Growing up as a Third Culture Kid with Pauline Mura | Expat Empire Podcast 24
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Episode Description
In this episode of the Expat Empire Podcast, we will be hearing from Pauline Mura. Pauline is a french Third Culture Kid who grew up in Ireland and South Africa before moving to Japan and the US for short periods of time. After 4 years spent again in Ireland for work she founded the podcast Meet The Expats once back in France, interviewing travelers throughout the world to share their unique experiences.
In this episode, you will learn:
- The benefits and challenges of growing up across multiple countries, cultures, and languages
- The differences you can find in school life across places like Ireland, South Africa, France, and Japan
- How the real American university experience is compared to the image from Hollywood movies that many people around the world have in their minds
- Some tips for parents raising Third Culture Kids
…and much more! You can follow Pauline through her podcast Meet the Expats on Instagram at meetthexpats or contact her over email at meettheexpats@gmail.com. Learn more about the show at https://podcast.ausha.co/meet-the-expats.
Eli Hermit produced the music for this episode, please check him out on Bandcamp at elihermit.bandcamp.com/.
Please leave us a review at ratethispodcast.com/expatempire.
Learn more about Expat Empire and schedule your free consulting call to plan your move abroad at expatempire.com!
Episode Transcript
Intro
Welcome to the Expat Empire Podcast, the podcast where you can hear from expats around the world and learn how you can join them.
Hi everyone, thanks for joining us today for the 24th episode of the Expat Empire Podcast.
Before we jump into today’s interview, I want to remind you that we’re happy to talk with any listeners about their international plans once the pandemic situation has passed. It’s never too soon to start planning for your next big life change! Whether you’re looking to make your first or your next move abroad or are thinking about how you can become a digital nomad, we’re ready to help you think about the next steps in your journey. Send us a message at expatempire.com and let us know what you’ve been daydreaming about over the last year of downtime.
On the other hand, if you know someone else who is thinking about moving, send them our way and we’ll be happy to send you some money for making the connection. Check out our referral program for more information.
With that said, today we will be hearing from Pauline Mura. Pauline is a french Third Culture Kid who grew up in Ireland and South Africa before moving to Japan and the US for short periods of time. After 4 years spent again in Ireland for work she founded the podcast Meet The Expats once back in France, interviewing travelers throughout the world to share their unique experiences.
Without further ado, let’s start the conversation.
Conversation
David McNeill: Hey, Pauline thanks so much for joining us today on the Expat Empire Podcast.
Pauline Mura: Hi David, it’s lovely to join; it’s great to talk to you and share my experience, my first time being on the other side of the mic.
David McNeill: Yeah, I’ve also been doing a bit more of that recently myself, and know that we just spoke recently for your podcast. So it’s exciting to be able to swap our stories and yeah, to just get an opportunity indeed, to change which side of the microphone that we’re on. So for our listeners today, it’d be great if you could tell me a little bit about your background. Where are you originally from, where around the world you’ve lived so far and where you live right now.
Pauline Mura: Sure, so I’m French you might not hear it, but I am, my parents are French and I was born in Paris. I stayed 2 years there that I don’t really remember because we moved to Ireland straightaway for my dad’s job. He always liked living abroad and was in Schneider Electric and he got this opportunity to move to Dublin when I was 2 years old, so off we went. I have no clue how that happens, I don’t really recall the whole move or anything, and I was just following my parents and spent 7 years there. So from the age of 2 to 9, so that was really my first experience abroad without really having a notion of this, went to Irish school straight away, so I was immersed in local culture and would just go to France for the holidays, so I didn’t really have experience of living in France. But after those 7 years, my father got another opportunity to go abroad and this time it was South Africa, so that was a whole different experience, a whole different style.
We then came back to France, which is a bit more challenging because this time that was my first time living in France and actually yeah, experiencing day-to-day life with the French and in the French school. And it’s the age of 13 years old, you’re becoming a young teen, and everyone’s sort of figuring out their personalities, they’re not the easiest time. Spent one year in Japan, Tokyo with my parents still, so this was my last year of high school and after that, I took off back to France this time to do my studies. And during my studies I did 6 months, well, it wasn’t Erasmus because it was outside Europe — I went to the US and North Florida for an exchange, 6 months internship in London, so I followed a boyfriend and came back to France after to start working finished, my studies, worked in Paris. A job came up in Dublin, so I moved back to Dublin for a good few years, 4 and a half. And I came back very recently with COVID unexpectedly and I’m back in France right now, but I’m moving very shortly back to Paris where I stayed 6 years when I was working there.
