Relocation challenges and over 5000Kms of driving during weekends

Change is a great phenomenon in life and it makes life interesting. It enhances your learning process and challenges your abilities in so many ways. Relocation is one of a big kind of changes. You get out of your comfort zone and then create a new comfort zone and routines. If you are not experienced in dealing with the process, the transition period becomes really long. I have a lot of experience of it until now, since last year I have relocated four times. Once between two countries, once between two cities and twice in the same city. But every time I relocate, it brings different challenges. In this post I will reflect upon my recent relocation to Fagersta in Sweden. And compare it with my previous experiences. 

I still remember that when I moved out of my parents’ house for the first time from a city near the capital of Pakistan to the largest city of Pakistan in the south, I did not accept the change for at least one year. I was just 17 and almost every second day I thought of moving back. But after that year I never wanted to go back to the city where I was living before. The second biggest change was moving from Pakistan to Sweden. It took me around 6 months to get comfortable with the environment.

It is challenging because you might be mentally prepared for it, but your behavioral change takes a while, it holds you back and tries to make you realize that the past was better. There are some factors that can facilitate the change process, for example it is easier if it is collective. If you relocate to a place, where there are a lot of people are going through the same process. Exchange studies is a perfect example of that, you can meet a lot of people who relocate to a new place, facing similar challenges and have similar goals and you can talk to them about, what you are experiencing. The other factor that facilitates the change process is the receiving group of people, environment or city. For example if you relocate to a place where you already know people who are there to welcome and engage you in the local society. The third factor is your interests and hobbies, if the place you relocate to have the things to offer that you want to do, then it is not a big deal. The fourth factor that facilitates your relocation is experience. If you are aware of the challenges of relocation, you can get settled in a few weeks. The last but not the least is flexibility, if you are rigid in your behavior, than it will be yourself that will make you a looser in relocation process.

Settlement is a big knowledge area; there is a lot of relocation in the world due to studies, work, relations or wars. I have seen some companies in Norway that provide the services for settlement of employees from other countries or cities into their city of work and the employers pays heavy fees to these companies. The local governments in many cities have the settlement plans as well, but their target group can be different based on the needs of the country. And the resource allocation is done accordingly. The universities and student unions play an important role in settle of new students as well. And the local businesses do a lot of marketing in the cities where the immigration rate is higher to keep their business running. Anyways that is my observations and learning, there might be a lot of other prospects and factors as well related to relocation and settlement.  

Finally me and Fagersta. I have relocated to Fagersta one month ago and I can claim that I have got settled now. My life by than has changed a lot. But it was a hard work, it was costly and it required a lot of flexibility.

Fagersta is a really small town in Vastmanslands County in eastern part of Sweden, at almost one hour drive from Vasteras (The fifth largest city of Sweden) 1.5 hour drive from Uppsala (The fourth largest city of Sweden) And two hour drive from Stockholm (The capital and largest city of Sweden). It has an amazing nature around, beautiful lakes, small hills a lot of forest. It is an industrialized city and almost more than 2000 people travel to Fagersta from other cities to work. There are a couple of gyms in the city, two big sports facilities and many pizzerias and small restaurants.

For me the working life experience has been really exciting, but the social life became a big challenge. First challenge alone was that I was the only one who relocated to this city. It is much smaller than the cities I have lived before. There was no public transport or easy commuting facilities in the region. Most of my colleagues come from other cities. After work there are not many things of my interest in around. Most of my activities in my previous city were group activities. I was not comfortable being alone. And I used to spend very less time at home and I have been outdoors in nature by myself. The biggest challenge was the availability of internet. I am addicted to it. Since I had to change my apartment and there was no internet offer available for one month. I have been to all telecom operators in the region.

How did I cope with it?  In start I was just going to shopping centers in the region around to buy stuff for the apartment. I started searching for the events and the people with common interests. I tried to contact so many people in the cities around especially international students and their activities. In case of people, my previous contacts helped me only. I attended a few events. Since I am a fan of traveling, therefore it was on the top priority during weekends.  I have been to Sandviken, Falun, Hedemora, Gävle, Sundsvall, Umeå, Borås, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Vasteras (many times) and Uppsala during the month of March. The weekends were perfect. I met many old friends during this period. Some of them introduced me to their local friends and it was an overwhelming experience and I am really thankful to all of these people I met during this settlement period.

