Tales from an Expat Writer Part I: Anastasia Ashman on Expat Living & Working

There is no one-size-fits all formula for building a successful expatriate life and career. It's a combination of a person's own unique qualities, skills, strengths, background and aspirations that contribute to the recipe for a wonderfully rich and flavorful experience abroad.

That said, we can learn a lot from those who are out there living the expatriate lifestyle to the fullest.  So today we'll hear from Anastasia Ashman, well known in the expat community for being the co-editor with Jennifer Gokmen of the internationally acclaimed book, Tales from an Expat Harem. Anastasia has graciously given time out of her busy schedule to share about her life as an expat and her portable career as an expat writer.

And away we go...

For those readers that don't know you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a cultural writer/producer from Berkeley, California and have lived and worked abroad for a decade. One husband, one cat! Degree in Classical Greek, Roman and Near Eastern Archaeology which peeps out every now and then from under all my pop cultural pursuits.

What were your primary reasons for becoming an expatriate?

I was always was attracted to a wider world. Lucky to grow up in a diverse place as the San Francisco Bay Area with access to so many other cultures – particularly Asian Pacific, Central American, African and Near Eastern --  I have never felt bounded by my hometown or my own nationality or America’s physical borders. Or even my lack of facility with languages!  I’ve studied 8 (Tagalog, Japanese, Latin, Italian, German, Chinese, Malay, Turkish) and speak only one passably. I’ll be first in line when they introduce a translation chip that enables us to communicate with everyone in our own languages. 

Being an expat to me may be more akin to someone who simply isn’t living where they started. I’m just farther away. I guess you could say I’m a fourth generation immigrant, since my parents and their parents and their parents before them all left their homelands or their cities in search of better opportunities in the west. Coming to Europe completes that loop for my family and sometimes when I am slathering Mediterranean olive oil (pressed from the olives at the top of the tree, of course) on a wild arugula salad I think how I am enjoying something a distant ancestor once did but that my closer relatives did not, as they served Spam in Chicago and tofu taco salad in California!

Plus, I like to travel, and took my opportunities to do so where I found them. Of course settling abroad is an entirely different venture than traveling but when you change your base of operation you can also shift your radius for excursions.

You were an expat in Rome, Italy and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia before landing in Istanbul in 2003. What brought you to those places and how would you describe the expat lessons of those places and how they were linked to your professional activities?