David McNeill: Okay, wow, so definitely a lot of ground for us to cover today. And I think what’s interesting about your story and what I’d love to get into is what that experience is like to be able to grow up across multiple countries and to be what I guess is generally called a third culture kid. So in general, do you have any sort of, I guess, general thoughts about what that process was like to live in so many different countries and get sort of mentally prepared for those moves? Or were you kind of being moved around kicking and screaming or were you excited to jump into the next opportunity?
Pauline Mura: I think it was always a bittersweet move, there was excitement, definitely. But there were also a lot of tears and sadness when you’re leaving your friends; it got better with the years. Obviously, the first move to Ireland I don’t have really any feedback to give, I was way too young. But living abroad as a young child, there are perks, I mean, there are definitely advantages and you see it in a lot of TCK kids. I mean, you have this view of the world, you discover a lot of new people and new cultures. So it just gives you this open mind and you don’t have this fear of the stranger of the foreigner and you tend to just connect with those people and be curious, have no… Yeah, you start talking to people, where they’re less, not judging really am just trying to understand where they come from and how they think and what their habits are, culture are and you get to taste a lot of different foods. And I think my parents have traveled before I was even born and then me traveling with them living abroad, I feel like I tasted so many different foods when I was a kid. My parents had lived and before we went back together this time, and as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved sushi, raw fish. I was probably 5 years old and already eating raw fish and that was fine.
So there is this open-mindedness at everything that’s around you I think. There’s a great advantage around language, I mean I was put into an English speaking school when I was 2 years old, so I just caught up with the language straight away. Was learning French and English at the same time, to a point where my mom and I realized I have to give my daughter French lessons because she was starting to speak French with the English structure of a sentence. So after school for a couple of years, my mom would actually give me French lessons through this correspondence class and so we were already at distance classes already at the time by getting back into the nineties. So you’d send your papers back over to the organization, they would correct it and back to you and this bit of back and forth, but my mom would sort of play as the teacher after school for a couple of hours every day. But then it means I learned English straight away and I was fluent in both English and French, which is great. And I regret today not having pushed myself to learn a different language instead of getting to the US for my Erasmus. Maybe I should have gone to Germany and actually learned a new language and regretted this 15 years later that might’ve been a bit lazy on that side, but…
David McNeill: Yeah, but I mean also just such a totally different culture, right? I mean, of course, as you go between; well, any of the countries that you mentioned, frankly, and quite different cultures, typically different languages. But I can imagine going from, for example, Europe and to the United States for a short period of time at that age range will just give you, I mean, just a totally different experience than you could expect within Erasmus in the EU, for example. So yeah, how that was in terms of that stark difference or even of course, then you’d also been to Japan like you mentioned. So, you know, having been there myself, I’m just curious how it was to jump into something that was so completely different. You weren’t just going around sort of the typical hotspots and places of Europe, right? So
Pauline Mura: Yeah, I was actually living there, so it made things very different. When I was moving with my parents, meaning I was still in school, the big difference for me with the big move. So the first one from Ireland to South Africa, and then there was the one from France to Japan, the big move from Ireland to South Africa for me was, okay, well, you’re moving continents. You’re going to a place that’s completely unknown to a 9-year-old who has no clue where you’re moving, I thought I was going to Savannah and Johannesburg city. So there’s a piece of the unknown and what, you know, your imagination sort of builds up as a kid.
And then the big difference was it was my first time going to a French school also when I was in Johannesburg. So meeting with a lot more French kids, although that school was extremely international, I mean, there were 80 nationalities in the French school. So it was really connecting with kids that are from all over the world. A lot of TCK kids, a lot of children with diplomat parents, but also some from the military and kids like myself, who; while their parents were in the specific industry that made the move or parents or teachers. But there was this big mix around, some were French, Belgium, some from Africa; being on the African continent, you’re confronted with things that you’ve never thought of. Like we were there from 96 to 2000 and at some points, we have 4 or 5 kids joining our school in the middle of the school year. And they had had to feel what the Republic of Congo was because Kinshasa was under siege and there was a civil war going on. All these kids were suddenly, the families were suddenly fleeing the country and coming to Johannesburg and putting their kids in school.
And you suddenly realize what the world am I am living in, I never thought there would be a war, not far from me, where I meet people who have to feel that. Then there’s also the whole way of life in South Africa that’s completely different where all their hazards are huge because there’s space, everyone has a pool. So you come into this completely different world where you live outside, everyone has a pool, maybe a jacuzzi; everyone has a maid and a gardener. Your way of life completely changes from one day to another and you’re confronted with racism also of understanding what apartheid is. It had just ended a few years ago, but it was still very, very present and sees different things like small situations where there’s obviously a safety problem. Every house is surrounded by 3 meter high walls and there are spikes on those walls or electric fences or something, and sort of security packages you get a guard dog. So we got a German; yeah, we got a German shepherd puppy that became a German shepherd guard dog.