I also realized that traveling all the time makes it less interesting and why not try some other things in parallel. So I have started swimming, a little bit of workout at the gym, outdoor walks around the lakes, cooking, staying in touch with all the amazing people I have met in my life. My future plans are to start watching movies and TV series, get back to online gaming after many many years of pause, cycling, reading some books, blogging and travel much more and build or become a part of a community of common interests in the region. I have many ideas about them. I will write about them in future. Thanks for reading and please reflect or share your thoughts on this post.

Respect

Respect 

Respect and insult are one of the major topics of discussion these days due to the terrorist attacks in France. Many authors have written a lot about it. Therefore in this post I am going to share my experience of respect in Scandinavia and Pakistan.

In cross cultural communication it is really important to understand the values, so respect is one of them. If you do not give due respect that is considered normal in that society, then it can be considered as offensive or insult. On the other hand if you give respect that is not required it becomes a weird act. And the ways respect is given is also very complicated; it has both verbal and non-verbal ways. Verbal are easier to get, but non-verbal are kind of complicated and I have not seen much information or understanding of this among Asian and European people and most of them end up in conflicts. Because the reaction to disrespect is also very different. Some people change behavior like end the contact or relation, some people say it directly and that is considered rude by others and some people in extreme cases become violent and that is not good for a multi cultural environment. Anyways this is personal reflection based on social experiences. Anyone can disagree. 

Respect in Pakistan:

Let’s start with Pakistani culture. In Pakistan there are some groups that must be given respect no matter what, If you do not do that you will be considered as offensive and disrespectful by all of the people around you.  According to my personal experience some of those groups are

1-      Pakistan Army
2-   Parents
3-      Islam
4-      The country
5-      People Older than you
6-      People more educated than you
7-      Teachers
8-      Women (Uneducated people are an exception)
9-      Religious people (Changed a lot after war on terror)
10-  China

The way of respecting is that you show love to them. Do not question them. Cannot look in the eyes while talking, showing your best side of the personality, seek their attention and always go first and greet them (in case of people). Most of the time parents and teachers are advising you be respectful and disciplined. For example, you can not eat or talk in the classroom or conference room, it is a disrespect to the teacher or the boss. You can not sit among the older generation and there are plenty of actions that are considered as disrespectful. Therefore everyday from morning to evening you get a lot of lectures or lessons from someone older than you, telling you that you were disrespectful and those people consider it their duty to teach you, how to be respectful. 

Popularity can also be considered one of the factor. Therefore if a politician gathers a lot of people than he is considered as respected. Here is an example of a typical political address. 

There are some groups that are always both hated and respected. And you can see extreme emotions of love and hate about them

1-      Politicians
2-      Media (Mostly Criticized)
3-      Judiciary
4-      Sports personalities
5-      China, Saudi Arabia and Iran (Mostly loved)
6-      America and western countries (Mostly Hated)
7-      TV or film actors/ actresses
8-      Singers
9-      Your official boss
10-  Foreign customers or tourists
11-  Industrial tycoons
12-  Feudal
13-  Different races
14-  Rich people

Every person has a different opinion about different institutions, people or groups. Generally most of the people agree that money talks and the people who are rich are very powerful and majority of the people do not give you respect if you are poor. Due to this complicated structure of inequality there are a lot conflicts that exist. And for the right understanding of the values it is important to have a good relation with the people.

Respect in Scandinavia: 

On the other hand the Scandinavian society is very different. There is a law in Sweden that says that you are not better than anyone else. Kids are educated in a much lesser competitive environment. Therefore equality is given more value than anything else in Swedish society. If you are bragging about yourself to make a good impression, it is considered as a negative act. 

Sports personalities have much respect among Scandinavian. Football player like Zlatan Ibrahimovic is one the most respected people. After sports personalities royal families in Sweden and Norway have a lot of respect. Some people like to talk about them. A lot of singers from Scandinavia and abroad, Djz, local and foreign TV actors or celebrities are also among the people who are given respect. But showing respect is still different, you can see a super star on the street and still not so many people around him/ her. They can feel very normal on the streets. On the other hand in eastern countries the fans normally go crazy when they  see their ideals. Following is the picture of a famous Bollywood actor and his fans waiting for him early in the morning on his birthday 

Majority of the people like USA as a country and many people criticize that as well. Russia is not a favorite country among many Scandinavians.  

Religion or religious people is not given much respect in the Scandinavia and it is considered OK to make fun of the religion. No matter which religion it is. 

