http://m.indiatoday.in/itwapsite/story?sid=134860&secid=114
Insiya Amir
Sunday, April 10, 2011
India is the most unfriendly country in the world with expats finding it very
difficult to adjust to the culture, lifestyle, and its people.
According to HSBC Bank International's Expat Explorer survey, the world's
largest global survey of expats, it is very difficult to integrate with the
locals and set up home here.
In 2010, more than 4,000 expats from 100 countries answered questions
relating to quality of life, healthcare, accommodation, what it's like to
raise children abroad, and finances, among many other aspects of life. India
is No. 25 on the list that is topped by South Africa followed by Canada.
China, along with Brazil, Russia and China ranks very low on expat
friendliness. West Asian countries also proved to be a difficult location for
expats to set up in.
"Day-to-day life in India is challenging," a survey respondent, Naomi
Hattaway, who lives with her family in Delhi said. "The simple existence is
challenging. It is difficult to be so far away from family and friends and
frustrating at times to feel as if you're nomads in a country that has
adopted you, yet will never quite feel like home."
Topping the list of concerns were re-establishing a social life, feeling
lonely and missing friends and family, especially among women. But most expat
women living in India do not think so. "I totally do not agree," says
Caroline Rowe, a hospitality consultant who has been living in Delhi for the
past two years. "I have been travelling to India for more than nine years and
I find people here really hospitable and accommodating," says Rowe, who is
also a food writer and has also lived in China for six years.
But while this UK citizen insists on the goodness of Indian people and the
"lovely country" that India is, as a woman she has had her share of run-ins
with trouble. "Like being photographed with a camera shoved just three cm
away from my face at Red Fort! I have to dress more conservatively than I
would back home and I cannot go to a bar alone, and of course I get ripped
off, but but that every woman regardless of her nationality has to face here,
especially in Delhi," she says.
Chef Nick Van Riemsdijk, also from the UK, agrees with Rowe. "I have stayed
all over the world and one of the biggest reasons I decided to move to India
was that when I went to the local market I was greeted with friendly, smiling
faces," he says. "They say Delhi is hostile but try talking to anyone in
London, or worse, Moscow. Big cities are like that everywhere."
Maybe the problem lies with the sampling, says social scientist Shiv
Visvanathan, who has two problems with the claim that India is a difficult
country to settle down in. "One, it depends on the sample size and the places
where the respondents are settled. Two, foreigners come to India with their
own stereotypes. Indians may be curious, they may even be racist, but they
are not unfriendly," he says.
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