I escaped a few years ago to settle down in an Asian country and am extremely happy, very, very happy that I did.
I agree with the negative comments in that if you are escaping with some retirement money and intend to ride out the rest of your life in retirement heaven overseas, you will not be accepted and likely just be a target. A really bad idea.
I know a large number of emigrants to Asia, some from the US, most from other countries and everyone who came here with a skill or special contribution is very happy to be here (lucky to have left, actually) and feel accepted. Who needs to become a citizen anyway? If accepted into the healthcare system and respected for how you work in the community, who cares if you get to vote for an asshole in an election. We are all going to die sooner or later and being a citizen or not is less important than healthy food and avoiding stupid things like house invasions etc.
However, no one is in retirement mode. Rather, most countries especially in Asia will gladly accept a foreign expert that has something to contribute to the country and comes to work for a big company to develop new things, or merely to work their skill in a community. In particular, Asia respects science and technology and is imbibing scientists and engineers from the West. Many people have skills, as engineers, farmers, auto mechanics or boat builders, and in my observation, are well accepted because they work hard and contribute something special to the community. I have many examples and have helped people.
The most important factors for deciding if you can leave the US and resettle:
can you work hard or are you comparatively (compared to Asians) lazy. Most people in Asia will automatically assume that you are lazy if you are from America and you will have to demonstrate otherwise.
do have a desirable skill? I know some people from various countries who settled in Japan (and to a lesser extent in China) and are very happy because they are following their career dreams (typically as scientists or skilled workers) and are well appreciated as contributing something special to their new country. I know an American young farmer who is well accepted because he amazingly works hard and is making a difference in his community by converting abandoned lands into something special.
are you young enough not to be a drag on the health care system? Foreign countries are not excited about accepting old farts who want to throw a few coins their way while living a live of superior comfort among hard working natives who have much less money. I had to work hard to dispel such assumptions when I first came here. So what. Try moving to a small community in America driving a fancy new car with dreams about hiring local labor to do all your necessary work.
There seems to be a retiring-with-nest-egg-boomer emphasis on many of the discussions here. Lets hear from the younger people having practical wealth producing skills and whom are welcome in most communities if they work hard and make an effort to learn the customs.
Relatives were looking at retiring in Canada when Trump got elected. They wouldn’t be let in because they had not been financially supporting national healthcare all these years.
There is no place to “hide” in the world from what is coming. It doesn’t exist. I’ve looked into it extensively and haven’t found a place I would fully trust when the chips are down. Some may look appealing now but circumstances can change on a dime and you can rapidly become persona non grata. Even with its growing faults, the USA is the place where I chose to stay and make my stand.
Choose your state carefully and choose your community carefully. California, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey are definitely places I’d stay away from. Densely populated urban centers are also to be avoided, especially along the coasts.
Blend in with an ordinary house, ordinary cars, and an ordinary lifestyle to all external views. Keep anything extraordinary about yourself or your family largely under wraps. Contribute your efforts towards making the community you chose a better place without standing out too much and without ruffling too many feathers. Choose your friends and acquaintances wisely. Be the type of citizen, neighbor, and friend you would want others to be.
In other words, keep a low profile, follow the Golden Rule, and be gracious, generous, and kind (even if it may not always be reciprocated) and be willing to forgive faults and trespasses while still being politely assertive and resolute enough to avoid being a doormat.
If you are Asian and are seeking to integrate into a culture there where you are the same race/ethnicity, speak the same language fluently (and preferably without an accent), understand and comply with all the cultural rules (at least to all external appearances), etc., then yes, if you would chose to move there, it would not be unreasonable. But again, I would stay away from the most densely populated urban areas and “flash zones” where it appears future warfare is imminent. There is, however, the factor of some of the highest population density on the planet being in many areas of Asia and many of the problems we are increasingly facing are definitely related to population density and its mismanagement.
If you do not fit the above criteria, I would venture that you would be better off staying where you are or going to where you do fit those criteria.
“Asia” is the most diverse region on the planet and embraces everything that you can imagine. This question does not apply.
Japan is exceptional for many of the right reasons. During their 700 year old known, recorded history, Japanese were invaded only once, by the Americans, who destroyed their despotic, corrupt government, broke up the big greedy landholders and redistributed private farmlands, taught them many new ways of having fun, and brought peace and prosperity.
They do not hate the Americans for doing those things.
