The fact that Americans are talking so much these days about our global predicament (ie climate change, our dependence on foreign oil, and the fact that Budweiser's been sold to the Belgians) has actually made my transition back much easier. I used to feel like America was in a different world than, well, the rest of the world. Today I think our global interconnectedness, whether it's about economics or politics or pop culture, is making what's outside our borders more relateable, and in fact crucial to know.
An extreme example of this connectedness: I just saw the craziest report about "Wombs for Rent", a new industry on the rise in India, where poor women are paid $6,000 by infertile couples from around the world to be their surrogate and carry their child (see story at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22441355). I really don't know how I feel about this – it's undeniably disturbing, yet apparently allows these women to build homes and escape poverty – but it's yet another bizarre effect of globalization, and example of how our lives and livelihoods are now dependent on someone on the other side of the globe, whom our parents would never have even dreamed of communicating with.
I read another article recently (and by the way, I do miss being overseas and seeing stuff for myself!) about how some immigrants from Latin America are actually going back home because of the economic downturn in the US and the ability to make a better living back home where the cost of living is cheap. When I used to work for a British publishing company, an Indian-British colleague of mine used to joke that in 30 years all the Britons will have to retire to India because England will be too expensive. Maybe in the next 30 years, as millions of Baby Boomers retire and see their Social Security dry up, we'll see massive emigration to developing countries where their dollar goes three or four times farther.
