I am not sure why this quote from Tim Ferriss has had such an effect on me over the years, but it has:

“There have been several points in my life… at which I saw my future as another fat man in a midlife-crisis BMW.  I simply looked at those who were 15-20 years ahead of me on the same (professional) track… and it scared the hell out of me.”

This passage from “The 4-Hour Workweek” is one of the most motivating I have come across in current lifestyle lit.

Whenever I feel like my priorities are off or I am making bad long-term decisions I try to project out 20 years or so and think about what will happen if I continue life like this:

Boring Job – Will I be stuck in a mind-numbing job?  A close friend of mine just graduated from law school last weekend.  We had some downtime after the commencement ceremony and were talking about what motivated our generation relative to what motivated that of our parents.

We decided (perhaps unfairly) that whereas our parents’ generation had money as their main motivator when it came to professional life, our motivators were more lifestyle driven.

For example, if you wanted to recruit our parents’ generation when they were young professionals you could lock them in by promising to double their income.  That, while still attractive, would not go as far with our generation which would likely prefer a 50% increase in income, two weeks of additional paid vacation and the option to work from home.

More importantly, Gen Y professionals crave meaning in their work lives.  THAT is why the bald, fat man in the red BMW scares the crap out of us.  We don’t want to be corporate automatons.

Ridiculous Mortgage – As the options of mobile living and worldwide travel/work become more and more of a reality today, home ownership (with the recent memory of home values plummeting insanely) is less and less of a draw.  Why tie yourself down to one location?  Why sign yourself up for the golden handcuffs of an awful (yet well-paid) job just to pay the mortgage for a house that you have long-since come to resent despite its square footage?

Estranged Spouse and Kids – If there were ever a thing that the boomers proved conclusively, it is the fact that their obsession with work and materialism ruined families.  Time away from home skewed priorities and the Western epidemic of workaholism has added up to a lifestyle where relationships that should matter, don’t.  The result is the most dysfunctional set of family dynamics on record.

Overworked – Allow me to continue on the subject of workaholism. An entrepreneur friend of mine with a lot of physician friends says that he hears the same thing over and over:  “How do I get out of the rat race?  I want out!”  These doctors, while well paid, fully realize that if they stop working their 12 hour days, shuttling patients in and out of their offices, the game is over, no moolah.  So they are trapped.  And they hate it.

Obese – When you take on boomer work values you also take on their tendency to be obese.  Part of what’s so scary about the guy in the red BMW is that, despite his status symbol, he is a chunkster.  Nobody is impressed.  And worse yet, the rat race is only going to make it worse.  The downward spiral of horrible lifestyle decisions, fueled by comfort food, late hours, terrible relationship and anti-depressants is a heart attack waiting to happen.  We need something new.

Savvy, global do-gooding

We each have an opportunity to define this “new” lifestyle.  My goals behind CultureMutt are to help contribute to this conversation about a healthier, more compassionate, more exciting, more globally-minded lifestyle.  We need to get intentional about savvy, global do-gooding.  What is the cost of a little experimentation when the “norm” is the rat race and nobody healthy enjoys it?

Another Tim Ferriss quote:

“Gold is getting old.  The New Rich (NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility.  This is an art and a science we will refer to as Lifestyle Design (LD).”

Stay tuned, the next couple posts will be about Lifestyle Design.

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Bjorn Karlman

They are a special breed.  You meet them in hostels and and tourist hot spots and volunteer hubs the world over.  They play hard but rarely work hard.  This is often their first time abroad. They are rebelling from very structured backgrounds.  They party a lot.  Too much.  And its often on their parents’ dime.  They are on a quest to find themselves.  Being away from home has them feeling insecure. So they over-compensate by big talk.  Often political talk.  And its typically deeply nationalistic.  It’s harmless patriotism gone harmful.  In every conversation they need their country to come out the victor.  It is nauseating.

