What do you love about the place where you live right now?

I write so much about Bulgaria and Bulgarians on this blog but, in my gut, that's not really what the blog is ABOUT. I really think of this place as a space dedicated to expatriation, immigration and the meanings and feelings we attach to those experiences.

Yesterday I was chatting with Lucy of PocketCultures about my post on what I like about Bulgaria and we thought it would be a great idea to open up that conversation to a larger audience.

What do you love about the place where you live right now?
If you are an expat, what do you love about your adoptive country?

Here's what Lucy says about Britain:

I'll go first: This poster - keep calm and carry on - sums up one thing I really like about Britain. The dog ate your lunch? Your house just collapsed? The financial system is 30 minutes away from meltdown? Keep calm and get on with your life. The first part of 'carrying on' usually involves making a cup of tea.

Awesome, no?!

Now let us know what you think. Leave a comment here or drop me a note on Twitter. Maybe at the end of the week, Lucy and I can put together a combined list of greatness!

Does being an expat give you Dissociative Identity Disorder?

I have two blogs. It's hard to keep two blogs. Scratch that. It's almost IMPOSSIBLE to keep two blogs. I only say "almost" out of respect for people who actually do it quite successfully. Unfortunately, I am not one of them.

I bring this up here not because I feel like I should be apologizing for my absence (although, should you care to know, I was tending to my feminist calling). I only mention this because I feel that as expats/immigrants, etc., we often get pulled in multiple directions, which tends to keep us busy at best, anxious at worst. The Bulgarian* and the expat parts of our brains are at odds; oftentimes, for very sensible reasons. Sometimes, all the tugging... back and forth... starts to wear out our patience.

My two blogs, for example, are a direct representations of my Bulgarian and my expat inner worlds. And currently, I am so warn out of constantly negotiating that both have fallen neglected. We all have our ways of self-medicating and I am dealing by indulging in a short period of un-thoughtfulness. When I encounter a serious thought, I push it away. I know it sounds flippant, but it's what I need right now.

So, tell me, is this something you think about? Do you feel pulled in different directions by your "Bulgarian" and "expat" selves? How do you deal with your various identities? How do you make them co-exist? Have you been able to craft a unified identity for yourself? Do you sometimes feel like you are a character in a novel and the author of your book has decided to give you the gift of dissociative identity disorder?

*Plug in your own nationality here. Recently, I've been lucky to have some new readers, many of them expats, not necessarily with any Bulgaria connections. I am so happy you are here! I've always hoped it goes without saying that this blog is not *really* about Bulgaria or Bulgarians only.I look forward to getting to know you all better!

Is Zadie Smith's new book a self-reflection guidebook for expats?

I sort of sounds like it is. Pankaj Mishra wrote a great review of Zadie Smith's freshly published book of essays, Changing My Mind. As a big fan of Smith's, I am crazy excited about this book. ESPECIALLY after learning that a number of Smith's essays deal with topics that I hold very close to my heart: the multiplicity of human identity, the ways in which our idealogical inconsistencies make us thrive, family, loss.

The idea that “the unified singular self is an illusion” could be the leitmotif of this collection. It allows Smith to revisit her own early assumptions and to question such essentialist notions as “black woman-ness.” Reflecting on Kafka’s ambivalence about his ethnic background, she writes: “There is a sense in which Kafka’s Jewish question (‘What have I in common with Jews?’) has become everybody’s question, Jewish alienation the template for all our doubts. What is Muslimness? What is femaleness? What is Polishness? What is Englishness? These days we all find our anterior legs flailing before us. We’re all insects, all Ungeziefer, now.”

This may sound a bit melodramatic. But then — as Salman Rushdie and other practitioners of postcolonial postmodernism have stressed — ambivalence, doubt and confusion are essential to forming dynamic new hybrid selves.

Sounds like a book that any expat would enjoy, doesn't it?

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Illustration by Tina Berning for The New York Times

Is expat literature different from travel literature?

In follow-up to my last entry on blogging and expatriate identity, I would really like to encourage y'all to visit Anastasia M. Ashman. Anastasia, an American who lives in Istanbul with her family, is the editor of Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey. The book was published by Seal Press and I am super excited about reading it.


