Four Seas One Family

Mike Wester is a 17-year American expat resident of Beijing and a veteran of five years of expatriate living in Taipei as well. In 2001 he co-founded True Run Media, which provides information and services to the internationally-minded communities in China's largest cities. TRM operates three brands – the Beijinger and beijingkids (English) and JingKids (Chinese), producing print and digital media as well as large-scale live events for each.

• the Beijinger (thebeijinger.com) is the capital's top international English language information resource. Featuring the best in the city's dining, nightlife, style, arts and culture, it is a must-read city and lifestyle platform for locals and expatriates alike.

• beijingkids (beijing-kids.com) is the most comprehensive English-language family resource for international English-speaking families in Beijing.

• JingKids (jingkids.com) is a community-based, niche-market, multiplatform information resource for affluent parents seeking international schooling and lifestyle for their children with entirely independent editions produced in Beijing and in Shanghai.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Facebook: Michael Wester

Website: True Run Media

Website: The Beijinger

Website: Beijingkids

Website: Jingkids

WeChat: mwinchina

LinkedIn: True Run Media

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Everyone living outside his or her home nation as a story to tell that explains why they made the choice to travel and then live abroad. In today's episode we have a guest that fits this description without exception. Currently living in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Anthony Rigogliosi shares with us what brought him to the realization of why he had to change is life situation in his home nation and move abroad.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Facebook (Personal): Anthony Rigogliosi

Facebook Group: Podcast Ninja Dojo

Facebook: Trek the World TV

Website: Podcast Ninja

Youtube: Trek the World TV

Memorable Quotes:

(05:00 mins.) "Respectfully not caring what people say..."

(06:20 mins.) "Someone that doesn't have much can give so much. much."

(8:35 mins.):"Living in my car taught me the simplicities of life."

(09:35 mins.) "The Four Hour Work Week"

(13:20 mins.) "You meet the right person when you are doing the right thing."

(22:03 mins.) "Real people here."

(23:00 mins.) "Gratitude. You can't teach it."

(00:00 mins.) "Don't do the things you hate."

(25:35 mins.) "Stop doing the things you don't like and spend time doing the things you do like."

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Please help us make this show better by filling in this Expat Life Expat Life Survey.

It will help us produce a better show for you and thanks!

If you have any feedback, please leave a note in the comments section below or leave a voice message via our SpeakPipe voice message page. We would love to hear from you!

If you enjoyed this please share it with your friends, family and co-workers by using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts to get automatic episode updates of our podcasts.

And, finally, please take a minute to leave us an honest review and rating on Apple Podcasts. They really help us out when it comes to the ranking of the show and I make it a point to read every single one of the reviews we get.

Please help us spread the word and leave a review in Apple Podcasts by clicking here! Thank you for listening to Four Seas One Family. We are all the same and at the same time uniquely different!

From overseas, expats can offer unique perspectives that may not be easily observed by international media outlets.

With all the cultural and political uprising taking place in the world today, now is the time for expats, who have had the opportunity to interact and live amongst different cultures, to make their points of views heard and work to breakdown cultural misunderstandings that have developed through suspicions, hate and fear.

James Thomas, the host of Four Seas One Family, is working with other like-minded expats located in different parts of the world to create a podcast program for expats to hold live online discussions about both local and global events that may directly or indirectly influence their home nation or the nation they currently reside in. The podcast will be called "The Expats Roundtable".

"The Expats Roundtable will be based on the following:

1. Members are to be expats who currently live abroad or "former expats" who have returned to their "home country(ies)" but have lived "long-term" overseas before.

2. In the beginning, membership will be built from introductions from current expat members. The more expats taking part, the more information that could be created and exchanged. This would offer a lot of value.

3. Roundtables "should" be held every two weeks on-line via Youtube's Google+ Hangouts at pre-arranged times. It is hoped that in the future selected expat members can assist in hosting online discussions from expats located in different time zones at pre-arranged times. Each roundtable should have a topic that is chosen by members or a recent trend or event that affects expats domestically or abroad. Let's use a very informal topic selection process. In fact, more than one topic may be covered at once in a roundtable.

4. No member is required to take part in any "certain number" of roundtables to be considered a member. However, it is hoped that participation becomes strong and lasting.

5. In order to help assist in keeping discussions opened and balanced, non-expats maybe allowed to be invited to, and take part in, on-line and off-line discussions.

6. "The Expats Roundtable group could help drive some interest to members personal or business related websites while, at the same time, keeping the branding of a member's main website(s) separated from "The Expats Roundtable group.

7. Discussion topics, times and dates will be coordinated via email and online polling.

MEMBERSHIP RELATED

1. Members should be current or former expats who write a blog post or produce a podcast episode at least once a month.

2. A "former expat" is defined as someone who has lived abroad for at least two years. Exceptions maybe allowed.

3. Membered expats are requested to assist in promoting "The Expats Roundtable in some way and, if they like, promo other member's blogs or podcasts as well. It is hoped that the cross promotions will raise awareness of content created and produced by members who may specialize in a niche that other listeners maybe interested in.