Before you think I am singling out a certain country as the source of these patriotic party people I want to emphasize that I have seen all kinds of them.  From pretty much everywhere.  After all, it only takes a crude surplus of time, cheap beers and inexperience to have the perfect conditions for an (often young) traveler to start sounding off about how their country is the best and so clearly superior to the host culture for a litany of reasons.  What typically sets them off is a bad experience.  Someone was rude to them.  Their girlfriend / boyfriend back home broke up with them.  They embarrassed themselves in some way.

Their rhetoric is often deeply critical of the local situation.  I have often met them in volunteer contexts such as English language schools or humanitarian construction projects.  They are there as volunteers and visitors but they quickly let everyone know how much they wish they were home and how everything is better at home.  They disagree with how things are run locally.  If you have visited their home countries and dare to challenge their overly rosy picture of life there they quickly learn to despise you.

How do you help them?  I have found that very little works.  The answer is certainly not to try to fight them.  If you contradict them or try to humiliate them with superior knowledge of politics or (if you have it) a stronger understanding of their country and its place in the world, you will only put them on the defensive and intensify their vitriol.  One option is to ignore them.  But this may not be an option if you are working on a small team together in a volunteer context or if you both are staying in the same small hostel.

What sometimes works is befriending them and gradually showing them the benefits of toning down the rhetoric, letting up on the combative spirit and actually enjoying the host culture.   They are behaving the way they are because they come from a place of insecurity.  So if you can provide them with the security of friendship and a local connection, chances are they will appreciate it.  Surprise them the next time they start ranting about how bad the food / TV / service / transportation is locally and invite them to a local sporting event.  Bring your most mature local friend (briefing him or her on the patriotic partyhead’s tendency to be crudely nationalistic) and show the young irate one the time of his or her life.  Treat them extraordinarily well.  Hit the best local eatery after the game.  Introduce the young nationalist to some of the coolest locals you know.  Show him or her the  benefits of savvy, global do-gooding: Amazing local friends.  Ease of travel.  Adventure minus the agitation of stupid fights.  The buzz of experiencing the beauty of a culture that is not your own.  Get creative.  This may be your only chance to make an impression.

You may fail.  But chances are that regardless of the outcome they will remember the experience.  This, their first trip abroad may be a lost cause but the next time they set food overseas they may have a different perspective.

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Here’s a breakdown of the typical lunch in a few of the places I have lived:

Rural France:  Two leisurely hours of eating, talking and drinking.

A Filipino Fishing Village:   An hour of eating and socializing followed by another hour of a siesta nap, stretched out on bamboo platforms.

Buenos Aires, Argentina: A civilized break of an hour or so (enough to get to a decent restaurant)… rural areas and smaller towns shut down for lunch and take longer.

England and the United States:  A stale sandwich at your desk.

Sweden:  A buddy of mine Facebooked me with a link to the latest trend in Swedish urban culture:  Clubbing for lunch.   Here’s how it works (I’m not sure whether to be proud or embarrassed):

1)  People literally leave work for an hour and dance.

2)  The location looks like a club, complete with appropriate lighting (or lack thereof) and DJs spinning.

3)  No alcohol or drugs

4) There is food and drink (which most people grab on the way out)

5)  Clubbing for lunch has gotten so popular as a de-stressor that employers are starting to buy tickets and offer them to employees as perks.

Hierarchy?

As much as it is very tempting to be a cultural fundamentalist and insist that one system is better than the other, I am personally convinced that doing so is stupid.  First of all, you close yourself off to different ways of being human that could actually improve your life.  Second, you look like a bigot.  If I could have a dollar or euro for every time I have heard some Americans criticize Europeans for being lazy and unproductive and some Europeans criticize Americans for being workaholic fatties, I would be a modestly rich person taking multi-hour lunch breaks.  You never look like a good person when you blow off steam like this, just irate and inflexible.

Cultural Buffet

One of the fundamental ideas behind savvy, global do-gooding is to treat global cultures as a huge buffet… you as the cultural savant get to pick and choose of the best out there.  Do this with your lunch breaks.  Sure, it often makes sense to prioritize productivity and a strong work ethic.  But all work and no play makes you a very pathetic person.  So mix it up.  With more than just your lunch habits.

