Question...

[telophase]

...why do all these Americans moving to foreign countries on House Hunters International ship all their furniture instead of selling it and buying new or new-to-them stuff in the new country? It cannot save enough money to be worth the hassle of shipping it and finding a place to live in which it will fit. Case in point: thus week it's a teacher moving to Tokyo who's worrying that his dresser won't fit in an actually pretty damn large apartment for Tokyo.

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Comments

[movingfinger]

...because Americans are 1, pathologically attached to their Stuff and 2, convinced that there isn't actually Civilization where they're going (with a side order of failure of imagination in general... I've watched that program and a lot of the people buying apartments etc in Italy, Panama, et al. appear utterly unrealistic about where they're going and what they'll be doing there).

[telophase]

Reminds me of the person on the Worldcon2007 community who was panicking over being forced to eat fish for breakfast. rachelmanija and I reassured him that Japan was a first-world country with chickens, cows, and pigs and he would not have to confront a traditional Japanese breakfast unless he really, really wanted to.

(He hadn't even looked at the con hotel website, I think - it had five restaurants, none of which were Japanese.)

[apis_mellifera]

Because it's a show about people who often have more money than sense? I've never seen an episode where it wasn't some wealthy person looking for a second or retirement home. Although I think my favorite was the rich Americans who bought what was essentially a ruin in Malta--the bathroom was literally a hole in the ground.

[telophase]

I've seen almost all of them, because the DVR catches it, so I've seen a number where it's someone like this guy, moving there to teach in the international school.

I just can't believe moving to another country without doing enough basic research to figure out the typical housing available.

ETA: I do find it amusing that when looking at rooms, the American invariably say "It's so small!" while the Brits and Europeans say "It's so cozy!"

[apis_mellifera]

I have an extremely low tolerance for the show, don't watch it very often--I do prefer the international version to the US-centric one, though. The US-centric one makes me want to throw things at my television, the international one only makes me rolls my eyes.

[onthehill]

Heee! This sounds like fun - I think I need to check it out :D
(yes, I am easily amused)

[elainegrey]

Just moving from Philly to San Francisco we ditched a good deal of furniture. I suppose it depends on the value of the furniture. Much of ours was grad school furniture (sold), but some were family pieces (shipped).

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Huh. Weird.

My dad bought Ikea furniture for his two-year house in Wimbledon. He could have shipped his own, but they decided not to bother.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I don't even think I'd bother shipping the majority of my furniture across the *country* much less the *planet*. If I it was a short-term stint, I might store my furniture until I knew if I was going to move back to that place or go somewhere else after the out-of-country time, but I don't think I'd waste the money to ship it. It's not *that* nice.

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

When I was growing up (as a Navy brat) we got free shipping on household stuff, and it was a comfort to get to the new house, sometimes in a country where I didn't speak the language, and find the same bed that I'd been sleeping in for as long as I could remember. In addition, in some places it actually is hard to get Western-style furniture.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

That would explain a couple of the ones I saw, like a previous Japan episode where the wife of a couple who moved there was having serious culture shock in Okinawa. (Her husband was a flight instructor and accepted a two-year job with the Army base there.) But often they're just *moving*.

In addition, in some places it actually is hard to get Western-style furniture.

Often they're moving to places like London, Paris, Prague, Tokyo, not some third-world island where furniture's super-expensive to buy because it all has to be shipped in.

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

True. But the familiarity factor, having that little touch of home, still applies, even if you're happy to be moving to whatever country you're going to. Sometimes you just want to have that bit of your personal / family history to give you a touchstone of sorts when you're feeling out of place and isolated.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I mean, people like their furniture, at least some of it. That is, in an ideal world, why they bought it in the first place, and why they live with it every day. If I were moving to another country, I'd want to at least put most of mine in storage, if not ship it with me.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I just don't see taking your funriture that you spent, say, $3000 for and spending another $3000 to ship it to Japan, then spending yet another $3000 two years later to ship it back home. You've paid for it three times.

I don't have a problem with people storing their furniture if they're going to be away for a few years, then coming back to it; I just wonder why people love their furniture so much that they're willing to invest that much money in it.

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

When we moved, we did leave a lot of our stuff in storage - but there were some that we took with is as well, like a lot of our family pieces. (And a darn good thing, too - we lost everything we had stored once when the warehouse burned down!)