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Please help us make this show better by filling in this Expat Life Expat Life Survey.

It will help us produce a better show for you and thanks!

If you have any feedback, please leave a note in the comments section below or leave a voice message via our SpeakPipe voice message page. We would love to hear from you!

If you enjoyed this please share it with your friends, family and co-workers by using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic episode updates of our podcasts.

And, finally, please take a minute to leave us an honest review and rating on iTunes. They really help us out when it comes to the ranking of the show and I make it a point to read every single one of the reviews we get.

Please help us spread the word and leave a review in iTunes by clicking here! Thank you for listening to Four Seas One Family. We are all the same and at the same time uniquely different!

There are a few expats who have totally immersed themselves in the culture and lifestyle of their host nation. They later discover that their relationship with their adopted home has become strong and, in some cases, inseparable. Because of this type of unexplainable connection, a few expats have made the decision to give up the passport of their nation of birth to become a citizen of the nation of their adopted home. This transformation for many isn't an easy one and, in some cases, irreversible.

In this episode, James sits down for a chat with TC Lin. TC was born in the United States and decided to go to Taiwan to study Mandarin Chinese in college. TC later found himself in a place that helped him find out more about himself. He shares his tribulations and walks us through what went through his mind after making the decision to give up his U. S. passport to become a citizen of a land so different from his upbringing.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

TC Lin's Personal Website: Poagao

TC Lin's Book on Amazon: Barbarian At The Gate

Wikipedia: TC Lin

Facebook: TC Lin

Twitter: Follow @poagao

Youtube: TC Lin Youtube Page

Instagram: thepoagao

Flickr: Poagao

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE!

Thank you very much for taking the time to share this podcast.

Please help us make this show better by filling in this Expat Life Expat Life Survey.

It will help us produce a better show for you and thanks!

If you have any feedback, please leave a note in the comments section below or leave a voice message via our SpeakPipe voice message page. We would love to hear from you!

If you enjoyed this please share it with your friends, family and co-workers by using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic episode updates of our podcasts.

And, finally, please take a minute to leave us an honest review and rating on iTunes. They really help us out when it comes to the ranking of the show and I make it a point to read every single one of the reviews we get.

Please help us spread the word and leave a review in iTunes by clicking here!

Thank you for listening to Four Seas One Family. We are all the same and at the same time uniquely different!

It is often hard or almost impossible to predict where your life journey may ultimately take you. An expat's journey leads to different pathways for self-discovery. My guest this episode is American expat Carlo JaMelle. He proves in a unique way that it is very possible to become an accidental expat and, in the end, enjoy and learn from the path taken.

Carlo talks about how he ended up going to Taiwan after graduating from college. Without any in-depth knowledge of his future overseas home, he shares how he learned the skill of cultural adaptation and assimilation.

It isn't hard to see that Carlo, as an African-American expat who has chosen to educate himself about his overseas environment, is using his cultural adaptation skills to communicate with people across cultural boundaries. He has placed himself in a position of tearing down walls of cultural misunderstandings when others back in his home nation are building walls up.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Facebook: Carlo JaMelle

National Taiwan University

National Chengchi University

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Thank you very much for taking the time to share this podcast.

Please help us make this show better by filling in this Expat Life Expat Life Survey.

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If you have any feedback, please leave a note in the comments section below or leave a voice message via our SpeakPipe voice message page. We would love to hear from you!

If you enjoyed this please share it with your friends, family and co-workers by using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic episode updates of our podcasts.

And, finally, please take a minute to leave us an honest review and rating on iTunes. They really help us out when it comes to the ranking of the show and I make it a point to read every single one of the reviews we get.

Please help us spread the word and leave a review in iTunes by clicking here!

Thank you for listening to Four Seas One Family. We are all the same and at the same time uniquely different!

We sit down for chat with a 24 year old American TCK (Third Culture Kid), Mr. Brandon O'Neal. Brandon takes us for walk in his TCK world and allows us to have a peek inside his sphere of growing up as an African American third culture kid in Taiwan. He shares amusing stories of becoming part of the local Taiwanese community as well as the struggles he faced while being educated in local Taiwanese schools.

Brandon points out the importance of learning about the culture you are living in and developing the needed language skills and cultural awareness to further enforce better relationships within your local overseas community.

Always zany, upbeat and optimistic, Brandon shows how his experiences of being the "odd one" strengthened his determination to achieve his goals and the way he currently sees the world and his future.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Facebook: BlasianTW

Youtube: Blasian: Taiwanese Thug Workout Intro

Instagram: BlasianTW

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Thank you very much for taking the time to share this podcast.