There is so much variety out there and the beauty of travel and the internet is that you have access to different views and cultural practices on a level that has previously been impossible.  Be a culturemutt.  Enjoy and practice the best of what you come across.

Life is beautiful and exposure to world cultures will make you a better, fuller person.  Get out there, explore and experiment.

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Partying hard in Hong Kong (bottom left)

I stuck out like a sore thumb.  I was this chubby, blond, sumo-looking kid growing up in Hong Kong.  As you can see in the picture opposite, I looked very different…

As if looks were not enough of a distinguishing factor, I was also being raised very differently from the Chinese norm.  From an early age (about 3), most kids in Hong Kong would start kindergarten and begin study in what was quickly becoming one of the most competitive educational systems in the world.

Competition for jobs and higher education in Hong Kong was (and is) fierce and linked closely to educational rank so there was a huge emphasis on educating children as quickly as possible.

This may have been the case in Hong Kong but my mother was of an altogether different, Swedish persuasion: kids should be kids and play outside for as long as possible.  They had their whole lives to be formally educated. So while my Chinese friends were running through math drills I was tearing around the neighborhood in my classy red pedal car.

I have come to look at this classic East/West division as the difference between the “pressure cooker” and the “crock pot” approach to childhood education.

Pressure Cooker

There were definite advantages to the pressure cooker style of education.  Kids were pushed through school as quickly as possible.  My Chinese childhood contemporaries were WAY ahead of me in reading, writing and math.  I mean there was no comparison because I basically couldn’t do any of it until I was seven years old.  I remember going over to friends’ houses and asking if they could play. And nope, they were studying.  It was an early experience in rejection and I took it stoically, as a Swede:)

Crock pot

The Swedish model that I was subjected to was different and fell more in line with the overall Western style of education where you start educating kids a little later.  Education then takes place at a more gradual (crock pot) pace.  Western kids don’t catch up with their Asian contemporaries educationally until late high school / undergraduate studies. I was almost seven when I started first grade and until then I had only gone to kindergartens that basically focused on socializing kids rather than giving them an academic head start.

Which System is Better?

I was happily surprised to meet some of my childhood friends from Hong Kong when I was in university in Michigan.  A few of us ended up at the same school and by then it looked as though the educational gap had closed some (although I am sure they could still run circles around me in math and the sciences).  The fact that each of us had chosen to come to the United States for college education, was, to me, significant.

Many of the Americans and Brits that I have talked to are completely convinced that their universities are the best in the world.  Maybe that is still the case.  Certainly Western tertiary educations are still in high demand and are well-respected around the world. The fact that English is very definitely the world language probably has a lot to do with this.  However, front runner status in terms of world educational systems will likely shift East as the balance of economic power shifts toward Asia. So the pressure cooker may win out over the crock pot in the end.  For now, maybe a hybrid of the two approaches is the way to go…

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The happy couple

Last week I flew to England to be the Best Brother (Maid of Honor) in my sister Karin’s wedding.

Almost exactly a year ago she had been Best Sister in my own wedding in LA so it was fun to have the role reversal.

I was a little nervous about my speaking role in the wedding because I hadn’t lived in Britain for a while and there are some definite cultural differences between California and the UK.  In addition to the Best Brother role, I was Emcee for the reception and I was concerned that I would mess up my speech or the transitions between different program elements.

In the end things worked out for the most part.  Here are some things I learned along the way:

1)  Mirror what is going on around you.

One of the things I was hyper-aware of was the fact that because I am a naturally loud person I could very easily be perceived as the brash American.  I’ve heard it said that Americans communicate through overstatement and the English through understatement.  I did my best to “tone down” my remarks accordingly.  I only partially succeeded in the end.

2)  Say less than is necessary.