There is a big divide between Swedish and Norwegian people on the basis of respect for their countries. Norwegin people love to show their love about their country, talk about the histroy, having Norwegian flags everywhere and feeling proud to be Norwegian. Generally you can not talk against Norway or the teams that represent Norway abroad. The biggest day in Norway is the national day of Norway. Here is a picture from that day

In Sweden, it is not appreciated to show respect and love for the country. On Swedish national day you will not observe any similar thing. In Sweden you can say anything about the country and normally people will not react. 

In the recent days i have been inquiring many Swedish people about the respect,whom do they respect and how do they show respect. Most of the time it is a difficult question for them. All said that we just learned to be respectful to the older people from our parents. The rest everyone should be respected. And showing respect like opening doors for women, paying for others or doing similar things is not that much important. However one can still see that people have different behaviors towards some races, due to the laws against racism no one want to talk about it. And that is one of the reasons that integration is still a problem in Scandinavian countries. Many people are open towards it but there are many people among both immigrant and local communities are not open about it and their behavior can be disrespectful towards each other. Ignoring someone or keeping silence is normally a reaction if someone do not respect someone. 


The concluding remarks are: Life is very easy when you respect people for what they are. 

Memories of 2014

Memories from 2014

Life is quite uncertain. We can never predict what is going to happen. Circumstances change us as well. But we cannot really see the change in ourselves until we compare it with the past. 2014 has passed, seems like yesterday. Today I am trying to document some of the stories from 2014, that I can look back after many years and see how much changes, I have been through. I tried my best to keep a fair balance between staying in touch with all the people I know and meeting new people. I am really thankful to all the people who were there during 2014 and shaped my memories. I want to write a lot of stuff, but since it is public so I am writing carefully and will try to make it interesting for the readers. Let’s do it on monthly basis

January 2014:

I started 2014 while at work. I did have some plans for the year, some things happened according to the plans and something happened not according to them ….

This is 2014 firework picture in the background. I have celebrated new year eve 2015 in the same city.

January was full of traveling. On 2^nd January I went to Istanbul, Turkey. It was an amazing trip. 

Then I went to Karachi, Pakistan, met my niece for the first time after her birth. After that I flew to Lahore, Pakistan and attending the wedding of my cousin. At the wedding I met a lot of relatives after so many years. After Lahore, I went to Lalian, Sargodha and then back to Karachi, Pakistan. The love and hospitality I got was amazing.

After staying a few days in Karachi, I went for traveling in Sindh province. I went to Mehrabpur, Ghotki and Gambat. Met many of my relatives and then came back to Karachi again. From Karachi, I came back to Borås, Sweden. Just after arrival in Sweden I received an interview call from Rolls Royce for the graduate program.

As planned I travelled from Borås, Sweden to Trondheim, Norway. After a couple of days there I travelled to Ålesund for the interview at Rolls Royce. And then came back to Trondheim, Norway.

February:

During February I got back to student life at NTNU, Trondheim. The winters Olympics were in progress, many people were busy watching them everywhere. I started writing my thesis. Attended some job fairs, theater, more parties, TEDx Trondheim event and met many nice people.

On14th February we went for a Ski trip to Oppdal, Norway with Msc. Project Management students. It was one of the best trips; I really remember it until now. I saw northern lights as well. The best thing about February was that I joined the gym.

March:

March started with some awesome cricket matches in Asia cup. Pakistan won two very close matches, I was really happy. There was a workshop and concert with DNV GL in January. There were again a lot of events, dinners and parties. The best one was the last party with UKA gang.

I did curling for the first time. It was really great. Did a case study with Shell. Wrote a lot of job applications and continued writing my thesis. Continued my Norwegian language course as well. The month ended with the cricket world cup.

April:

On the first April I did Skiing for the first time. I fell down so many times; I think it was the first day after my childhood when I fell so many times. After that we had pillow fight in the city center. The days were long. The social life was awesome as usual. I lost my phone. I went on some trips as well. We went to visit Roros, Norway and in the end of the month I visited three cities in Netherlands. In Netherlands it was happening; one of the biggest festivals called the king’s day. I spent king’s night at The Hague city, kings day at Amsterdam and then I went to Enschede, Netherlands. It was an amazing dutch experience. 

May:

May was an awesome month. I travelled to northern Norway. Saw the amazing lofoten islands.

This is a picture at 12AM at a beach in Lofoten. It did not get dark at all.