David McNeill: Yeah, so your life was very different from what you’d experienced up until that point, right?
Pauline Mura: Yeah, Ireland is really a safe bubble. And then you moved to South Africa where they tell you, well, you don’t walk out on the street and whenever you take the cars, the doors lock automatically. And if you see something fishy, you just go around the block 5 times. But if you think you’re followed don’t go home and there are security measures, you just learn to live with them, but it is very different. I was lucky enough that I was still quite young and wasn’t in that need of independence. Oh, I want to go hang out with my friends at the mall or go to the club, but my parents do have friends who had children of that age. So the parents would actually drop their kids off at a club and come and get them outside the club at 4:00 a.m. In the car because they couldn’t be left alone or they couldn’t wait to have a loan or something like that.
David McNeill: Wow, this is almost like hard; just hard for me to even imagine.
Pauline Mura: I think one of the key things was definitely adapting, there’s this piece whereas a kid, but even when you get older is the same thing. You just have to adapt to the surroundings you’re in and start to understand a little bit the codes of how people work and just adjust to that. And as you’re a kid, you’re a bit more flexible, I guess and you ask yourself last questions of, should I be doing this, not doing this. And you just go for it a lot more than when you grow older and you start to put a little bit more barriers around yourself.
David McNeill: To put it bluntly, it’s really hard for me to imagine growing up in that environment. I mean, on the one hand, I have this feeling that I wish that my parents had given us more international opportunities when you grew up. I mean, we were able to travel and for what we were able to do, I’m really thankful. But there is this idea in my head of if I were able to have grown up in that; in let’s say a foreign country or multiple foreign countries, as I’ve seen other expats, you know, in my workplace and things like that, be able to do with their children. That just to me, I would have just been over the moon, I guess, at least I think that I would have as a kid. But now you’ve obviously seen some great stuff and some very challenging things. And things that you’ve had to grapple with and deal with, not just from a security perspective, but from a cultural adaptation point of view. So yeah, how do you feel like that’s changed you and put you on the path ultimately that led you down to where you are today?
Pauline Mura: I think it’s definitely helped me adapt; resilience is a big part. The most challenging was definitely when I left South Africa and moved back to France as for me; it was my first time actually living in France. We moved to a small town, which makes it even more difficult for Angolan on the West side of France. And coming from inside Africa, there were so many different parameters of; one I moved in the middle of a school year, second you’re changing hemisphere. So I came from summer into a blunt winter, it’s a small thing, which also raises questions from the kids; so I was 13 at that age, from the kids in this school. So for context, these are people who had always lived in this city, never moved, traveled probably quite a lot was a private school pretty wealthy kids, but they had all known each other since they were 2 or 5 years old. So it’s only a thing about; suddenly you have this stranger come in that’s tanned. So that was a big question is like “Where are you from? You’re tanned,” I said I’m coming from summer. That’s why they have no clue where South Africa is, which is quite another gamble, when you’re 13 and having lived abroad. But then I was also surprised because I had been in such an environment where all the kids had moved all the time that I was sometimes answering a bit bluntly.
Also, if there was just this miscommunication where we didn’t understand where we were coming from and going to this place where the fashions are completely different and when you’re 13, you have to find your sort of tribe between the nerds, the smart people, the cool kids. And it’s all about trying to find where you fit in, how you are and it took me a lot of times. Today they are probably my best friends, but it took a good year and a half to actually make my whole; find my tribe and understand them and they understand me and us being able to really connect and move forward. But yeah, there was definitely a whole lot of adjusting to understanding the different groups, what we’re sort of the social activities and even small things in school; like the times were very different, in France you go to school from 8 to 4–5:00 p.m. In South Africa, as it’s warm and hot, you usually do 8 to 2:00 p.m. And then you have activities every day of the week and in France, it’s only Wednesday you have a half-day off and that’s when you do your activity. So the whole rhythm was different, the classes were a lot bigger. Music classes in France like the traditional thing is you learn to play the stupid plastic flutes while in South Africa you’re learning to play the djembe, so how cool was that? And then you come to class and everyone’s spitting on their flutes then it becomes a bit boring, you wonder where you’ve landed.
David McNeill: Even on another level it’s like, maybe that’s the more, I don’t know, I put this, but industrialized, Western world kind of mentality or image of the school experience, then you’re like, no, no, I want to go back to that.