Please help us make this show better by filling in this Expat Life Expat Life Survey.

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If you enjoyed this please share it with your friends, family and co-workers by using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic episode updates of our podcasts.

And, finally, please take a minute to leave us an honest review and rating on iTunes. They really help us out when it comes to the ranking of the show and I make it a point to read every single one of the reviews we get.

Please help us spread the word and leave a review in iTunes by clicking here!

Thank you for listening to Four Seas One Family. We are all the same and at the same time uniquely different!

It is quite common for expat women traveling abroad, and especially raising a family, to feel lost and lose a sense of purpose. It is easy to feel overwhelmed in an unfamiliar overseas environment. I'm lucky this episode to chat with Ms. Rita Golstein-Galperin a career makeover strategists who focuses on helping expat women abroad find or recalibrate a their life direction.

Rita works with women all over the world and offers an online service that helps women focus and stay targeted on their life goals while overseas. She has developed online coaching materials to help women realize that their overseas lives can be made relevant to the goals and dreams they want to achieve. Rita is also the author of the book "Grow Abroad (Gift of Reinventing and Owning your Worth)". This book is the quintessential guide for expat women looking to get beyond their "Zombie Mode" of existence.

Rita says it better in her own words:

From Rita's Expat Renaissance Website

I'm a Career Makeover Strategist® for expat women and the founder of Expat Renaissance.

A somewhat serial expat from childhood, I'm now a multicultural mom in Paris and a passionate lover of all chocolate:) More to the point though, I'm a former serial career sifter: a lawyer, economist, tutor, public policy analyst and a senior diplomat….

The question of "what do I want to do when I grow up?" hunted me for years. I read every book, attended every workshop and bought every program out there to try and figure it out…

Till it hit me: there is NO right or wrong answers, it's just the journey. And so, after training as a coach, I've decided I don't want to grow up and I don't want to put my dream on hold… this is my time to thrive. I since helped hundreds of women around the world redefine and reinvent their success abroad.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

If you are a female expat who is searching for a way to refocus on a goal, Rita's awesome online service may be the guiding light that can help you remap and rediscover your life while abroad.

Website: Expat Renaissance

Book: "Grow Abroad (Gift of Reinventing and Owning your Worth)"

More About: Expat Renaissance

Facebook: Expat Wonder-Women

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Thank you very much for taking the time to share this podcast.

Please help us make this show better by filling in this Expat Life Expat Life Survey.

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If you have any feedback, please leave a note in the comments section below or leave a voice message via our SpeakPipe voice message page. We would love to hear from you!

If you enjoyed this please share it with your friends, family and co-workers by using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic episode updates of our podcasts.

And, finally, please take a minute to leave us an honest review and rating on iTunes. They really help us out when it comes to the ranking of the show and I make it a point to read every single one of the reviews we get.

Please help us spread the word and leave a review in iTunes by clicking here! Thank you for listening to Four Seas One Family. We are all the same and at the same time uniquely different!

I started this website and podcast, Four Seas One Family, to explain some of my personal insights to family members and friends back home about life overseas. I also wanted to expand the podcast to where people could easily observe that we have a lot more in common than we think. In this format, people would be able to listen in on examples that prove that we are fundamentally the same regardless of skin color, religion, politics or other beliefs. We all have basic concerns that include security, welfare, health, happiness, comfort and prosperity.

I also wanted to showcase examples of how expats, who maybe living and working inside nations that are very unlike their own, interact with the people of their host nation and how they were able to have open and objective dialogue (with the local people). In the end, these interactions assisted in building or regaining mutual respect.

We live in a world where we are more interconnected than ever. Nations are less limited by their physical boundaries. They are only limited by the amount of creative freedoms and ambitions their people are allowed to possess and display. Today's innovative advancements are the direct results of the globalization of shared knowledge among people from different backgrounds, nations and cultures. Many live under different political regimes and are of different lifestyles and religious beliefs. This type of open exchange has allowed mankind to expand its knowledge exponentially.

Unfortunately today, even in developed democratic nations, we are finding people who are willing to isolate themselves, sometimes by any means necessary, from people who they perceive as dangerous outsiders. They fear that these so-called "outsiders" have taken away and are destroying their livelihood. People harboring beliefs like this look to employ or elect representatives that they feel would uphold these types of beliefs at a national level in the hope of gaining some social, political and economic protections.

Today, the question people in these nations need to ask themselves is, how far are they willing to allow their need of protection from people who they view as dangerous outsiders to go? Would these people encourage and allow their elected representatives to expel, mass-incarcerate or otherwise vastly impede on the civil rights of the people they "fear"? Is this the world we want to live in today?

When we give ourselves the opportunity to embrace and interact with people from other cultures, we actually change our mindset which allows us to know even more about ourselves and, at the same time, what other people are really like regardless of the seas, rivers and WALLS that may be separating us.