I especially appreciate a recent discussion of whether expat literature deserves its own shelf in which Anastasia writes:

Expat lit is not travel literature since writing about life from outside a homeland does not mean writing from a state of travel. We’re coping with extended life in a foreign culture, navigating subtleties, adapting to find harmony. Personal assimilation/identity issues dominate expat writing, and filter their world. If travel writing is a chance to travel vicariously, expat lit is a chance to live abroad vicariously.

She also quotes Emmanuelle Archer who says that:

Travel may open your eyes but does not change your identity. Expatriation sure does!

These observations make perfect sense to me and I was wondering if you'd be willing to share the ways in which your identities have changed as a result of your expat/immigrant experience?

In the meantime, I will continue to try to figure out whether to call myself an expat or an immigrant.

***

Photo via Gaspi * Your Guide

Blogging and (expatriate) identity

I just came across this essay by Lauren Elkin on blogging and identity that somehow rang very true with me.

<5> It is not surprising that personal blogs flourish when the writer is in a new, challenging context. The encounter of the Self and the Other, the decision to leave the Familiar for the Unfamiliar, and the alchemical processes evinced on the already unstable, already susceptible being that is the Self provides potent inspiration and material. It can be a spectacular thing to read, the expat blog; a multimedia, hypertext travelogue; and it often attracts readers who are or who would like to be in similarly exotic and challenging situations.

<6> As Huston and Sebbah discover over the course of their correspondence, for the expatriate writer, foreign soil is often more fertile than that of their native land: there is something in the experience of being a foreigner that gives root to inspiration, which in turn produces writing like ivy wrapping itself around a tree. But all this organic literary production relies on the distance retained from the adopted land, as well as the distance from the place of origin.

<7> The same is true for the expatriate blogger. In order for the blog topics to remain compelling for the reader, I would argue that the blogger must not get too close or assimilate too deeply to the adopted culture. Everything depends on the blogger's ability to stand back and comment on what they see in such a way that they are still able to present it as interesting and fresh for their readers, and perhaps, by so doing, understanding and making the new experience part of themselves. Once blogged, the experience can be absorbed into the Self, which is always already in the process of conglomeration and transformation.

These observations are true not only in the context of blogging. I think that many immigrants and expats (what's the difference, does anyone know?) experience the same regardless of whether they choose to document it online or otherwise. How many of you feel more interesting, more interestED, more engaged with your surroundings when you are away from "home"? I know I do.

It's actually that very inspiration I derive from being a "foreigner" that makes me hold on to my Bulgarianness as tightly as I do. It has nothing to do with being from Bulgaria per se, I don't think. It's more about distancing myself enough from what's in front me in order to be able to fully enjoy it.

I'm curious to hear if that's what you've experienced as well.

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Image by Brian Coape-Arnold

Becoming Americans

On NPR's Books We Love, Maud Newton reviews "Becoming Americans"— an anthology curated by Ilan Stavans and featuring "four centuries of immigrants' stories, laying the works of comparative newcomers like Eva Hoffman, Felipe Alfau and Gary Shteyngart alongside the writing of early settlers, from religious dissidents fleeing persecution to slaves like Phillis Wheatley and Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, who were kidnapped and delivered to the New World unwillingly."

The book sounds simply fantastic. I especially relate to the following quote by Polish-American writer Eva Hoffman:

English is the language in which I've become an adult. In Polish, whole provinces of adult experience are missing. I don't know [the] words for 'microchips,' or 'pathetic fallacy,' or The Importance of Being Earnest.

U.S. Immigration question

Here's a question from a fellow mix-breeder, Lydia:

Teodor and I plan to get married soon, but he is still employed with the company that sponsored him for his expired work visa down on Cape Cod. If we get married he will move up to Boston to be with me immediately. However, I was wondering if he should keep his job down there for a while and if when filling the immigration papers it looks better for him to be employed?

My intuition tells me that Teodor should keep his job and wait for his immigration papers to come through. I feel like otherwise it would look too much like you're getting married so he can get a visa. Which is NOT how you want things to appear. Of course, this is what I think and I am hoping to get other people who read this blog to help you guys out.