Pauline Mura: Where we played djembe, we learned the South African National Anthem and stuff like that. At first, I definitely felt like I didn’t fit in because there was just the finding necessarily connecting with the kids who had different activities and it took time, but I got there and I’m definitely happy I find them. But it was also coming back to the small city and people looking at you, not understanding where you come from and why you’re here and why you’re in such a small city. And we were in this tiny town and even my mom said, all our; we were a bit in the countryside and mom was saying, one of her neighbors look at me very strangely because I speak English to the dog. Because we got the dog and raised the dog in South Africa so who’s this French lady speaking English to her dog.
David McNeill: You really were in totally, let’s say a different cultural environment, even though that was the country that you were born in.
Pauline Mura: Yes.
David McNeill: That was your native tongue originally, right?
Pauline Mura: It was my native tongue and I had been to a French school, but an international French school, which is very different from a local small French school in a small town.
David McNeill: Did you have any issues with the language, because as you mentioned before, your mom was kind of helping or getting you into classes or whatnot for your French. Did you find that there were some challenges with the language and, or even are there like, oh, you have maybe a weird accent or something like that?
Pauline Mura: No, none at all, because those French houses were actually very, very good and I did go to a French school in South Africa. So no issue whatsoever on the French side and I always speak French at home, so there is never an accent then. It’s more when my English accent was very Irish, it still is and so sometimes people wouldn’t necessarily understand me when I was speaking English because of that accent, but on the French side, no.
David McNeill: And how did your family decide whether to go with the more international school environment versus a local school? I don’t know how much of that decision was up to them or of course, what the company provided and things like that. But it’d be interesting to know more about that.
Pauline Mura: So that wasn’t mainly up to them, in Ireland, they decided to go to a local school because they had done the research around a French school. There is one in Dublin, but the level wasn’t very good, so they decided on a local, I think it’s a private school that was very good. I mean, we actually learned to read in English sooner than French kids, I learned to read in English before I learned to read in French, for example. And then in South Africa, the different school was quite good. And they thought it was time I went to a French school if I wanted to in the future to be able to go back to France and actually understand sort of the system and be in phase with the local French system.
David McNeill: And as you went to Tokyo, then that was your last year of high school, is that right?
Pauline Mura: Yes, that was my last year of high school, so I had the choice there. My parents asked me if I wanted to go with them, knowing that it would probably only be one year for me or if I wanted to stay in France and we could arrange housing at a friend’s place or something. So I decided to go thinking, this is a one-time thing for me and I’m probably never going to go on my own or just some travels, so I might as well go. And I don’t regret it at all, but it was pretty intense because the high school there was much smaller. So the last year in France, you choose, if you go on the science way, literature or economics, just for the last few years. And on that year we were 8 kids per class. So, you sort of see it if you’re not following, not following in class. And it was pretty intense with 4-hour exams every Saturday morning, so it was pretty tough. The level was definitely higher than what I had in France and I had a bit of catching up to do on my side upon arrival there. So didn’t get to travel as much as I wanted also given that half of my weekend was spent on exams very often. But definitely the; yeah, there was no question about arriving at that level about me going to a different school than the French one. I mean, it just made sense to finish off and graduate in that high. Then; for years I sort of knew that I wanted to go to business school, so it just made sense to follow the typical French route and enter a prep school and then to a business school in France.
David McNeill: Right, how did you decide on the business by the way?
Pauline Mura: I don’t know, I think it’s sort of been in my mind for quite a few years. There’s probably a piece where my grandfather and my father and my uncle, all of them had gone through business school. And I think there was this side where, oh, I can have an international career because I’d always grown up in a family where I’d seen my father move abroad for work.
David McNeill: Right, you were thinking that maybe that would be a way to leverage your career into similar opportunities to go abroad to maybe other countries again?
Pauline Mura: I’d say so, but then again, when you’re choosing like when you’re 17, I didn’t think I really had a clue what I wanted to do with my life and it just sounded like a good thing.
David McNeill: Were you kind of glad to wrap up your time there in Japan, as far as you know, did you have any interests ultimately, and trying to make that a longer experience or take a gap year or anything like that? I mean, whether that was in Japan or elsewhere, but just, it sounds like you were kind of ready to get back into the groove and do your university studies.
