
My Diplomatic Life - Hansig_jw
https://www.mydiplomaticlife.com/
======
joncrane
The author seems to have a penchant for taking the most dangerous assignments.

I'm a "diplomat brat" and most diplomatic careers are much more boring and
pedestrian. I (US citizen) grew up in Japan, Venezuela, and Costa Rica.

I echo the other current top level commenter's sentiment that diplomacy should
not be a family business. I recognize many of the advantages I have in terms
of having a broad worldview and understanding, as well as language skills.
However I would trade it all to grow up in a stable suburb and graduate from
high school with a few handfuls of folks I'd been to primary school with.

Being uprooted every few years has led to an inability to form long-term
relationships. I was essentially trained to have a timer on my friendships:
approximately 3-5 years. In my time we didn't have the internet so once I
moved it was over.

Not a fun time. I do not recall my childhood very fondly. In my case it was
especially hard because I'm an only child. I often wondered, as a child, why
it was so hard for me but not my peers. When I was in high school I realized
that all of the "better adjusted" kids I was comparing myself to had siblings
similar in age.

To those of you thinking of a diplomatic career: don't try to raise a family
and be a diplomat. Just don't. It's not worth it. Do it while you're single
for as long as you can, but the term "settle down" exists for a reason.

~~~
leetcrew
> Being uprooted every few years has led to an inability to form long-term
> relationships. I was essentially trained to have a timer on my friendships:
> approximately 3-5 years. In my time we didn't have the internet so once I
> moved it was over.

I don't mean to belittle the specific challenges/hardships of your childhood,
but I think the 3-5 year friendship thing is pretty common. my childhood was
almost the one you wish you had: I went to school with the same kids K-12 and
I have a brother two years younger than me. I can't say it worked out much
differently for me though. outside of the main clique, which I was not part
of, all the friend groups seemed to get scrambled up every few years as people
got older and grew apart. I had tables where I was welcome to sit at lunch
throughout school, but it took me halfway through highschool to find a good
group of friends. most of my classmates came from well-off families, so it was
expected that we would go to college out-of-state. so we all went off to
different colleges across the country. I'm now the only one from my highschool
friend group to live in our home state. I made some good friends in college
too, but again, we were all going to school far away from home, so we
naturally went our separate ways after graduating.

I'm not sure whether it's better to be exposed early or sheltered for a while,
but I think this is just the nature of our world. people move around in search
of the best opportunities, making new friends and losing track of old ones
along the way. as a CS major, I can get at least a decent job pretty much
anywhere, but most people aren't this lucky. after living a different life in
a different place for a few years, memories start to be the only things you
have in common with your old friends.

~~~
joncrane
Regardless of whether the average friendship length is similar, being FORCED
to abandon your friends based on someone else's schedule is much more
traumatic than friends entering and exiting your social circle due to the
natural cycle of friendship.

~~~
disown
> Regardless of whether the average friendship length is similar, being FORCED
> to abandon your friends based on someone else's schedule is much more
> traumatic than friends entering and exiting your social circle due to the
> natural cycle of friendship.

No. Losing friends through the "natural cycle of friendship" is just as
traumatic or even more so.

You are forced to "abandon" your friends regardless. This is true when you
switch schools - from elementary school to junior high to high school. The
same group of friends you had in your freshman year isn't necessarily the same
as you'd have in your senior year. Heck, you can lose friends and make new
friends just by having different classes/schedules. People just simply drift
apart, fight, etc.

Just like people have a romanticized view of your childhood, you seem to have
a romanticized view of childhood in the suburbs.

Also, losing friends because you have to move falls under "the natural cycle
of friendship".

~~~
cat199
> No. Losing friends through the "natural cycle of friendship" is just as
> traumatic or even more so.

Not like this doesn't happen to those people as well, and in this case you are
literally never _allowed_ to have any relationship mature past a handful of
years during a key time in development of social skills.

Grass is always greener, obviously there will be benefits the person that
moved will have that the other didn't recieve, but saying they are the same
thing just isn't logically true.

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w_t_payne
Most diplomatic careers deliver rather less in the way of storytelling
materiel than the author's. Nonetheless, I'm glad that I am no longer a
diplomatic spouse. A life in which we regularly uprooted ourselves every few
years to move to a new country was never one that I wanted, and one that I am
more than happy to leave behind. (Although I do miss my children terribly, and
wish there were some way I could maintain contact with them).

~~~
himoacs
What happened to your children?

~~~
w_t_payne
Still with their mother on posting. I had a breakdown and returned to the UK
about 18 months ago.

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maxehmookau
TIL: Britain has an embassy in the DPRK!

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toyg
Why would it not? The UK recognises NK as a country and is not at war or in
any serious dispute with it, so it makes sense.

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chki
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diplomatic_missions_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diplomatic_missions_in_North_Korea)

What you are saying is true for many countries, still most of them do not have
an embassy in North Korea. The reason being probably also that it is quite
expensive (as every embassy is) while not providing a lot of benefits because
trade/cultural relationships with North Korea are very difficult.

~~~
dkarp
I imagine it’s also hard to find people to staff an embassy in such a
disconnected place

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alexpetralia
This is really quite a gripping read. Enjoyed it!

[https://www.mydiplomaticlife.com/tirana-ambushed-
and-2-diplo...](https://www.mydiplomaticlife.com/tirana-ambushed-
and-2-diplomats-shot/)

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Mediterraneo10
I know that some countries like the USA make foreign-service personnel go back
to their home country for a couple of years between assignments, so that they
don’t “go native”. I wonder how many of those employees have resigned at that
point, because they had already come to feel that whatever country they were
serving in was more pleasant than their home country.

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vsareto
>There is virtually no literature on this and I have looked hard for examples.

Considering how spies are mixed in, I don't doubt it

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newera2016
Enjoyed reading it. I was under the impression that diplomats live luxury life
with Govt Protection when they deployed. I wish if author would have shared
detailed experience on few particular countries. Its good that this guy has
seen so much. Its great learning of world wide system.

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ImaCake
This is fascinating. Glad it has an RSS feed so I can come back for more
later.

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leephillips
Where’s the feed?

~~~
woofcat
[https://www.mydiplomaticlife.com/feed/](https://www.mydiplomaticlife.com/feed/)

