Overcoming Homesickness in the Land of Smiles
Guest Writer-Freya Peake a KET Teacher in Lampang Province, Thailand
Myself & the other foreign teachers in Bangkok.
Picture this. You've been in Bangkok for a week. You've seen temples and markets, tried new foods, and walked busy streets. Then you've dashed up to Sukhothai. You've met new people, visited ancient ruins, had your cultural training and language classes, and even tried making Som Tam.
Everything has been full throttle, and every day has felt like a holiday. You are totally and utterly distracted by the all-encompassing excitement of the new.
One day from Kids English Thailand’s Teacher Training Course-The Thai Cultural Awareness and Excursion Day October 2022.
Reality Kicks In
Then you arrive in your new city. The Kids English team sorts your accommodation, garners an introduction to your new school, and eventually says their goodbyes.
The KET team is available 24/7 and is only a text away, but now, "You're on your own, kid!"
You have a moment to breathe for the first time since you stepped off the plane, and it finally dawns on you. The absolute enormity of what's in front of you sinks in. You are in a strange place, with strangers, about to start a job you feel laughably underqualified for.
All the things you found so exciting in your first few days now oddly distress you. Everywhere around you, people speak a language you don't understand; they interact in customs that are entirely foreign to you, the roads are scary, the food too spicy, your new apartment feels weirdly eerie, and the environment too overwhelming.
Despite the objectively amazing things happening around you, all you want to do is go home. If you are anything like me, this might be your experience in your first couple weeks in Thailand. If so, I'd like you to know this post is for you.
I've painted a disturbing picture so far.
You'll never see this perspective replicated in anyone's Instagram or travel channel. But I promise this story has a positive end, so don't be scared off.
I was hoping you could stick with me as I try to be as honest (maybe brutally so) about the realities of homesickness and give you some advice that has helped me overcome these initial fears.
The glass box and the cloud
Before this move, I had never experienced homesickness, and my time away from home had been short. I've always considered myself an adventurous person. Living abroad had been on my bucket list for a while, and I found the prospect of it an exciting challenge despite people warning me that it would be difficult.
Rationally, I knew that a degree of missing home and normality should be expected in the first few weeks of my adventure. But when homesickness came, it felt nothing like I thought it would.
I'd been prepared to miss my family and friends, the food I loved, and the climate I was used to. However, I was not ready for the isolation I would feel.
I am lucky to have a great support system back home. I am also fortunate that all the foreign teachers I have trained with and met in Lampang have been genuinely wonderful people.
Lampang Foreign Teachers.
I am lucky that every Thai person I have met has been generous and kind. Despite this luck, I felt utterly disconnected and isolated. I could see all the beauty of Lampang. I sat at tables full of wonderful, kind, funny people, yet my mind said, "No one here really knows me."
I explored buzzing markets, ate exotic foods, and saw ornate temples and beautifully lit bridges. I was living life, yet I felt absent, like walking around in a glass box or soap bubble. Nothing reached me.
Accompanying this disconnection was an intermittent but overwhelming feeling in my chest. I've searched for the right word to describe it, for it is a very distinct feeling. The closest I can muster is "dread." I felt a gut-wrenching sense of dread.
This feeling would strike me at random. On days when I began feeling confident, I would be dragged down by lunchtime. A dark cloud would overcome me when I was enjoying warm Friday evenings in beautiful fairy-lit bar gardens.
As someone who has always been emotionally consistent and is not prone to ups and downs, I found this intensely frustrating and slightly scary. I could not understand why I felt this way when surrounded by exciting things and wonderful people.
Well, I am done if you still want to live abroad after that dire description! I promise from here, it's uphill.
Here's some advice from what I've learned from my experience. Much of it you might have heard before, but hearing it from someone who has gone through and is still going through homesickness will hopefully make you see how true it is.
Be kind to yourself.
If you're finding yourself in the grips of homesickness, you may also be experiencing frustration or guilt accompanying this. I know I did.
"Pull yourself together, Freya," I would think to myself. I knew that what was happening to me was objectively excellent; even more, I learned how lucky I was to be in a position to be able to live abroad.
How many people in the world will never get this opportunity?
I am wasting it by being sad.
However, confiding in my friends at home in the UK and Lampang, Thailand, including self-reflection, helped me to see that this way of thinking, while valid, is also supremely unhelpful.
