Expatriate games

Many Britons abroad see themselves as 'expats', a word that reflects outdated attitudes inappropriate for 21st-century global living. It's time to consign it to history

Having lived for about half of my 46 years abroad, in Africa, Spain and Japan, I am used to seeing myself as others do: a foreigner. Indeed, I am in Japan now on a year's posting by my university – but that's another story, given recent events. Japanese often refer to foreigners by using the slightly disparaging term gaijin, meaning literally "outside person", and the word flyjin has also recently entered the Japanese-English lexicon to describe foreign residents who hastily retreated to their home countries when the triple disaster struck on 11 March. But I am getting beyond myself.

Increasingly I have felt uncomfortable when British people overseas, or press organisations such as the Guardian, use the term "expat" with reference to Britons abroad, then use words such as "immigrant" when describing people from other countries who are in the UK. Strangely, this sometimes extends to other non-British foreigners overseas. So, a Briton resident in France might refer to himself as an expat, but call a Polish resident of France an immigrant, as if somehow there is a distinction to be made; although he may later refer to someone from the USA as an "American expat", implying that there is a sort of hierarchy of foreignness.

Speaking only from personal experience, there seem to be communities of Britons overseas that somehow isolate themselves from their adoptive societies and associate mostly with other Britons, referring to each other routinely as expats. They may rarely learn the local language beyond basic survival phrases, and rarely interact with people from their host culture except when ordering in restaurants, requiring assistance, being stopped, or going shopping. In some areas, such as rural France or Italy, where there is a critical mass of British "expats" in the locale, enterprising individuals even set up businesses to cater to British residents – selling such things as Marmite and Jaffa cakes, giving advice and assistance with bureaucracy, providing home-visit English language hairdressing, or help with setting up satellite TV, personal computers with Skype, and so on.

There is nothing wrong with providing these services. But I wonder why some British overseas residents appear not to try very hard to interact meaningfully with the local populations in their adoptive countries, do not really get to know the culture and society, can't or won't learn the local language beyond a very basic level, and insist on living so much of a British lifestyle overseas.

It gets more difficult on those occasions when British "expats" get together in groups, for example at long weekend lunches where alcohol is involved, and start on what I call a "bash the locals" conversation, complaining about all manner of often very trivial issues as if the local people are especially incompetent or irrational. I am not averse to the odd glass, but I wonder why some in these groups express so much frustration with their "expat" lives.

I am not suggesting that they simply like it, lump it, or go home, since local people also experience frustrations with their own societies. Sometimes, however, these conversations take on a tone where the British assume a superior attitude and more knowing posture than the mainstream of life in their adoptive culture. The word "expat" and its widely accepted currency in British English goes a long way towards providing ballast for such attitudes. I think "expat" evokes too much of a lingering nostalgia for empire, and is not really appropriate for 21st-century global living, becoming a linguistic marker for membership of an exclusive overseas enclave.

Interestingly, and unlike Africa and southern Europe, in my experience in Japan the British expat culture is less evident, other than among smaller isolated groups in some of the large cities. One reason could be that Japan is attractive to Britons who are looking to discover a new language and culture, and who want to absorb themselves in local life, or because Japan doesn't easily tolerate long-term residence from foreigners unless they demonstrate a strong willingness to establish a personal stake in the country. This is usually achieved through learning the language, getting used to the food, understanding social and cultural mores, or by marrying a Japanese, buying a home and having children. In my experience, those people who do get married to Japanese tend not to be of the expat mentality anyway, and even if they are, once married, in Japan they become so absorbed into family life and local obligations that it is impossible to maintain the expat existence for long.

Of course, foreign residents in Japan and elsewhere come from many different backgrounds, and many British people don't want to be a part of the British expat culture when overseas; they do learn the local language to an advanced level, experience and understand the local culture, eat the local food (Japanese breakfast is a good test of a person's resolve!), and also make friends with local people. It is immensely rewarding to do so, and opens up a whole new range of experiences, new perspectives on the world, and stretches one's personality and world view. Importantly, it also helps one to learn about and sometimes question one's own society and culture, and one's own attitudes and values. This can be painful at times, and Japan can be especially challenging, but it is worth the trouble as the results can be very fulfilling. This is not to say one would shun British people's company just for the sake of it, but just that I think British expat culture might have had its day.

So, my proposal is for the Guardian to amend its style guide to discourage the use of the word "expat" in its pages. The word is too redolent of the days of empire and sipping gin and tonic in the shade while the locals toil beyond the fence. It is too easily used as a cultural marker to distinguish people from one another, making it easy for some Britons to feel both superior to and separated from the local people in their host cultures. I suggest that words such as resident, visitor, settler, immigrant and tourist be used instead in order to equalise the way we describe ourselves with the ways in which we describe others. It is only fair and just to do so.

Peter Matanle is a sociologist and is currently serving as the director of the University of Sheffield's Doshisha Centre in Kyoto, Japan