait)--Anecdotes. | Creative ability
Anecdotes. | Aliens--Singapore--Anecdotes.

Classification: DDC 305.90691095957--dc23

Printed in Singapore by Markono Print Media Pte Ltd

To the strength that pushes prams

To the grit that wins boardroom battles

To the conviction that shatters glass ceilings

To the effort that breaks stereotypes

Too often when the words expatriate and woman are used in the same sentence, a very specific caricature is invoked. This prosaic parody shows expatriate women as primarily concerned with leisure and lunching, and completely undermines the capabilities, passions and pursuits of the majority of women living overseas. Possibly the only reason such a dated perspective still exists is that it reflects the limitations society once put upon women, rather than the limitations of the women themselves.

As someone who has lived overseas for nearly 30 years, through many iterations of my own lifeincluding breadwinner, wife, mother, entrepreneur, author and now financial educator and mentorone thing that never fails to impress me is the resourcefulness of women.

I have known women from all walks of life and from all corners of the earth who have created businesses and charities, and launched artistic and educational projects. These endeavours often create jobs and opportunities for other women, and greatly benefit their newly adopted home countries. And unbeknownst to most, these ventures are often started with only a handful of other passionate people and, more often than not, on shoestring budgets.

This book profiles ten expatriate women and celebrates the lives and work they have created overseas. It is also a celebration of a country like Singapore that allows these types of opportunities to flourish for its expatriate community. Dear Ms Expat is an important resource because it reveals the challenges and difficulties of life on the road, and yet it also inspires us, because even under the most challenging circumstances, it shows how anyone can recreate their lives in any location. It is a welcome addition to a wide body of writing done by expatriate women, and should be used as a guiding light for new expatriates or for those who want to create more meaningful experiences overseas.

Andrea Kennedy

Founder and Educator in Chief
Wiser Wealth

Dear Ms Expat,

Packing your life into boxes and moving to a new country is never easy. Exciting, yes. Scary, a bit. A new culture, alien languages, unfamiliar flavours and unknown roads await you. A whole new world of opportunities, apprehensions, possibilities, questionsall fused into one big adventure.

Whether you are standing hesitantly at the brink of this new chapter of your life, or you have already jumped in headlong, we welcome you to the experience. It is sure to transform you as a person. You may draw your identity from your career, from your life as a homemaker or from being a citizen of a countryregardless, everything will be viewed through new lenses.

And we suggest you get the shade just right!

What may seem overwhelming initially will finally settle down to become lifes routine. Or it may not. And that is where the excitement of uncertainty lies.

In the end, it is neither as easy nor as glorified as it looks. There are chaotic days, when you question whether anything makes any sense. It could be about leaving behind that cute vintage bookcase you found in a nondescript store, or it could be a complete existential crisis.

There will be weeks of self-doubt coupled with a need to hunt for familiar things (coffee, ice cream, cookies, mums homemade muffins). Some months will sweep past, enveloping you in a spirit of hope and promise. But through this journey, there is comfort in knowing that trying circumstances beget inspiring stories.

This book tells you the success stories of ten inspiring women who chose to aspire to great heights, challenge the norm and reinvent themselves with astounding success. Hailing from different countries, their journeys are as diverse as they are similar.

These women have grown up on large farms in small Australian towns, the countryside in the U.S., in the comfort of warm homes in Austria or Switzerland, or in the hilly terrains of India. They have been brought up by single mums or authoritative fathers, in large families or small. In their homes, you will hear different languages Japanese, German, English, Bengali, Lebanese and many more. They wear their battle scars well, and of that there are manyfailed marriages, life-changing illnesses, or runaway teenage years.

As different as their journeys may have been, what binds these women together is their resiliencealong with their determination to get things done, despite present or future uncertainties. They went on to set up companies, achieve unprecedented career success or create ecosystems for other women to succeed.

We set up home in Singapore a few years ago, leaving behind well-thought-out career and life decisions, closeknit families, a bunch of friends and regular coffee haunts. We went through a gamut of emotionshope one morning, despair on another. We wanted to quickly find comfort in routine while still being exploratory in spirit. We created holiday bucket lists. (You are probably nodding your head along, because you have tread these same paths.)