Unfortunately, you cannot logic yourself out of homesickness – at its core, it is a form of heartbreak. Bullying yourself with rational arguments will do nothing to help you.
Instead, try cutting yourself some slack. Try to give yourself some credit where it's due. Completely uprooting your life, leaving behind everything you know, the people you love most, and throwing yourself entirely into the unknown and the scary is difficult. It's okay to feel challenged by it because it is challenging.
I'm not suggesting you wallow or victimize yourself; keep the perspective that this is a beautiful opportunity to be grateful!
But it's okay not to feel "amazing- isn't my life like an Instagram post awesome all the time!"
This is a mammoth change in your life; permit yourself to feel whatever is naturally coming up. I guarantee you will learn more about yourself in these moments than you ever could by burying how you feel or trying to power through.
Something that helped me was finding an outlet for how I was feeling; for me, it was journalling and music. One of the first things I did when I arrived in Lampang was to treat myself to a guitar, as playing the guitar has always helped me express myself.
Distractions are also helpful – watching a movie, going for a walk, and taking your mind off your stress can be beneficial, but I would encourage you to find something that helps you express how you feel, not just distract you from it.
My wisest friend once told me in one of our many long-distance chats “that your emotions are like vibrating strings. You can let it ring out fully or eventually fade or tie yourself up in knots, trying to fight how you feel.”
The choice is yours, but in my experience, option two takes much more time and effort in the long run. You are homesick. That's a reality.
Pretending that you aren't will only delay your improvement.
Give yourself a break!
This leads me perfectly to my second piece of sage wisdom.
Confide in your friends.
You've heard this one before, and annoyingly, it's true. It would help if you confided in your friends and family for all the reasons we mentioned. Talking things through is an essential part of working through them.
Challenges seem so much more challenging when you're wrestling with them in your head. Much like writing, the physical act of talking helps you gain perspective and see things in a different light.
But I know that talking about your feelings is not always easy.
For a minute, let's put your friends and family into two categories – "near" and "far."
The likelihood is you know your "Far Friends" much better than your "Near Ones"; you probably only met the "Near" ones when you arrived.
These friends can help you overcome the beast called 'Homesick.' Talking to your "Far Group" is helpful because it will show you that you don’t need to miss what you still have.
Through the absolute miracle of modern technology, you can be involved in your friends' lives from the other side of the world. You can connect with them despite the thousands of miles of distance; you can know what's going on with them, and they are with you.
Also, their distance is an advantage for you. They can offer you a more detached perspective, correct you when you over-romanticize home, encourage you when you doubt yourself, and remind you of the reasons you embarked on this journey in the first place.
In short, being honest (I mean genuine) with your "Far Friends" will give you evidence that they haven't gone anywhere and that all the things you value most about your "Far" connections will endure.
However, there is always a danger that you lock yourself in your room, confiding only in your "Far Friends" and family. As supportive and close as they might be, there is one thing they are not. "Here in Thailand."
If your homesickness comes from feeling disconnected like me, then your "Far Friends" can only aid you so much. There is no replacement for your shared experience with your "Near" group of could-be friends.
It can be challenging to reach out at first, particularly if you don't know your "Near Friends" well, but let me reassure you.
What initially stopped me from talking to my "Near Friends" about how I was feeling were two things. Firstly, I didn't want to bring them down with negative talk when it seemed they all found living abroad easy and enjoyable. Secondly, I'd convinced myself that they wouldn't understand how I felt, and I didn't want to seem like I couldn't handle it.
I was wrong on both counts!
Moving abroad is crazy, and I guarantee every foreigner you meet will be experiencing or will have experienced some challenges. Homesickness or other struggles with living abroad will not be unique to you. Once you bite the bullet and are honest with a "Near Friend" about your feelings, you will quickly discover they have their challenges.
Far from bringing them down, sharing what you're going through creates a bond between you. It permits them to open up as well. It will help you to get to know each other. To take your relationship beyond a casual acquaintance and into genuine friendship. The more vulnerability you allow with these people, the closer you will become.
The hardest part is starting the conversation; everything will become easier once you begin.
Give yourself time
Did you know Rome wasn't built in a day?
Well, "Your home wasn't built in a week."
Reading at Wang River, Lampang, Thailand.