I freaked out when, ON THE DAY OF THE WEDDING, I timed my Best Brother speech and it was over three times longer than it was supposed to be.  I kept trimming away at it and luckily it did not end up being the longest speech at the wedding.  Especially when communicating in cross-cultural context, less is more.  Going too long may be perceived as cultural insensitivity or imperialistic bullishness, especially if you have an American accent.  If your remarks are being translated in real time it is even more important to cut the length down drastically.

3)  Find a local sounding board

Luckily I had several English friends at the wedding that were willing to give me pointers on my speech prep and tell me how the emceeing was going day-of. They mocked my nasal American accent to bits but also offered very helpful advice on what kind of material would go down well with the crowd.  I will confess to stealing a joke or two and passing it off as original material…

4)  Dig for dirt tastefully

Luckily for me, Britain has a very developed “piss-taking” culture where outright insults aimed at friends are an accepted expression of camaraderie.  So it was fairly easy to cobble together enough dirt on the groom (based on restaurant chatter the night before) to spice up my Best Brother speech.  I will say, however, that when I have tried to use the same piss-taking approach in the United States, some Americans have been offended at what they deem unnecessary trash talk.  Know your audience.  What works here may not work there.

5)  If you have a foreign-sounding accent…

I mentioned this earlier but this bears repeating: accents are significant.  They can be a barrier or a facilitator in cross-cultural communication.  To get around anti-American sentiment in Europe, I often joke about my American accent and issue fake apologies for it.  This typically goes down well.  Whether or not you decide to point out your different accent, be sure to proceed confidently with your material.

Me and my pal Kayla, the flower girl

You are who you are and they can deal with it.

6)  Piggyback

If at all possible, try to build common ground with an international audience as fast as possible.  If you can open your remarks with something funny someone else said at the wedding or if you can reference a popular point that a prior speaker made, do it.  Come across as the “reasonable” foreigner who gets it.  Even the staunchest nationalists will appreciate a “good” American/Brit/Swede – one that is not pushing a competing agenda and instead appreciates the local scene.

There’s a lot more that can be said but in the end commonsense and cool heads prevail.  International weddings are a lot of fun.  Don’t let the complexity of the intercultural dynamics scare you off.  There is all kinds of common ground to celebrate.  And in the end it’s not your day anyway, so relax.

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Bjorn Karlman

Thanks to the help of the truly horrifying iPhone AgingBooth app (and an effect from Instagram), I’ve taken a sneak peak at my future (opposite).  It’s wrinkled.

As much as this is a total gag app, it actually made me think.  Maybe it isn’t too far off.  Maybe that actually is how I will look at 65.

“Seeing” myself at 65 made me think of what I would want other parts of my life to look like.  Here’s a working list:

1)  Jammie and I have two kids: Boy and girl.  Hopefully some grandkids… but that is unlikely given the fact that WE don’t even have kids yet.

2)  Homeless:  We don’t live anywhere full-time.  Instead we have favorite hubs where we kick it.  Here’s a sublist of those places:  London, Los Angeles, Butte County (CA), Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, Manila.

3)  We see those closest to us a LOT:  One of my key complaints about life now is that, at best, Jammie and I see those closest to us a few times a year.  In the case of my family, it is like once or twice a year.  That isn’t good enough.  We have GOT to be more mobile.

3)  Jammie and I speak: Mandarin.  (To keep up with the kids who will have had a Mandarin-speaking nanny.)

4)  I’m looking back at a career that: Meant something and helped people.  Internationally.

5)  I’m still blogging for CultureMutt:  And I hope YOU are still reading and commenting:)

6)  I’m not scared of my age:  I work with a woman who volunteers in my office and is one of the sharpest, most elegantly dressed people I know.  Dorothy is 97.  I want to be her.

7)  I’m in marathon runner shape:  I have started running again and my goal is to get in shape for several marathons a year.  And keep it up.

8)  I am volunteering for something that requires inordinate amounts of public speaking:  Maybe it is because I joined Toastmasters (a truly superb, international, Public Speaking society with over a quarter million members worldwide) but I LOVE public speaking and take every opportunity I can get to get better at it.  Volunteer work involving public speaking would be great.

