I first moved to Asia, Manila to be exact, in October 2009. Later I would move to Brunei and then Kuala Lumpur, where I am typing this article from right now. I was living in San Francisco at the time unemployed (yes, in one of the most expensive cities in the country) and I wasn’t even able to get interviews for decent jobs. So I did what I needed to do. I moved to Asia for work.

Well, I guess it wasn’t that simple, but it also wasn’t as hard as people in the states seem to think it would be. I got a job selling advertising for an international media company based in Belgium. The interview was in SF and within a few weeks I was on a plane on my way to Europe for training. After training, they sent me for my first project based in Manila.

It wasn’t my first time in the Philippines, but this time I had to get it through my thick skull that I wasn’t on vacation. I was there to work. When beer is only $1 at the bars and nice dinners are cheap there is a lot of temptation to go out every night. I would leave my hotel with $20 in my wallet, have a great time and eat a good meal, and still have about $6 when I got back to my room at night.

First Lesson: No traffic in the states even comes close to how bad it can be in Asia!

Traffic can be a nightmare in cities like Manila and Jakarta. It sometimes take literally two hours to go two blocks. Yes, it would be much faster to walk, but do you really wanna walk in 90 degree + (28-30 degree for my non-american friends) weather wearing a suit? Not to mention, anywhere you’re going is way too far to walk so you will just have to get in another taxi later and get stuck in traffic again. The life of an expat in Southeast Asia isn’t speant laying out on the beach, usually it’s spent sucking down exhaust fumes and fearing for your life because of the crazy taxi drivers.

As far as I can tell, red lights, lines in the road, stop signs (or any street signs for that matter) in Manila are all there purely for decoration. In Kuala Lumpur, red lights are optional (more like suggestions, really). No car stays in their lane. It’s accepted and common for people here to drive in the shoulder lane to pass traffic. And don’t even get me started on how people here park! As someone who lived in San Francisco for a while, it drives me crazy when people really don’t know how to parallel park. They go back and forth for days, blocking traffic the whole time, and there is TONS of space for them to park! And it’s common practice to double park and just block people in because you are more important than them. Your time is valuable and fuck everyone else. I once had a guy double park and block me in as I was getting in my car to leave. He asked, “I’m just going to be a few minutes, do you mind if I run in and then come back out?” No, Asshole! I do mind because my 1 year old son is with me, it’s hot as fuck and I don’t have air conditioning.

Work Culture/Ethic is Completely Different From the US

In all the countries I have travelled to (and there are a lot, mostly around Europe and Asia) people simply do not work as hard as Americans. I know a lot of people will argue with me on this and say Americans are overworked and Europeans and others just place a higher value on free time, which is a good thing.

It’s understandable why people would see it this way, but I work my ass off (and I wouldn’t have it any other way). So it pisses me off when I can’t get customer service from my internet provider or bank because it’s a Friday and EVERYONE takes a two hour lunch break and then they leave early (it’s a muslim thing, but I won’t get into that now). Why even work on Fridays?!

Here’s the typical schedule for someone working in Malaysia on a Friday (the schedule isn’t much different on other days and they get more national and state holidays than almost any other country and they get a bunch of paid time off — by my estimate they only work two months out of the year):

9:30am — Show up to the office late because there was traffic.

9:30-10:30am — Check Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. (they love social networks here! it has something like the highest percentage of a country’s population on social networks).

10:30-11:15 — Woo hoo! It’s tea time. Glad that first hour of doing nothing is out ofthe way. Let’s go downstairs and chill while we drink some pretty good tea or really crappy coffee for about 45 minutes.

11:15-12:00 — Check emails, text message (on company paid phone, this is expected by even the lowest level employees), pretend to work until it’s lunch time.

12:00-2:00pm — On Fridays all muslim men are expected to pray at the mosque so they all get a two hour lunch break for this (which I totally respect, this isn’t a part of my rant). But if you’re wealthy, then you take this opportunity to visit your hookers or mistress.

2:30pm-4:00pm — Get back from lunch late because traffic was bad. If you’re in any sort of customer service position this is when you do nothing until 3:30 and you only start helping people then because you want to leave at 4. Seriously, I’ve been in places when there is a line of customers waiting and there are about 15 employees there, but only one of them (if that) is helping anyone.

This rant is mostly about Malaysia because that’s where I’ve lived the past three years so it’s what I’m most familiar with, but this applies to other countries as well. I once had to wait for about six hours for a girl who runs a bed and breakfast in Bologna, Italy, to get back from her “break”. I had a bunch of luggage so I just wasted a whole day standing on the sidewalk waiting for her to get back because it was the only room left in town that wasn’t going to cost me 300 euros. You also couldn’t buy anything in Bologna during the middle of the day because even the small clothing shops and restaurants shut down for several hours in the middle of the day just because they don’t feel like working.

