The wrong rung of the social ladder

We had a Serbian lunch yesterday, complete with home-made Gibanica and Ajvar. The mother of one of our work friends was visiting from Belgrade, and we spent a pleasant afternoon in a little Serbicised corner of Heidelberg. A good deal of the discussion, as ever, was about whether or not to move back to Serbia. Our friends are both Serbian, and often think of moving home. One of the things she was mentioning yesterday was ones social standing in the countries in which so many Balkan people now live: France, Germany, Austria, the US. One can be the king of the hill in Serbia, but when you move somewhere else, you end up on the bottom rung of the social ladder. And as a result one ends up mingling with people outside your normal social group in the new country. Our friend was telling us that they - with four college degrees between them - regularly attend parties with Serbians or Croatians that are truly working class: cleaners, laborers, etc. Something that is mostly unheard of in - well - anywhere.

Examples are everywhere. Consider the old friends of G.'s parents: they moved to Calgary for work. He had been a leading petroleum engineer in Serbia, but found himself being placed with entry level engineers. I think they like living in Canada for many reasons, but struggle to cope with the loss of status. Most people start to wonder, indeed, if it isn't better to go home and face whatever reality they have to face there - lower salaries, lack of work, etc. - if only to be better off in terms of connections and social standing.

It isn't, of course, a problem unique to Serbians in Europe. It is everywhere. Poles moving the UK, Russians moving to Israel, and many others all make the same comments. The university professor turned street cleaner is a well-worn cliche.

I think the problem that most Westerners have with understanding this, is that we normally don't move countries out of shear necessity. Normally those who go abroad are doing so by choice, and more often than not it is the opportunity of a lifetime that allows somebody to take direct advantage of skills gained at home and needed abroad. And if things go foul, we can usually return home, without too much lost in the process. For those moving out of a need to support families, the situation is alas different.

I guess my message is that the next time you hear a foreigner struggling to make him or herself understood in a language that he/she probably learned after the age of 30, that possibly you might nevertheless be in the presence of a genius or at least somebody that you would like to know better or perhaps possibly admit onto your social network. You never know, maybe - in exchange for just a modicum of respect - they have a house on the Croatian/Bulgarian/Romanian coast (free holidays!), or can get your foot in the door into something lucrative in a country you don't understand.