After the trip to lofoten the most amazing day arrived. It was national day of Norway. People were dressed so nicely. Everyone was out that day. I always recommend all of my friends, if they want to visit Norway, they should at least be there on 17^th May.

After the national day, I attended the graduation dinner with my Msc. Project Management class at NTNU on May 22^nd. And then it was the time to say good bye.

The chapter of Norwegian student life was finally closed after the graduation. The very next day I moved back to Borås, Sweden. The days were warm and sunny. I joined my job again and kept working on my thesis.

June:

The month of June started with the thesis presentations of my International Project management class. I met my class fellows after a long time. I travelled with some friends to south of Norway again.

This is the picture from Porsgrunn, Norway.

The weather was nice, so we were often going for swimming. On weekends we were going to Gothenburg. There was a nice international food market in Borås. We went to varberg, Sweden for a couple of times and some of my friends from NTNU visited me in Borås. The month ended with a great relief and accomplishment of my Masters thesis.

July:

In July the football world cup was in progress. So we were normally going out to watch the football. During July nothing great happened. There was not much to do at work either. We were going to lakes for swimming. And were also visiting the cities nearby. In the end of July a friend of mine visited from Abu Dhabi. 

August:

August was full of concerts. It started with a live performance of Snoop dog. Than it came the way out west festival in Gothenburg and then we attended a concert with Otto Knows. There was a nice Gothenburg cultural festival as well. Later the way out west festival 2014.

A picture from Icona pop concert at Way out west 2014

 I ate Pakistani mangoes. I was mentor for two students at University of Borås and 13 students at Chalmers university of Technology. So I also hang out with my mentees in August. I attended a lot of events for welcoming them. So I spent a lot of time at Gothenburg during August.

A picture from welcome activities in Gothenburg for new students at Chalmers University.

 I casted my first ever vote in an election.  In the end of august I was fully beard for the first time in my life. I was selected as an ambassador of Isfit 2015.

September:

September was special because I received the result of my master’s thesis and I started Chinese language course at Chalmers. Met some really nice Chinese people in Borås and Gothenburg as well.  The rest it was busy at work, so it was kind of a usual working month.

October:

After a busy September I went to Pakistan on holidays. October was great. It was warm in Pakistan. I spent Eid with my family. Met most of the relatives, spent a lot of time with my niece. She started crawling at that time.

This is a picture of us hanging out J

 Met again with my friends and discussed about the great old times. Things have changed a lot. Attended a lot dinners with family and friends. I still miss all the hospitality and great food from Pakistan.

After I returned from Pakistan to Sweden, me and my friend Majid went to Hungary and Austria. It was also one of the best trips ever. Our hosts treated us really amazing.

This is a picture of us at hearos square Budapest.

November:

The November started with the Halloween. Chinese language course was there. I was applying for jobs as well on regular basis. There were interviews going on as well. And the workload was also very high. Something like managing in between was going on. I was elected as a council member of Swedish Engineers association.

I went for an interview in Kristiansand, Norway. On my way I stayed in Oslo. I met some of my friends. It was a great get together. I am very thankful for their hospitality.

This is a picture from the city center of Kristiansand.

In the end my residence permit expired and I applied for a new visa. It was also a lot of work to do for that. I attended some nice lunches and dinner during November. In the end of the month Christmas dinners started.  

December:

The month of December was great in start when I received my master’s degree. I finished my Chinese language course at Chalmers university. Two people from NTNU and one person from Pakistan received noble prizes. But a tragic incident occurred in Peshawar. It was really sad and I have no words to express my feelings.

I travelled to Fagesta for another interview. And I also sent many applications during the month of December. The Christmas dinners were over and we had a personalfest. That was a memorable event.

This is a picture from New Year’s Eve.

The 2014 has departed and 2015 has started. There are so many things that I want to remember from this year and use the lessons learnt for a better 2015. I wish a really awesome 2015 to everyone. 

Why i left Pakistan

Why i left Pakistan  

I spent around 20 years of my life in different cities of Pakistan, i have my family, my friends, my childhood, teenage, my first job and so many other memories related to my motherland. Now it has been a while living away from all those things. Today i might not exactly remember, what i was thinking at that time, but i would like to document what i remember from that time when i decided to leave the country. Everything you achieve in your life cost you something. You loose somethings to gain somethings. 

I will start from the following picture

This is a picture from January 2004, the time when my life was going through one of the biggest changes in my life. I got admission and joined one of the most popular engineering universities of Pakistan. It was like a dream come true. I still do not have the words for explaining the excitement i had at that time. This is moment that most of college graduates in Pakistan can dream of . An example is that; this university is located in a province of over 30 million people and less than 800 were enrolled at the university at that time. How i got in, it is also a long story. I will write about that some other time.