Pauline Mura: Yeah, I don’t think it ever crossed my mind to say, I’m going to do a doctorate now, I had sort of seen sort of knew, this is what I want to do. So I had; I didn’t have this thing in mind oh, I need to take a gap year to think about my future. I sort of knew where I wanted to go and Paris seems exciting, a lot of my friends were moving to Paris also after high school, both from France and Japan. So I knew I was going to be completely alone and I never really saw myself wanting to live again in Japan. I enjoyed it, I loved it, but I never told myself, oh, I want to come back and actually settle in Japan or work here. I think there’s a piece where I know work can be tough in Japan like long hours, you don’t necessarily count your hours. For a woman, it’s a bit tougher; there is a very backward society in place, so it might be even more difficult. And I don’t speak Japanese, I didn’t have time to actually learn any of those like I know a couple of sentences, but that’s about it.
David McNeill: Right, and then when you were in university, then you took the opportunity as we talked about before to go for; I think, a semester to the United States, in Florida right?
Pauline Mura: Right. Yeah, it was North Florida.
David McNeill: How did you find that?
Pauline Mura: It was fun, for me it was my first time in the US I had never set foot there yet and it was fun to see campus life and see if it was sort of like in the movies. Because of my image of the US, it was mainly; well, yeah, most of my image from the US is from movies at that age, I had never set foot there. But all the TV shows that you watch are made in the US and so it was fun to see campus life, see that yeah, there cheerleading is a big thing, football is a big thing. And understand, okay, what I see as sort of more or less true, get a grasp of the teaching techniques are very different; in France, it’s very much lectures, a teacher talks, you might do a couple of exercises here and there. And in the US I find that you’re supposed to come into class more, having read the chapter before and it’s more of an open discussion during class, I find that very different. But then I wouldn’t say I was really enthusiastic about most of my classes. There were some; I took an intern, I think it was a multicultural management class, which was just ridiculous. Where I think for 4 or 5 classes, she made us learn about the different countries in the world.
David McNeill: Very multicultural.
Pauline Mura: Yeah, there were 4 exams around, well, naming the right countries on a map,
David McNeill: I guess you were, you had a leg up on that one.
Pauline Mura: Yeah, I find it a bit sad to do that in a college degree.
David McNeill: Yeah, how did you decide on the US and Florida for that matter? I mean, not that there’s anything specifically good or bad, but I just find that to be such an interesting spot for you to pick given your very multicultural background.
Pauline Mura: So it wasn’t my first choice actually, my first choice was Seoul and South Korea, my second choice was North Florida and I can’t remember what the third choice was. There was a bit of a strategic thing where there weren’t necessarily many open spots in the different countries and then it’s; you get allocated, depending on your ranking. I was also dating a guy that was going to do his Erasmus in the US. So there was also like a little bit of that, where we weren’t targeting the same cities, but at least we knew we could do it trips meet up on weekends, so that was sort of part of it.
David McNeill: Right, yeah that makes sense. Great; and then you wrapped up your university in France, and then you started working in France before you moved to Dublin, right?
Pauline Mura: Yes, I worked for 5 years in Paris before I moved to Dublin, yes. And that was a bit of; it sort of came up, it wasn’t necessarily planned, I was happy in Paris. I did have a little bit of the travel itch; I think part of it was I wanted to prove to myself that I could move abroad on my own. So without that comfort of moving with my parents and what I had to comfort of moving through Erasmus, where most of it is organized and you’re only there 6 months, you have a house there, and that’s it. That was in my mind, but I wasn’t proactively looking around that, it was just in my mind, I was trying to change jobs. I was a salesperson in a training company and wanted to switch industries to get closer to marketing and the whole digital marketing side of things. And in France, while you’re very often copy-pasted from one role to the other, HR’s aren’t necessarily very open-minded. The ones that come to you say, I have an amazing job. It’s a salesperson in training companies like that, that’s exactly what I’m doing, and I want to change.
Just things weren’t moving and I start looking at a position at IBM. I had just met someone just a few weeks before who was working at IBM and said there were a lot of opportunities. So I got to the career page to find a job that I could be a fit for and it was on the list of jobs in Paris. But when you opened the description, it said it’s actually based in Dublin, so well, what the hell I’ll just apply anyway and see what happens and that’s the job I landed. So there you go, I’m back in Dublin and one of my best friends had moved to Dublin 6 months before best friends from my high school days in France. So one of those that I kept, so it was a bit of a no-brainer, I mean, it’s a big company, it was good a career change. And it was the opportunity to prove to myself that I can move, there was a bit of a comforting side where I had friends from France there. I had also lived there a long time ago, so I could find other connections that I knew it was close to friends. So I could go back and forth with Paris is a one and a half hour flight, so it’s pretty easy.
