Leaving Saigon, and coming home.
Two chapters of the guide for the end of a posting: the exit, in the order it needs doing, and the return, which almost nobody prepares for.
Leaving Saigon.
The exit checklist, in the order it actually needs doing
Every guide to living somewhere assumes you are arriving. This one is written for the opposite moment: the posting is ending, there are eight weeks left, and it has begun to dawn on you that unwinding a life is considerably more administrative than building one was. When you arrived, a relocation company probably held your hand and an employer absorbed the friction. When you leave, a great deal of it is yours, and some of it has deadlines that are unforgiving once missed.
The good news is that none of it is difficult. It is a list, it comes in a sensible order, and a family that starts the list at three months has a calm departure while a family that starts at three weeks has a miserable one. What follows is the order.
- Six months out, if you have a pet or a container
- Three months out
- Two months out
- One month out
- The last fortnight
What the chapter covers
- Six months out, if you have a pet or a container
- Three months out
- Two months out
- One month out
- The last fortnight
- The part that is not a checklist
Coming home.
Repatriation, reverse culture shock, and why the easy move is the hard one
Nobody prepares for this one. Every family that moves abroad braces for the arrival — the strangeness, the language, the months of feeling foolish — and the bracing works, because the difficulty is expected and therefore survivable. Almost nobody braces for the return, on the reasonable assumption that going home is not a relocation at all. You are going back to where you are from. There is no language to learn and no system to decode. What could there possibly be to prepare for?
What the chapter covers
- Why the return is the difficult one
- What it looks like, and the timeline
- The children, who have it worst and show it least
- What actually helps the adults
- The administrative return, which is duller and more annoying than expected
- What you are actually carrying
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“Five Pillars of Relocation Success”, a chapter from the Ho Chi Minh City First Edition, as a designed PDF. Leave your email address and the download link appears right here.