At that time my father was a pensioner and jobless for six years. The only source of his income was the pension money. It was around 3500 Pakistani rupees. And our family expense was over 10,000 rupees per month. And there was no luxury in life. We never owned an apartment. Our family owned just two bicycles and the some savings for our education. All of his savings were going towards an end. The education is very expensive in Pakistan. All of my siblings were also studying. We were living in a small town named Taxila cantt near the capital of Pakistan. I was 17 years old, i moved to the biggest town in the country, with a totally different culture. The city is highly populated, have a huge industry, a lot of opportunities to grow. The negative side is high street crime, high stress between different ethnic, political and religious groups.

I grew up with the thinking that if you want to have a better economic and social stability than you must be educated. Since my childhood no one appreciate to do sports or other activities than just studying. The teachers threatened everyone that you will end up being a very poor person or drugs addicts if you do not study. The parents used to tell their kids that they have given up their dreams over their education and every second person you meet asks you about your studies. In Pakistan the difference between the rich and poor class is immensely huge.  You can notice it everywhere in society. The only feasible and sustainable way a middle class person can be richer is that if he/ she have a good education. The salaries of engineers, doctors, management staff and accountants are much higher than school teachers, bus drivers, restaurant persons or any other professionals.  Entrepreneurship and any relevant ideas were not there around me. Therefore the education and good job became a believe of my life.

Yes i was excited because i knew that i was going to become an engineer. It was studying at a state owned university, it was affordable as compared to private sector universities. The engineers were being respected everywhere in the society, they had reasonable incomes, their parents were proud, and they were enjoying nice rides as well. And then the dream bacame a reality. I graduated .....

This is a picture from March 2008 from the convocation. I was a graduate engineer. At that time i was working in a Hongkong based multi-national firm. I was earning around 16000 rupees a month. Things changed a lot between 2004-2008. My family moved to Karachi. My brother was in the final year of his bachelors of Engineering. My father was also working at a floor mill. Our family's income was around 30,000 rupees. And our expense was also somewhat close to that. I was owner of a motor bike. But.....

So many ground realities changed. During all those years the country's economy was on a continuous decline. Our family had a loan of around 300,000 rupees. We still did not own a house. Me and my bother were planning to study further as the bachelors was not considered as enough to get to the higher management in Pakistan. Most of the people were already enrolled into the masters programs in the country and the one who could afford to go abroad for studying went abroad. The biggest pressure were the loans. They were taken from the relatives. My father never took any loan in his entire life before i started studying in the university, and he was always stressed because of that. He could not pay them by any means. Our family's income and expense were matching and there was no way that we could afford to a pay a loan that was 10 times more than the total income of the family. My mother went through an operation. The medical care in a private hospital costed so much. Our family did not have any savings left for health care, higher education, buying a house and weddings. A normal home at that time was costing around 3-5 million Pakistani rupees and a normal wedding costed around 1 million rupees. So a person who earns only 16000 rupees can not dream of achieving these things over a year or in 5-10 years. I started doing MBA in the evening but due to the high tution fees i could not afford it and i quit after one semester. 

I was doing great in my professional life. I was happy with my social life. But the economics and future goals were not supporting each other at all. Raising prices for everything triggered this thinking of getting a better income. Going abroad for studying or work was popular among the graduates of my university. Me and my friends were always diccussing about these issues. Most of the time there were negative feelings associated to the future of young and educated people with in the country. Every second person's opinion was that it is better to live abroad and there were many people who were struggling to get out of the country to live a better life. The rich people were leaving country because the security situation was not good enough. With a Pakistani passport there were no possible ways to travel or work in many countries. And it used to cost too much time and money to get a residence for visit, studies or work in any developed country. A reliable survey at time showed  that over 80% people of Pakistan want to live abroad.  

I projected my life, many years ahead of the time. I analyzed all my available resources. I talked to so many people about different possible scenarios in future. I ended up with a conclusion that i have to leave the country for good. How i planned to leave, how many efforts i did for that is really long story. I will write about it in future. But after 1.5 years of my graduation i managed to moved to Sweden and i completed my Masters in one year. With the efforts of our whole family we managed to get rid of all of our loans.  And the most important thing that matters to me that my father and mother were very very happy.....