9)  I’m enrolled in a top-notch culinary institute:  I would love to go back to school at 65.  Something practical like chef’s credentials would be ideal.

I am sure I’ll add to the list but this is fine for now.  How would your list look?  Tell me in the comments.

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Two More Things…

1) We’ll be looking at the aging process from a multicultural perspective this week so be sure to check back in.

2)  At my last weigh-in, I had lost approx 13 lbs since I started my First Monthly Challenge.  This will be my last week of the juice / smoothie diet so I am looking for a strong finish and will keep you posted.

Seoul is exploding with activity.

I was last there a couple years ago and was blown away by the energy and sheer willpower on display.  Every weekday my roommates woke up at about 5:00 AM to rush to work and school respectively.  I would get in the spirit and go jogging down the streets of Gangnam-gu (Seoul’s Beverly Hills) before dawn and swarms of people would already be out, rushing to their first appointments. “Diligence” seemed to be the word on everyone’s lips.  People worked ridiculous hours.  School kids were in after-school classes until 8:00 PM or later at night.  The city never seemed to stop.  It blew my mind.

Facts like these had me mesmerized:

1) Koreans work the longest hours in the industrialized world.

2) The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) listed Koreans as spending the least time doing unpaid shopping each day (13 minutes) of all OECD country members.  (France had the most at 32 minutes… those slackers…)

3) Koreans spend more money per capita on education than any other country

4) Koreans, on average, take so little vacation time that, in 2010, the government felt the need to intervene and force government employees to submit plans to their bosses to take 16 days off that year. 

With this incredibly strong work ethic you would expend tremendous results.  And to be fair, since the Korean War, South Korea has risen to and joined the ranks of some of the most wealthy countries in the world.  However, all the hours and exertion don’t automatically translate into results.  Korean productivity ranks very low compared to other industrialized countries.

Why?  Check out these thoughts from Korean politician Moon Kook-hyun, head of the Creative Korea Party.

“Yes, sometimes we should work harder, but most times we should work smarter,”

“Government policies will determine whether Korea stays a muscle-based economy, or is upgraded to a knowledge-based economy,”

The habit of working long hours at low levels of productivity is “like brainwashing for Koreans,” he said. “Our leaders need to be disconnected from their former ways.”‘

So take a lesson from the Korean example.  Be diligent, by all means, but value results over dedication.  You have a life to live.

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Bjorn Karlman

Have any FOBS in your life?  “FOB” stands for Fresh Off The Boat and basically refers to a very recent immigrant.  Today’s post, comes at the end of a week dealing with friendships so what more fitting a way to finish up than to tackle the topic of FOB friends?  Here’s how you pick one out in a crowd:

1)  They are making a peace sign at the camera in every photo – OK so this definitely holds for Asian FOBS… don’t hate me for pointing it out.  My wife did it as a joke sometimes when we first started dating.  Then she went to work in Korea for 6 months and it is now her permanent pic pose.

2)  They will gladly tell you that you are fat. – Especially FOB parents your parents age have no problem hitting you straight.  For more on FOB parents, click here.

3)  They can be super polite and then super blunt – Typical lines from FOBS:  “Excuse me, Bjorn, but do you mind if I tell you something?  You are such a nice boy and this makes me “embarrass”.  But your hair looks no good.”  WOW.

4)  They seriously think Vicks can fix EVERYTHING – When I lived in the Philippines they had something like Vicks that was believed to have all kinds of powers.  You could use it for any ailment, just rub it on where it hurts… I used it for a stomach ache once when I was 11.  It worked.

5)  They are SUPER cheap in everyday life and then they throw the BIGGEST BIRTHDAY PARTIES you have EVER SEEN – FOBS can be NEXT LEVEL cheap.  Check out the Happy Slip video above of the mom sawing the paper towel roll in half.  This is TYPICAL.  But then you go to a bday bash and they have rented out a hot venue, there is a band, tons of food and the place is packed. HUH??!!