99% of Japan is rural, characterized by abandoned houses and sprinkled with fallow farm land. In my opinion Japan is the most civil country on earth, with possibly the best functioning healthcare system that costs about 4 fold less resources to run than in America.
One of the biggest problems a Westerner faces in Japan is that people wont let him/her alone because they insist on using you to practice and learn English. I call this “the English punching bag syndrome.” Such people dont care about you and many are racist. But out in the country efforts to revive the countryside by hard work are rewarded. One becomes a comrade by accepting the same challenges as your neighbors and carry on the common struggle to extract wealth from the land and build up the soil and community.
The world is reorganizing itself along occupational lines. Race, religion, skin color etc. are less important than a. how extremely wealthy you are or not (billionaires of any country or religion are bestie friends and dont give a shit about you the commoner, regardless of common country affiliation), b. your skills and career (a farmer in Japan will respect and accept a farmer from America much better than she will a stock broker from Tokyo; a local auto garage will respect a Greek engineer with experience rebuilding cars much more than someone from Osaka who never worked a day in his life because his family is rich, or even a local neighbor who does not understand or care about how cars work and who makes money by keyboarding on social media; a welder or electrician will respect a foreign welder or electrician struggling to rebuild metal work or wiring a broken down house much more than they will a lazy local guy who is afraid of hard work.
There are “awake” people in every country on the planet who understand what is going on, and recognize, appreciate, respect, and want to cooperate with like minded people from any country, race or religion. We need to cooperate to get anything done in the modern world. Mental attitude and ability to work hard and cooperate are most despositive.
I will insult many by saying this and I will not respond to keyboarder blowback, but I have to point out that people who spend most of their time behind a chattering keyboard under a glowing screen, and worrying about their investments should not consider starting a new life here.
Mots wrote about experiences in Japan, an internationally recognized power with the 3rd largest economy world-wide. Glad enjoys it there and having a good life with like minded friends. Not very representative of the rest of Asia like the wild-west of Cambodia, the kidnap/ransom activities in Philippines, or other places like Panama where robbing the foreigner is standard fare. (Fellow teacher of mine was shot, kidnapped, and held for 18 months for ransom in P.) Japan has been actively engaged in commerce with the USA for years so there’s a history between the nations. There’s a layer of protection even foreigners enjoy due to social mores and strict law enforcement in Japan you won’t see in these other places. It is a very homogenous country with a small percentage of non-citizens so you’re not experiencing the marauding invasion problem elsewhere.
Regarding the blow-back: Perhaps the snarky comments about those parasitic, unenlightened retirees throwing money around was a bit too far. Funny how everyone is offended constantly by differing opinions, but ageism is the one prejudice permitted. Bringing money into a region supports local commerce. The Baby Boomer group were mostly employed at entry level jobs by 16 yo and moved house at 18-19yo to work, family, or college. This gives a work year span of 35-45 years. All that time we paid into Social Security and pensions so yes, we will be interested in what happens to it. Think we’re entitled to rest some.
Most Asian nations have an age cap of 55yo for employment regardless of your skills/degrees. Know couple of PhDs who were denied work at universities solely on that basis so being a contributing member of society is often out of our hands. Regarding being a good fellow human: agreed. Courtesy and consideration can be helpful, but it will not overcome deep rooted cultural standards. As I wrote, local expat groups actively aided the poor and special needs folks in my area until the govt. shut them down. Know many skilled trades folk here who would willingly teach others, but again, the local govt.s or native tradesmen don’t want that influence.
As for the healthcare drain, understand the problem, but from what I’ve personally seen, those who become incapacitated are repatriated to their home country. The rest of us pay cash into those medical tourism places. That’s considered desired income.
The “all my friends and I are working synergistically for the higher consciousness” story, good luck with that. Lived through the age of Hippie Communes of 60s-70s, and the truth is that human nature always reverts back to the basics: need for food/shelter then happiness/love, tainted with self-preservation, greed, lust, criminality. Given enough time in any group, bad things will happen to everyone.
Don’t be startled by attitude changes in locals if there’s a military conflict/threat or severe economic crash. In China, citizens were beaten by Chinese mobs for owning Japanese made cars at one point due to friction between the two nations. Would you agree that’s irrational? Being in Japan you might fare much better than others, but it still won’t be pretty.