David McNeill: I know this is a difficult question because it’s difficult when I get asked this as well. But I’m just wondering with all your varied experiences, and let’s say multiple parts of your life in Ireland and in France, for example, do you have a certain place that you tend to think of currently as home? Or is it just up in the air and wherever you happen to be at that time?
Pauline Mura: I think its Paris for me, I moved back to Dublin saying, okay, well, this is going to be fun, this is going to be a good experience, but in my head, it’s going to be 2 years. It ended up being 4 and a half, but that’s the thing is the first 2 years, I was still in a long-distance relationship with a guy in Paris, so I was going back and forth very often. And I was traveling a lot also throughout Europe because there’s amazing Ryanair is from Ireland and ended up living near the airport, which is very accessible. So I was traveling probably 2 to 3 weekends a month, I was barely in Dublin on weekends, meaning I never really settled. And then the following 2 years as I had done those 2 years, I have planned in my head. I was actually starting to look for jobs in France, so in my head it was; I’m going to move back; I’m going to move back. And I never really completely settled in Ireland although I made incredible friends and I loved my time there, but I was getting to that place where I knew that it wasn’t for me. There were too many things where it just didn’t match the type of lifestyle I wanted.
David McNeill: Do you find it interesting that the place that ends up being the one for you, I guess perhaps Paris at this stage is, you know, in your home country? Let’s say, I mean, given your broad travels and experience internationally, I just find that to be a bit, I don’t know; interesting, curious if you find the same or…
Pauline Mura: I rather ask myself that question actually, I’ve always considered myself French and I like France. Although there are things that really annoyed me in France, but wherever I go, it’s going to be the same there, things that I’m going to love in that country and things are really going to see annoying me. And it’s all about finding that balance of well, where do I feel where all the positive things overcome the negative things.
David McNeill: Yeah I agree; I think there’s this idea, this idealistic vision of the perfect country or city or place for people. And the more that you travel and especially live in places, the more you realize that every place has its cons, you know, there’s always pros and there are always cons. And you have to…
Pauline Mura: Always going to be comparing, there’s always a piece where you’re going to be comparing a country to another. And so what I tried to do is keep the best of each world and whatever I can bring to different a country, maybe a habit or a type; maybe a dish that I can cook or whatever, I try to keep those little things.
David McNeill: And so, as you mentioned at the outset of our discussion, so COVID brought you back to France now, is that right?
Pauline Mura: Yes, I had started looking for jobs in France; I actually loved my job in Dublin. I was very happy there, but I knew it was never going to be able to move back to France because they didn’t have offices in France and that was never going to be happening. And well in early March, we started being worked from home and lockdowns were starting here and there. Dublin, you have to know that most people live in a house share, I was house sharing with 3 people. When the 3 of you start working from home, it tends to be a little bit complicated; we were on each other’s toes. So I just said, I’m going to take a flight back to my parents, it’s just going to be way more comfortable. And it’s a time where; an uncertain time where I sort of want to be close to family. So I packed up a cabin bag, took my laptop and said, bye guys, I’ll see you in 2 months. Flew back and 2 weeks later, half of my company was laid off and me included.
David McNeill: Yeah, it happens.
Pauline Mura: Oh, well it happens and that’s when I decided, well, I wanted to move back to France. So now’s the time I’m just not going to move back to Dublin, I’m just going to; now that I don’t have a job there’s nothing holding me in Dublin. It’s time to look for a job in Paris, here we go. And I was thinking, well, I’ll go back to Dublin to pack my stuff in May, and then May they are still locked down. And then Dublin still has these 2 weeks of isolation when you fly in it hasn’t stopped at all. So I just never flew back and my friends just packed my boxes for me.
David McNeill: Wow, so it seems like kind of an abrupt end of course, in this situation, there is not so much that you can do about it, but…
Pauline Mura: It is an abrupt end, I’m happy at least I had a sort of mini goodbye drink before I flew off with my best friends because we didn’t know when we see each other again. And it’s a good thing I did it, but I didn’t get the real good vibe I was expecting with the Guinness and in the tub. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do that someday, I have to go to a wedding in July in Dublin, hopefully, that one holds and we can actually fly back to get the opportunity to do my real good-bye.
David McNeill: Nice, nice; so how do you feel about the opportunities around the world now; so of course it sounds like you’re planning to stay in France for the time being, but do you still have that deep-seated wanderlust? Or do you feel like after this many years, and this many moves that you’re kind of like, okay, I’ve done it with the family, I’ve done it myself? I’ve seen all parts of the world; maybe I’m good here for a while. Like, what’s your feeling about it?