Once when I was in France I sat on a train for three hours waiting for it to depart. I asked someone why it wasn’t leaving (I was the only one on the train who thought it was weird it hadn’t left after 30 minutes) and I was told the train employees were protesting. Naturally I asked, “why are they protesting?” “Because they just got back from holiday,” was the reply. Of course. They were pissed they had to return to work, so let’s protest.

Sorry this rant is so long, but there are a lot of really good things about living in Southeast Asia.

Amazing Food!

Okay, this is my favorite part about living in Asia. The food in Malaysia is amazing! My favorite food is in Thailand. I love going to the beaches in the south of Thailand and buying pad thai on the streets for $1 from vendors. You can get really good really spicy Tom Yam in restaurants for cheap as well and some of the best sea food I have ever had. I love spicy food, so that’s why Thai food is my favorite. Indian food is a close second and since there’s a large indian population in Malaysia I have had some awesome indian food here. (note to my Filipino friends: skip down to the section titled “The People”)

Filipino food sucks. Filipinos will tell you it’s great or I don’t know what I’m talking about because I just didn’t know where the good places were. That’s bullshit. I was there for over six months and most of my friends were locals who took me the places they liked, but it was crap. The only meals I had there that were really good were right on the beach when I had fresh seafood that had been caught that morning. If it was on a very small beach with no tourists, then that food was even better and much cheaper. But I don’t see how you can claim regular seafood as “Filipino cuisine” simply because you have over 7000 islands. That doesn’t make anything from the sea become “Filipino food”. BTW, Filipinos take great offence when you insult their food, but they need to learn that God has cursed their tastebuds.

The People

The people in Southeast Asia are very nice and hospitable, especially if you get out into the rural areas where they don’t see foreigners often. I could tell you tons of stories about how someone here was super nice to me and it caught me off guard, but this post is already too long. There is one story that comes to mind, though, that I think you would like.

When I was in Manila I met someone who was doing all right, but came up from poverty. He took me to an area called Tondo which is known for being one of the worst neighborhoods in Manila. It’s supposed to be very dangerous and everything, but this was a friend who I trusted so I went with him.

He introduced me to his grandmother and all his relatives. I had just ate and wasn’t hungry (plus it was clear that everyone there needed food much more than I did), but his grandma was cooking lunch for their family and all the neighbors. That’s how Filipinos are. No matter how much they are struggling, they will give their last five cents to a neighbor if he or she needs it. His grandmother offered me food, but I was really full and didn’t want to be disrespectful so I regretfully declined her offer. To be honest, I think it was something I really wouldn’t have liked, but I felt bad because I didn’t want to take their food. I felt worse about offending them by not eating, but probably not as bad as I would have felt if I threw up.

When I walked around this area people offered me some of their beer (four people were sharing a 40 that cost them about $1.25 in total). I respectfully declined. People wanted me to play basketball with them and it seemed like people were just in so much shock that a white person was in their neighborhood, so they wanted to get to know me.

Why I’m Moving Back to the US

There are a few different reasons. I love Asia and will miss it here, but it’s time to move back. Since moving to Malaysia I have married a wonderful woman and we have two amazing kids who will be starting school in the next couple of years. The local schools here are crap and the international schools cost a ridiculous amount of money. Like, $25k per year for Kindergarten! That’s almost like going to Stanford! And I have two kids and prices increase the older they get. There’s no way in hell I’m paying over $50k per year for my kids to go to school before they are in a university.

While there are lots of opportunities here, and I encourage entrepreneurs to relocate here, there is an exciting start-up culture happening right now in San Francisco and I want to be a part of that.

In Summary

I love it here. I got married here and I was here for the births of my kids. These are the most important things that have ever happened to me. My wife and my kids are all Malaysian, so we will return often to visit.

I am, however, very excited to start this new chapter of my life. My friends and family back home always tell me about how they wish they could travel like I do or live this dream life they have built up in their minds. Well, they can. And so can you. It’s not that different from what you’re doing now, it’s just in another place. Most of the people I have met here dream of going to California one day and they are confused about why I would choose to live here since “everyone” wants to live there. California, like Malaysia, is just another place. It’s not alway how they portray it in the movies (and neither is Asia).

It’s exciting and a bit exotic to learn about different cultures by living in different places. But the most important things I learned were about my own culture. About how rushed we are in the west. We don’t always take our time when we should. Money is very important, but it’s not the only important thing. Family is the most important thing you have. Here, huge family get togethers are the norm. I was scolded by my wife to be and her parents when I suggested maybe we have less than a hundred people at our wedding (my ideal wedding would only have 20 people), but I guess that was impossible.

I don’t regret any choices I have made and I hope everyone reading this can say the same. I’m in good health and, more importantly, I have two healthy kids who I love more than anything in the world. And my wife tolerates me and my bullshit. What else could a man ask for?