What do you guys think these two should do?

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Photo via BeJealousOfMe

From the mailbag

I received an email from Laura, an American woman married to a Bulgarian man and living in Stara Zagora. I thought you guys might appreciate the succinct write-up she did about visas, permits and long-term living arrangements.

Petya,

I wanted to say hi after coming across your Blog How to Marry a BG.

My name is Laura, I am an American married to a BG man. We have been married for almost 1 year, but together for 8. We currently live in Stara Zagora. I certainly understand many of the challenges in a mixed couple!

Regarding the couple that want to get married in the States and come here to meet his family. She can come to BG with her American passport, no visa required, which will allow her 90 days in BG, after which she would have to leave the country. She can apply for a long term visa based on her engagement if she wishes to. They don't have to be married already to get a long-term visa. She would have to apply for a long term visa at the BG consul office nearest her, which allows 6 months to a year at a time. The application for this takes about 6 weeks. It has to be renewed every year, even if they are married. Renewal costs 500 lev at the local police administrative office in BG. Once married, if she wants to become a BG citizen, that is a different process with different time frames, but the good news is America and BG have dual citizenship reciprocity. You can be a citizen of both countries at same time.

I would certainly be open to communication with other mixed couples similar to you and me. I look forward to hearing from you or others like us!!!!

Laura.

I removed Laura's contact information from this blog entry but if you have more questions for her I would be more than happy to put you in touch. Thank you so much, Laura!

Under observation

I am VERY excited that this year's Nobel Prize in Literature went to a fellow East European WOMAN. I have not yet read any of Herta Muller's work but I am definitely going to. In the meantime, here's a brief excerpt from an interview she did about her experience visiting Romania after the fall of communism:

For me each journey to Romania is also a journey into another time, in which I never knew which events in my life were coincidence and which were staged. This is why I have, in each and every public statement I have made, demanded access to the secret files kept on me which, under various pretexts, has invariably been denied me. Instead, each time there was signs that I was once again, that is to say, still under observation.


I find this statement fascinating because, ironically, it perfectly describes the way I feel every time I go back to Bulgaria: UNDER OBSERVATION. Not by the Secret Services, of course, but pretty much by everyone else. Do you, my fellow emigrés, feel the same way?

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You should search for more pictures of Muller. She has a very expressive face! In light of our previous conversations about East European skepticism and pessimism, I thought you'd appreciate this particular photograph.

Hemon on migration

I am not sure if you are familiar with the work of writer Aleksandar Hemon. His most famous work is The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. Hemon was born in Sarajevo and came to the States in 1992 for what he meant to be a short visit. However, bombs started falling over Sarajevo and he was not able to leave. He's lived in Chicago ever since.

I've been meaning to pick up Hemon's books for a while because I knew that his writing is very much inspired by his childhood and young adult life in Bosnia but also shaped by his experience as an immigrant. For one reason or another I never did. Today, however, I came across a video interview of Hemon in which he talks about the importance of Sarajevo for his work and life. He says that everything he learned about the world, about living in a city, about living with people, he learned in Sarajevo. So, when he came to Chicago at the age of 28, he started looking for things that were important to him that were in tune with his sensibility. He looked for people to play soccer with, looked for a barber, a butcher, a coffeeshop, a bar. What he was looking for in Chicago, Hemon says, was what he loved about Sarajevo. According to Hemon, you acquire a sensibility in the city where you grew up and you transfer that over to wherever you happen to live next.

I am not sure if that's how things have worked out for me personally. Maybe that is the case because I left my parents home when I was only barely 18 and at that point had not yet developed any particular attachments. In all honesty, I feel like my sensibilities were informed more by my desire to experience something bigger, brighter, more exciting than the town that I grew up in.

But then I thought about it some more and realized that even though I might not realize it, that tiny little town is in me in more ways than I have cared to admit. I like cities, but I love the smaller ones where you say hi to people on the street and you know your neighbors and your corner store guy and you get your coffee from this one particular place you really love and over time develop a relationship with a kid across the street who is yet too shy to talk to you but always smiles back at you when you say hello.