Pauline Mura: I feel like I want to settle down a little bit, be back in Paris, but I know that nothing ever goes up as planned. We’ll see the travel bug might come back to me, I don’t know; I really don’t know at the moment I want to get back to Paris a little bit. I have my flat there, just live alone, and am back in my environment to reconnect with my friends a lot more. But then again with the whole COVID situation and then the fact that you can be in Paris right now, but there’s no point in being there because there’s no culture, there are no restaurants, there are no bars. So the whole point of living in Paris is it’s just not there, we’ll see how things evolve and if I do settle there for a long time or just decides to move again. I’d go somewhere else in France, either completely abroad there’s a chance that the job I’m starting is open on remote working. So starting with a French contract, but if I want to move later, I can move later there’s no issue there. So it means I have that flexibility that I need.
David McNeill: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, whether that is working from home or working from another city in the same country or being totally approved of this isn’t easy. Did you see that in many of the positions that you applied for, do you think that this is one of those trends that will stay? Or do you think it’s kind of the flavor of the month and given this COVID situation, just kind of driven out of that necessity?
Pauline Mura: This is the only company I see that does full remote, where you actually choose the country of your contracts. A lot of others state that they’re going to be flexible with work from home but you don’t know to which extent in advance. And they don’t give you that as much flexibility as to a fully remote one where you couldn’t work from any city in the world in the end.
David McNeill: Do you have any countries on your list for it would be great if I had the opportunity to live in, you know, X, Y, or Z country that is still out there, maybe not in the near future, but in the back of your mind, somewhere?
Pauline Mura: To live, I don’t know, because, in a lot of travels, I go around the city and said, oh, I could see myself living here, but then when I actually do it is a whole different story. I do like Lisbon and I think it is a city where I could see myself for a little bit. Then if I look really on the practical side where I know a bit of German and I’m trying to learn Italian. I guess, living a little bit in Italy or, well, I’d like the sign of Italy a lot more, even though Germany is probably a bit safer on the economical side of things.
David McNeill: Right, what kind of work did you ultimately find yourself getting more abroad as you’ve developed your career?
Pauline Mura: So I used to work in sales, I started my career in sales in Paris moved to IBM still on the sales side, but ended up being able to finally move more into marketing. I work at Agile, which is an ad tech company in Dublin, San Francisco based that they have an office in Dublin. I stayed there 3 years first on the customer success side and then moved to events marketing, so obviously, events took a big toll during COVID. I want to stay sort of into tech sides in marketing, so I’m still in marketing, in a tech company right now, well, starting next month.
David McNeill: Do you have any advice for others that are looking to try to move their careers abroad or, you know, just take advantage of some of these hopefully here to say, stay remote working opportunities?
Pauline Mura: I think more and more companies are doing remote and it just depends on the country. Dublin; if you work in sales and you want to be in tech, Dublin is great. I mean, they’re all there, it’s a mini Bay area with Facebook, Twitter, Google, Zandas Core is opening, TikTok is hiring like crazy there. So if you want to be in ad-tech, Dublin is definitely the space to go they hire like crazy on the sales and account management side. Work on referrals or you just add people on LinkedIn and they’ll be thrilled to refer you into the company. If you speak a second language, that’s a huge advantage because they usually hire from different European countries. So European headquarters would be based in Dublin, and they’d be serving Spain, Italy, Germany, and France from there. So very international teams and easier to get in on the sales sides, LinkedIn is definitely a good place to start searching for a job, at least in Dublin. In France it’s a bit more difficult, especially if you don’t speak French, we’re a bit more traditional on that side.
David McNeill: Right, that’s what I’ve heard as well. Yeah. Do you have any advice for; let’s say future TCK parents that might be listening on this podcast about basically your experience growing up as a third culture kid? How they could, maybe just base on your experience and with your parents’ experience, I guess maybe what they could do to best set their children up for success. If they’re having to move between countries, multiple times, different languages, different environments, things like that.
Pauline Mura: I think you’re not damaging in a way your children it’s definitely a great experience for them. There’s not much to be afraid of, but communication is definitely going to be key with your children. Of how you bring it up and really take the time to sit down with them and explain why and how things are going to happen. And try to pry information from your child to let your kid’s just express themselves, to understand what may be the blockers or what may be bothering them. This is something that I talked about on my podcast, I had Emily who has had 2 children abroad and is now more of a coach for expat parents. And I thought it great how she was talking about how she moved up to her children where she was saying, well, we stopped the children now and we played the emotions game.