At the end of the day I think ao said it best; If you’re going to leave, the safest bet is to go somewhere where you can blend with the look, the language and the culture.
When things go sideways, humans revert to tribalism and they always scapegoat the misfits. I have some American friends who are Chinese…born and raised here in the USA but they speak Chinese and have that cultural background. For THEM…Taiwan, Singapore, and etc would be great options for an expat location. For me, not so much.
I would need an english speaking, white/European country. Not because I think those people are any “better” than anyone else but because thats where I can blend in most easily. Theres an old saying;
“The nail that sticks up will be pounded down”
To avoid that someone could use your cameras to spy on you you router must be configured to remove broadcast of your Wifi network and implement MAC filtering so that nobody except your devices can enter in your Wifi network
@Mots,
The Charles Hugh Smith essay you linked is excellent! Exactly right, too.
Chris’ emphasis on developing the 8 forms of capital is on the same wavelength.
Learning skills is a most important pre-crisis undertaking. It’s a lot easier to incorporate someone who brings something of value to the table than it is to welcome someone who only has their empty hand out. In hard times people do look out for one another, but it’s a whole lot less strain on locals to be helping those who can already help themselves. And those with a voice in community decisions during tough times are they who add value, and don’t just drain other people’s resources. Newcomers ought to expect to add value before (or alongside) asking for help.
Elinor Ostrom calls it “provisioning” in her analysis of how people sustain shared use of common resources (in her book, Governing the Commons). Everyone who has or wants a right to withdraw from the commons must also have responsibility for provisioning the common resource - that is, a hand in building, sustaining, maintaining, and repairing it so that it renews over the long term. People who move to the country with no useful skills can’t meaningfully contribute to provisioning the shared commons of land-based resources.
But local tech schools and even many junior colleges offer classes on practical skills that any urban-centered person can learn before vamoosing to the country: gardening and farming, livestock care, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, concrete work, earth moving, tool repair, etc.
Still, most country people also have guns. For hunting, certainly, but also for protection because the local police can be several tens of minutes away. My town has a contract with the sheriffs department for a local presence between 8:30 and 4:30, M-F. Most of the time, he’s writing speeding tickets. Call 911 after hours and on weekends and the state police will arrive in not less than 20 minutes if the on-duty officer happens to be at the barracks building when a call comes in, and quite possibly it’ll take 45 or more minutes if he’s out in the field.
The presence of guns is not irrelevant to our ability to leave our doors unlocked. But neighbors caring about one another and keeping an eye out for each other’s property also matters a great deal.
Awesome comments, all valid points from my perspective. Ideally don’t just bolt your safe to the sub-floor. Find the floor joists and use beefy lag screws. If you can bolt to a concrete floor, even better. Lot’s of detail on the interwebs: https://www.pewpewtactical.com/how-where-bolt-down-safe/
Nothing is guaranteed, but certainly your odds of keeping your things go up if the safe is bolted to the floor. I’ve seen people with safes just sitting in the bedroom closet, so even bolting to the sub-floor would be an improvement over that.
If you have a hiding place that no one will ever find, no need for a safe at all. Maybe don’t keep all your eggs in one basket either. It’s an iterative process and I get better every time I think about it, so appreciate everyone’s ideas! If you’re expecting the F350 and heavy chain scenario, hiding stuff sounds a lot better.
Ive been really impressed with the quality of these posts lately. I don’t usually stop and read but this one caught my attention. Honestly, home defense is something that needs to be taken seriously depending on your circumstance and the crime rates in the area. In my area we don’t really need to worry that much because we have multiple people always at the house and therefore would be a massive deterant to potential thieves, but you never know really! Good to remember. Thanks for sharing this article guys!
-KH
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Consider sandbags in the corridor ceiling for mortar bombs, a two-way radio for communications, lights that blind and serve to herd your enemy into the perfect position. “For what fate?” I hear you ask.
(There are other nasty surprises that might distress the gentle folk of this forum.)
You are most vulnerable at the perimeter fence gate as you get out of your car to unlock it.
Consider yourself predator, not prey. Abandon the veneer of civilization. It’s an awful lot of fun if you enter it with the correct spirit. It can make you laugh and laugh and laugh.
Has anyone seen “A Clockwork Orange”? It is a rollicking good film about the nature of a healthy male.
Great Honour befalls a man who defends his family.
Remember; there are no more evil words ever spoken than that we can have a "nice" war.