Colbert on immigration

I know that the The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is over a year old now and you have all probably already seen this BUT I was just watching Junot Diaz's appearance on the Colbert Report and almost died laughing.

Here's my one bone to pick with you, OK, Colbert says. Sir, you were not BORN here, OK? You came here at age 6 and took away a Pulitzer from an American writer. Couldn't an American writer have written about being a Dominican nerd?! That's something an American would have wanted to do!

Absolutely brilliant commentary on immigration! I hope Lou Dobbs was watching.

In place of a book review

Last night I spent two hours talking to our landlord Sylvia. Sylvia is in her 50s and immigrated to Germany from Tetovo (Macedonia) when she was 6. Naturally, we have a lot to talk about.

There have been many untimely deaths in Sylvia's family. Her own father passed away when he was only 34. Her sister's husband died at 48 after battling Hepatitis B for over 6 years, which he got from contaminated tubes at the hospital where he was voluntarily donating blood. A couple of years later, Sylvia's only daughter (only 12-years-old) was hit in a car accident and died.

At the same time, Sylvia is the sunniest, friendliest, warmest, strongest person you would ever meet. She tends to her garden and to those around her with utmost care. She said that when her daughter died, she felt she had to be strong for her nieces. Their Dad had passed away just a couple of years before and now their younger cousin was dead. I needed to show them that life could still be good for them, that it is not all bad, she said. So she continued to work, and garden, and travel, and read, and laugh, and grow the meanest roses in all of Freiburg.

Last night, as I was giving her a hug good-night, all I wanted to say to her was "Read Oscar Wao! Read Oscar Wao!".

Death from a distance

My mom called today while I was in the shower. I missed the call and figured I would talk to her later. Fifteen minutes later, I got a call from my sister and my heart sank. Someone died, was the first thing that entered my mind.

Nobody died. It's my Name Day today and she was calling to wish me well.

As my grandparents and parents get older, death is constantly on the back of my mind. Most of my communication with family members happens electronically, so every time someone calls, I take a second to breathe in and out before I pick up. I worry that they are calling with bad news.

Is this why immigrants always have this barely noticeable sadness in their eyes? Not because of anything bad that happened to them but because of the constant worry that if something bad did happen to someone back home, they would not be able to participate in the collective healing?

The math of immigration

he good news is that as of today, Kyle is the proud owner of a permit for continuous residence in Bulgaria. The bad news is that we need to go through the whole thing, all over again, in 6 months. Let me explain.

In order for the foreign spouse of a Bulgarian citizen to reside in this thriving economy of ours, they need to possess a residence permit. They cannot apply for a permanent residence right away. They need to jump through the hoops for several years in order to earn the right to apply for permanent residence. Also, it is NOT up to them to decide how long their continuous residence should last. The state has decided that the maximum period for continuous residence is 1 year. It costs 500 leva. After your one year is up, you need to re-apply. And pay another 500 leva. You can only apply for permanent residence after five years in the country.

The interesting thing is that a 6-month continous residence permit costs 200 leva. In other words, if you apply for your permit twice a year, you would end up paying less than if you did it all once. I.e. you have a monetary incentive to deal with the whole bureaucracy of obtaining the permit more than once a year.

So, I did the math, and realized that after:

- submitting 10 application packages
- making at least 20 trips to the immigration office (one to submit the application and one to get your passport stamped)
- living here for at least 5 years
- and paying 2000 leva to the state of Bulgaria

...PERHAPS, maybe...some time in the summer of 2012, Kyle will be given a chance to apply for permanent residency in Bulgaria on the account of being married to me.

Thanks for the good wishes in advance. But, seriously, can someone please shoot me instead? Or give us a consultation with an immigration lawyer as a wedding present...There MUST be a way out of this nightmare!

Just for laughs

Like I've mentioned before, we are trying to get Kyle to a point where he can reside and work in Bulgaria in a law-abiding manner. As we're going through the motions, we have found ourselves asking the same seemingly simple and straightforward question to several different institutions: Does one need a D-type visa when applying for a long-term Bulgarian residence permit?