So everyone went around the table and gave one thing they were excited about and one thing they were sad about and the parents jumped in also. And I think it brings a lot to the child’s to see that the parents are going through the same challenges and interpretations that you are and that it’s not all pink for your parents. And I think that’s something I might have lacked where my parents sort of, okay, tell me we are you’re leaving. I had to deal with, oh my God; I’m not going to see my friends and had to move. And well, once you start your first day of school, actually, if you use to and you make a ton of friends and everything’s fine, but I also wasn’t seeing how it was also maybe challenging for my parents. I realized that a lot later talking with my mother, like years and years later, but just understanding that, okay, it’s going to be bittersweet. Not only for you as a child, but also for your parents, then it’s okay that some things are going to be good and some things are going to be sad.
David McNeill: Yeah, I think this is great advice. And just being really, as you said, to open the communication, open with your feelings, your emotions, and ultimately you’re going through it together as a family. So I think that’s a great thing to keep in mind for folks that are having those considerations or going through some of those challenges now. Yeah and don’t be afraid about bringing your kids abroad. I’ve heard loads of parents say, oh, I wish I had moved when I was single and with no child, now it’s too late. I think I turned out fine, so I’m sure you can move with all of your kids, it will be okay. It’s definitely more preparation and work on your side, but it definitely brings a lot also to the child who’s going to have a lot of resilience can be a bit more open-minded and…
David McNeill: Yeah, that’s, what’s been also amazing about some of the consulting work that I’ve done and the people I’ve been speaking to is just seeing that it’s really people from all stages of their life and their experience of all ages, whether it’s people that are just going into university, just coming out of university. They’re interested in trying to start their careers abroad or people mid-career, trying to make a move may be with them or with a significant other or spouse. And then people with, you know, kids in there, let’s say the forties and fifties and then thinking about the next stages. As far as retirement and sixties and seventies and up, and it’s never too late, I guess, is the point that I’m trying to make.
Pauline Mura: Yeah, it’s never too late and you know that the challenges are going to be different. And what I’ve heard often that I do understand is some people saying, well, I’m in my forties, I wouldn’t mind moving abroad again, but I don’t want to do it alone and have to build my whole social circle and alone and be far from family. If I’m in a relationship, in a strong relationship moving with a partner, yes, I would definitely do. But starting that whole social life completely alone, there are times I wouldn’t do and I sort of understand that also.
David McNeill: Yeah, that’s definitely fair you realize this. I think most of us have that after those early college days; it’s a lot harder to build that set of relationships, especially if you’re not in the sort of traditional workforce working for somebody else, with colleagues.
Pauline Mura: Yeah, because we meet fewer people, it’s harder that way, definitely.
David McNeill: Did you find that as you were growing up across so many cultures and countries, that it was maybe difficult, more difficult, or perhaps easier for you to develop your identity in the midst of all of that? And I guess there are a lot of forces and a lot of experiences that they went into play into which you are and what your identity is, but I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.
Pauline Mura: It definitely did shape my identity, but I think I was kind of a shy kid growing up, but I think that changed a lot with my different experiences. But later on, maybe yeah once I started working, I think that started to change. And the last experience in Dublin definitely helped partly because I was probably older and a bit more mature and knew a little bit more what I wanted myself. And had self-reflected a little bit more, on well, this is what I like, and so I should be doing more of what I like and not necessarily thinking about what others think I should be doing. Or what others think is acceptable or just concentrating a bit more on myself rather than what other people think.
David McNeill: Yeah and I think that’s a good position to have and as you change cultures and friend circles and everything so frequently, I can also imagine that what is normal is also in your surroundings, right?
Pauline Mura: Exactly, yeah and it’s accepting that of, well, I don’t necessarily long to completely fit in, I’ll play around to be able to make friends, but if I don’t feel it, I won’t necessarily push us out more.
David McNeill: Right, awesome. Well, thank you so much for telling us your story today and sharing your insights. How can our listeners find out more about you and what you’re up to?
Pauline Mura: Well, thanks for having me, they can definitely follow me on Instagram at meettheexpats, but I have my own podcast where I’m interviewing expats. I’m going to be talking a little bit about my life in Paris and by email meettheexpats@gmail.com.
David McNeill: Awesome, well, I’ll definitely put links to that in the show notes, and thank you again for all of your insights and great stories. Look forward to keeping in touch and wish you all the best in Paris. Pauline Mura: Well, thank you and you too, it was great being on your show and talking about this.
Outro
Thanks to Pauline for sharing her story with us. You can find the full transcript for this episode at expatempire.com.
Music on this episode was produced by Eli Hermit, please check him out on Bandcamp and Spotify.
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Originally published at https://expatempire.com on February 26, 2021.