This is the most critical and obvious advice I have for you. Suppose you feel that gut-wrenching sense of discomfort, homesickness, or isolation. Please take out a piece of paper and a pen and write down everything you associate with that intangible feeling of 'home.'
When I did this little thought experiment, here's the list I came up with:
Familiarity with my environment.
A small group of close friends.
Genuine honesty and connection with those friends.
A sense of being part of a community.
Fulfillment at work.
Familiarity with the language and customs.
Activities I enjoy with people I enjoy being around.
One thing ties all these aspects of 'home' together. They all take time to create—a long time. So, if you're in the grips of homesickness and feeling out of place, stop freaking out and count the days you've been in your new location. Maybe it's only a few days, weeks, or even months. You are still a baby in this new place; give yourself time to grow.
Writing this list also helped motivate me to leave the safety of my room and get out there. When feeling low, it's easy to lock yourself away with Netflix and Western food. Sometimes, it is a good thing to take it easy on yourself, but too much of this will get in the way of you making progress. When I didn't feel like being adventurous, I set myself one tiny goal for the day: to make a little progress toward any of the things on my list.
Whether it was to converse with a Thai teacher at school, go to the evening market with the foreign teachers for dinner, or go for a walk around the city. Doing something tangible made me feel like carving a home in Lampang was something achievable and exciting rather than the impossible task I had built it up to be.
It also kept me accountable to myself by reminding me that creating a life somewhere was entirely my responsibility. Your experience abroad will only be what you make of it.
Myself with a group of High School Students.
Make friends with Thai people.
The last piece of advice is to form connections with Thai people – the teachers at your school, the person who runs your favorite food stall or restaurant, your landlord, or your grab driver.
For example, every day I walk home from school, I wave to the woman who sold me my guitar. We've only spoken a few times, but this little daily interaction makes me feel like Lampang will become home soon.
These connections require a little more effort initially – crossing a language and cultural barrier is occasionally awkward to navigate.
But luckily for you, everything you may have heard or read about Thai people and the Land of Smiles is true.
Thai people are incredibly kind, polite, and encouraging. Thai hospitality was a shock to the system coming from the UK, where strangers are often cold towards each other. Your co-teachers, in particular, may offer to go for food, take you to the local market, or for drinks; they will want to help you feel at home.
The fact that you're a foreigner gives you lots to converse about. Thai people are very proud of their homeland – so ask them about Thai food, culture, and places to see, and they will be excited to share their wisdom with you.
The Thai people in your city are a fountain of knowledge that will be irreplaceably helpful to you in navigating your new world. So, accept every invite for drinks or food in your first few weeks.
Try to learn some basic phrases; no doubt you will pronounce them wrong, but Thai people are very forgiving and appreciate your effort to pick up the language. Thai people admire you if you engage properly in the culture (using the "Wai" greeting, dressing appropriately, bringing food into the staff room at school, etc.).
It can feel awkward to start talking to Thai people when you don't know the language well, but give it a go. It can only ever be a positive thing. Like confiding in your friend, it doesn't feel so scary once you've begun.
Foreign Teachers and Thai teachers in Lampang hanging out together.
You moved abroad because you wanted to experience a new culture – so get out and immerse yourself in it and accept that you will make mistakes, occasionally feel low, and face challenges. Embrace the slight insanity of your experience, and always remember to laugh when things go wrong.
I'll wrap it up before this becomes the world's longest blog post. My big takeaway is that it's okay to be homesick – it indicates your love of your home and the people you have left, not cowardice.
Be kind to yourself and give yourself time to settle. I promise that in a few months, your perspective will be so different from what it might be now, and you will have learned more about yourself than you thought there was to know.
Enjoy!
From your not-so-homesick teacher friend,
Teacher Freya- Lampang Thailand
Relevant
Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/blog/october-semester-break to learn about the beautiful places in the north of Thailand to visit during the October school holiday.
Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/blog/loy-krathong-lantern-yipeng-2022 to learn more about the beautiful yearly festival of Loy Krathong.
Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/teacher-training-program-thailand to read about Meaningful Work and Travel Teaching Positions starting in May 2023 with teacher training in April 2023.
Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/blog/loi-krathong-festival-2020 to read about Thailand’s Loy Krathong Festival in 2020.
Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/blog/thai-work-permit to read about the Thai Work Permit.
Go to kidsenglishthailand.org/blog/the-thai-school-calendar to read about the school year in Thailand and how it is different from most other countries.
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