Here are the answers we have received:

Bulgarian Consul in New York: If you have your Bulgarian marriage certificate so, please go to the closest to your Bulgarian home Immigration service of the Ministry of interior. You do not need a visa to that end.

Immigration officer at the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior: All foreign nationals absolutely MUST have a D-visa first and then apply for long-term residence permit. You can go to Greece and get the visa there.

Consular officer at US Embassy in Bulgaria: We have discussed this matter with the Immigration office MANY times. You do NOT need a D-visa. If the officer keeps telling you that you need a visa, demand that you speak with their Supervisor, a Mr. X. He will help you

State Department of the United States: American citizens who marry Bulgarian nationals technically have a legal right to switch to long-term status without leaving the country. In practice, however, applicants for residency are asked to leave the country also, present their marriage license at a Bulgarian embassy or consulate in a neighboring country, and apply for a “D” visa. (my emphasis)

Every person or institution we've asked has provided us with a different answer. So, I am thinking, we might as well come up with more answers of our own.

Here's mine: You are only required to have a D-visa if your spouse's last name starts with the same letter as your first name.

Now, just for laughs, how would YOU answer this question.

They don't do the same for us

Earlier today:

Prof. Grady: Have I met your friend Var yet?
Me: Well, yes!!! Var=Zhoro=Joro=Georgi=George
Prof. Grady: 'Kvo?! I guess you NEED a lot of nicknames for Georgi! (pause) There are more nicknames in Bulgarian than names.
Me: We keep things simple for the bureaucrats. (They don't do the same for us, though).

What can I say, that's just a regular day in a multi-national family.

How to marry a non-Bulgarian

Today I found out that in order for my American husband (the same one I married IN BULGARIA just a little over three months ago) to be allowed to APPLY for a long-term resident visa to Bulgaria, I need to provide him with an official invitation. Silly me, all this time I keep thinking that signing my name under an official marriage certificate is enough of an invitation in itself!...

I swear, when Kyle and I outmaneuver the Bulgarian bureaucracy and convince everyone that it is perfectly ok to let a husband live in the same country as his wife, I will write the most comprehensive guide on how to marry a foreigner in Bulgaria. If today's head-on encounter is any indication, though, it might be a long time before we succeed.

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If you are a Bulgarian citizen that happens to be married to a non-Bulgarian and are reading this, PLEASE, get in touch with us. I don't think we will be able to do this without you...

United we stand

Kyle arrived on December 13. The only non-foggy day in weeks.

We ran to the American Embassy, where he made a sworn statement in front of the US Consul. An old guy spoke Bulgarian to him and got a kick out of the fact that Kyle couldn't talk back.
We took the statement to the Consular Section of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The statement got legalized only after we had gone to a nearby post office to buy "state stamps". I had not heard of state stamps before. You can make payments to state agencies with them.
We then went to a hospital where we had blood drawn, tests done, lights pointed in our eyes.

The next day we talked to a woman who seemed to have just come back from deep communist pasts to talk to us. She asked me to translate carefully and proceeded to tell Kyle he was very beautiful. More beautiful than any American she had seen and she had seen MANY. Her words, not mine. But I totally agree.

We then had many many dinners with friends and parents. Bought champagne glasses and a pair of shorts and on December 23 got married. The service was short and sweet. The lady doing the service got mad at my sister who was in charge of translating but didn't bother to mimic the strange solemnity of her voice. We all agreed Ena doesn't have a future as an interpreter, but in her defense, have you been to a Bulgarian civil marriage ceremony?!?! See, now you know what I'm talking about.

We spent the Holidays introducing Kyle to the Family. Grandmas and grandpas (total of 4), aunts and uncles (4), cousins (6)...yeah, I know. And, because I know SOMEBODY will ask, we both HAVE seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Tonight we leave for the shortest Honeymoon ever.

All of this, just to tell you why I have been away from my blog for the past couple of weeks. But also to tell you that Mrs. Kirilova-Grady is the happiest Bulgarian kid this Christmas as she got everything she's ever wanted. And THAT much more.


Happy Holidays from the K-G's!