When people of different nations are deprived or blocked from accessing the tools needed to learn more about people who aren't like them, distrust deepens, hardens and becomes more even more internally engraved within their culture at all levels.

Over the past, up to now 50+ podcast episodes, I have come to the belief that the platform I created really isn't just only for people who are or may only be thinking about living abroad. The podcast has turned into a cultural portal where listeners can observe life overseas and learn more about cross-cultural communications and interactions.

Let's face it, most of the fears people from different nations have against people who aren't like them come from sources that have the simple goal of keeping us separated and ignorant of each other. This type of underlining agenda and motive isn't beneficial for developing or fostering cross cultural communications and exchanges. I am working to make the website and podcast a gateway that can help lower some of the fears, insecurities and apprehensions people from different cultures and nations may have towards one another.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE!

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Please help us make this show better by filling in this Expat Life Expat Life Survey.

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If you have any feedback, please leave a note in the comments section below or leave a voice message via our SpeakPipe voice message page. We would love to hear from you!

If you enjoyed this please share it with your friends, family and co-workers by using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic episode updates of our podcasts.

And, finally, please take a minute to leave us an honest review and rating on iTunes. They really help us out when it comes to the ranking of the show and I make it a point to read every single one of the reviews we get.

Please help us spread the word and leave a review in iTunes by clicking here!

Thank you for listening to Four Seas One Family. We are all the same and at the same time uniquely different!

Living as an expat can sometimes be like riding a rollercoaster in a thunderstorm. Sometimes things appear like they are going for a positive up swing an sometimes the swing runs out of inertia and head straight to the bottom. The same thing can be said for life in one's home nation. However, riding the cultural wave as an expat takes a very different approach to facing fears, filtering doubts and finding of positive conclusion.

Our guest this episode is Ms. Jasliyn Albert. Jasliyn is an American expat living in Ufa, Russia. Hear how this expat's experience helped her to become stronger after facing issue after issue in a location over an hour flight outside of Moscow. Hear how Jasliyn managed to overcome her shyness that allowed her to face doubts when being confronted at her job as an English language instructor.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Website: Coffee and Cleveland

From Jasliyn's blog " Coffee and Cleveland":

I am an American expat living in Russia. When I'm not teaching English or trying to master the Russian language I am taking photos of old buildings, graffiti, or abandoned places. Want to know more? Read about it here. You can follow along with my book list here. If you still want more you can follow my bucket link.

Contact Jasliyn on her Contact Page.

Facebook: Coffee and Cleveland

Twitter: Follow @jasilynalbert

Instagram: jasilynalbert

Pinterest: jasilynalbert

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE!

Thank you very much for taking the time to share this podcast.

Please help us make this show better by filling in this Expat Life Expat Life Survey.

It will help us produce a better show for you and thanks!

If you have any feedback, please leave a note in the comments section below or leave a voice message via our SpeakPipe voice message page. We would love to hear from you!

If you enjoyed this please share it with your friends, family and co-workers by using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.

Please subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic episode updates of our podcasts.

And, finally, please take a minute to leave us an honest review and rating on iTunes. They really help us out when it comes to the ranking of the show and I make it a point to read every single one of the reviews we get.

Please help us spread the word and leave a review in iTunes by clicking here!

Thank you for listening to Four Seas One Family. We are all the same and at the same time uniquely different!

In this episode, American expat Jim Kovpak joins us from Moscow, Russia. Jim has been living in Moscow for over ten years and goes into how he became attracted to Russia at an early age.

Today Jim is a very active expat journalist who has covered stories for many international news agencies. While living and working in Russia, Jim and a friend noticed the false reality presented in the media about Russia and the lives of its people. Because of this, Jim and his friend created the website Russia Without BS. His blog centers on what Russia is really like without bias media opinions. His blog has a faithful following of readers who are well versed in Russian history and culture.

In this interview, Jim not only explains what is behind some of the misalignments in Russian reporting, but also goes into some of the reasons why many media pundits in the West have developed an unrealistic view of Russia and its diverse people.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Website: Russia Without BS

Facebook: Russia Without BS

Twitter: Follow @RussiawithoutBS

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE!

Thank you very much for taking the time to share this podcast.

Please help us make this show better by filling in this Expat Life Expat Life Survey.

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If you have any feedback, please leave a note in the comments section below or leave a voice message via our SpeakPipe voice message page. We would love to hear from you!

If you enjoyed this please share it with your friends, family and co-workers by using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic episode updates of our podcasts.

And, finally, please take a minute to leave us an honest review and rating on iTunes. They really help us out when it comes to the ranking of the show and I make it a point to read every single one of the reviews we get.

Please help us spread the word and leave a review in iTunes by clicking here!

Thank you for listening to Four Seas One Family. We are all the same and at the same time uniquely different!