04 RETURNING

EVERTHING CHANGED

NOTHING CHANGES

‘I noticed that I do not feel at home anymore.’

‘I appreciate the beauty of our own city after visiting so many other cultures.’

‘Dirty towns - unemployment - drink/drug use by all age group - no respect for elderly.’

‘Everything that I left the country for: depression, recession and digression.’

‘Everything was alien to me as I left at 6 weeks old - I noticed most the slow pace of life (in the 80's) and that the shops shut so much!’

‘Everywhere seemed busier and more stressful.’

‘Friends and families lives had changed.’

‘How fat people are in Australia.’

‘How grey the country was and how stressed/sad the people were.’

‘how much better the food is and how many more houses had been built.’

‘I am a changed and better person - more enlightened, more resourceful and more aware of cultural sensitivities.’

‘I felt a bit like I didn't belong there as much anymore, as if it wasn't really my home anymore.’

‘I wasn't the same person as when I left.’

‘I'm different in many ways from these people that I grew up with.’

‘it has got worse.’

‘Not much changed.’

‘Nothing more than it is familiar.’

‘Overcrowding ;stress & too may non English faces.’

‘Pedestrians usually have the right of way, everything is crazy expensive, it's cold here.’

‘People swear a lot in the uk, and are very brash!’

‘Quality of living, slow motion.’

‘Scantily clad underage drinkers.’

‘The complete indiference of people to the world they lived in. trash on the roads/throwing soda cans out the window/the arrogance of the Americans - we are Americans and we are the best country in the world. So not true.’

‘The green grass and the rain!’

‘The place was more sordid every time.’

‘Very little changes!’

NOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGESNOTHING CHANGES

‘The day I returned to Spain after moving back to the UK permanently (it lasted a week).

I stepped off the plane and knew immediately I’d done the right thing coming home.’

‘I will never forget leaving Hong Kong after my A levels - you don't do further education there so we all were going to different parts of the world to study and knew we would never be together like this again! This was in the days before email, mobile phones etc. so the only way to keep in touch was by letter - which when you did not know where you'd be settling was very difficult. Any day that someone was leaving was the same... a large group at the airport hugging, crying all saying goodbye. Thank god for Facebook - we had a 25th school reunion last year and loads of us got together for the rugby 7's in Hongkong - truly brilliant.’

‘I returned for a few years between living in France and Spain. Upon my first time returning home, I was surprised at the amount of wide open space. I actually asked my brother is some buildings had been torn down. The second thing that “shocked” me in my reverse cultural shock was to hear small children speaking English. While abroad one hears English all the time, but not coming from the mouths of babes. Now when I go home I tend to be overwhelmed by the sizes of the grocery store isles and the seemly over abundant choices once can make in just a breakfast cereal. Then there is the size of cars, people, ice cream cones... Everything seems to get bigger every time I am away.’