6)  They’ve got plastic on the furniture they bought years ago. – How this is supposed to help their living rooms I DO NOT KNOW but I have seen this quite a bit.  And the plastic is getting ratty…

7)  They are VERY superstitious – My grandma, an otherwise intelligent, grounded woman would swear up and down that there were “little people” that lived in the forest in Sweden.  She would defend this belief to anyone.  I have FOB friends that you would never want to take camping because they could tell you ghost stories that would make you wet yourself.

I know you’ve got your own FOB spotting tips.  Hit me with them in the comments.

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Checking in towards the end of my first full day in Canada…

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I seriously hate being an immigrant.

Right now, not even the fact that I am married to an American is not going to save me the $1000 plus that I will blow on another international trip to an American consulate to get a visa stamped in my passport (I haven’t gotten my green card yet).  I have to leave the country and get this visa stamp if I hope to travel internationally and re-enter the United States with permission to work.  Absurd.  Hence the dour look on my face as I write this at Starbucks in Terminal B in Sacramento International Airport.

I am not yet ready to look at the bright side of all this (there may be some happier immigration-related posts later this week if my rendezvous at the US Consulate in Calgary goes as planned.)  So for now, let’s wallow in pessimism and complain about the crappy state of the immigration process in seven, rambling points:

1)  There are too many jokes about immigrants – starting with my wife Jammie’s joke that I have blogged about before.  She LOVES asking, “Why am I  the one who looks like I need the green card,” really enjoying the irony of the Filipina who is this white boy’s ticket to America.

2)  Life is always more complicated for immigrants – ever since I was in college it has been the SAME story – you’ve got to jump through ALL these hoops if you want to study/live in the US.  Depending on where you are from, the paperwork and the uncertainty surrounding whether or not you will get a student visa is absolutely exhausting.

3)  Immigration to the United States (or anywhere, for that matter) is BEYOND humiliating – When I finally arrived at my American school I had to go to something called International Student Orientation where they shared gems like “take daily showers and wear deodorant.”  Welcome to America indeed.

4)  Immigrants are always at the mercy of the host country – I remember landing in Chicago after a trip back to the UK for Christmas.  An airport official at the immigration desks started yelling at the huge crowd of non-US travelers that were lined up, immigration forms in hand, trying to get in the country.  It was as though we were a crowd of misbehaving school children.  I raised my hand and asked if she was going to do anything about the fact that the super slow immigration officials were causing people to miss their flights.  The collective humiliation of being yelled at as a crowd quickly became personal as she directed her plump ire at me, pontificating on about how we were just going to have to “wait our turn.”  I complained heartily to their customer service people and missed the last bus to Michigan.

5)  Being an immigrant is ALWAYS more expensive – If it were not for the fact that I got lucky and have worked for extremely generous employers, I would be completely broke at this point.  The paper work that has been filed for me to work in the US on a professional non-immigrant H-1B (too confusing to go into the reasoning behind this category here) visa has cost about $15,000 and I have only worked in the United States for five years.  It is absolutely ridiculous.  Having a legal immigration status is immensely costly.  And we wonder why we have a problem with illegal immigration.

6)  The life of an immigrant feels like one long interview process – Living under the constant threat of deportation for the slightest infraction is hardly a great way to enjoy the American life.  It is super stressful.  I have my THIRD immigration interrogation in five years this Tuesday at the US consulate in Calgary just so I can get a visa stamped in my passport for which my employer has already spent thousands of dollars.

7)  You are at the mercy of politicians – It is not ordinary Americans that are causing all of this drama.  It is a completely inefficient Congress.  Immigration comes up in every election cycle, especially in the border states.  Good immigration news is the number one issue in many voters’ minds.  But let’s be real, does anything constructive EVER happen?  It certainly doesn’t feel like it.  Immigration problems are here to stay.

OK, enough negativity for now.  On Tuesday we look at whether or not it is worth immigrating to the United States anymore.

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Bjorn Karlman