I knew Luxembourg before actually living in the country thanks to my girlfriend, who is Luxembourgish. She introduced me to the country and its culture, hence my trajectory was rather unusual compared to the one of other expats. I went many times over a period of two years while I was studying in Belgium. As a ‘tourist’, I noticed that Luxembourg was a small, but a very multicultural, open-minded and safe country.
After finishing my studies, I decided to move to Luxembourg and started looking for job opportunities. As a computer scientist, I realized that the job market was large, even for people who do not speak Luxembourgish, French or German. There are not only many opportunities in the financial sector, but also in startup companies which work on disrupting technologies such as artificial intelligence or block chain.
I have been living in Luxembourg for one year and a half now. I observed that in the private sector there are mainly foreigners and that unfortunately some of the them do not accept the challenge to get to know Luxembourg better. I believe this is due to the fact that the country has multiple communities which are mainly clustered around English, French, Luxembourgish and Portuguese language. On the one side, this accounts for the multicultural character of the country, but on the other side, it is hard to know which community to integrate in.
Daniel
With over 50 nationalities in the school today, ISL aims to be a ‘home from home’ for the many expat families who join our community. For expat families, schools play a vital role as a community centre for expats to meet, share experiences, make new friends and attend events so that they feel supported when they are far away from their home and families. Friendship groups often come from conversations when waiting to pick up children from school. With a rolling programme of admissions, new students arrive every month throughout the school year. While the mix of nationalities has changed somewhat over the years, globalisation means that many families are frequently on the move. Our ‘Welcome Back’ Sunday starts the year off with a barbecue for staff, students and parents and the different nationality groups bring speciality dishes from their home countries to share. The school has also established a parent ambassador group so that new parents have a point of contact to help support families with the many questions they have about life in Luxembourg. We often try to match new parents with an ambassador from the same nationality to overcome language transitions and help introduce people who have similar interests as well. Students quickly learn to make new friends and our student ambassador programme is designed to help new arrivals integrate into their peer groups, regardless of nationality. Our new teacher orientation programme also supports expat staff in making the most of the new cultural experience. Luxembourg now has so many clubs and organisations to support different nationalities living in the country, epitomised for me by the annual International Bazaar, together with the myriad of different cultural occasions. For our expat families living here, friendships grow both within and across nationality groups as it is just such a great opportunity to learn so much about other cultures and nations, we are very lucky.
Nicki Crush
Director, International School of Luxembourg
I grew up in Hasselt, Belgium. My father had this book Luxemburg und seine Nachbarländer – manuel de geographie pour la 5e et 6e années d’études primaires du Ministère de l’éducation nationale, 1968 about Luxembourg, which inspired me when I was a young teenager. It appealed to me that the Latin and German cultures were all coming together in tiny Luxembourg. Every time I had to give a presentation in the years thereafter in high school, I used elements of this great Luxembourg book. I moved to Luxembourg and started working in Echternach in late 1992, when the customs formalities required for trade within the European Union were abolished. It did however not work out as I had hoped and a couple of months later, I was back in Hasselt. After a couple of years, I made a more successful attempt, this time whilst creating a telecoms startup, called Direct Telecom, and moving to Luxembourg city. By doing so, I was in control myself, which then worked out well. During my first years in Luxembourg, I have been sharpening my German and English language skills. It was only in the late 2000s that I started learning Luxembourgish as it seemed to me like a way to become even more integrated in the place which eventually became my home country. The classic ‘Centre de langues’ approach did not work out for me and so I took private classes at Mastercraft. The vivid discussions I had with my Luxembourg teacher, Guy Achten, as we had completely opposite views on everything, allowed me to learn to speak Luxembourgish quite rapidly. As a consequence, I applied for the double nationality and that’s how I officially became a Luxembourger. In the meantime, I moved with my family to the country side in Septfontaines. In order to complete my integration, I set myself up as a candidate for the municipal council in my commune in 2011 and got elected to everyone’s surprise (including mine). That proved to be a great opportunity to become even more Luxembourgish and to help my local commune. In 2009, I got the opportunity to start delivering services for the Luxembourg Government (Ministry of State) and in this role for Digital Luxembourg I became a kind of digital ambassador of Luxembourg, convincing entrepreneurs from all over the world to operate their digital businesses from a European base in Luxembourg. On a professional level, I am now doing what I started in high school. It’s been a year since I started writing Luxembourgish as well.I however have to admit that the spell checker in Word often proves to be very useful. My love story with Luxembourg has passed onto my son Alejandro, who’s a native and even more fierce Luxembourger as he, at the age of 9, refuses to even pick up his Belgian passport at the embassy. I am happy I made the move to Luxembourg when I was younger and am absolutely proud and profoundly happy to be accepted by the Luxembourgers as one of them. I can conclude by saying that I have found in life what I was looking for.
Peter Sodermanns
Se considérer expat reviendrait à se sentir en transition au Luxembourg, alors que le Luxembourg est aujourd’hui le lieu où l’on m’a donné ma chance en tant que jeune enseignante-chercheuse et où j’ai trouvé l’environnement de travail que j’ai toujours recherché : multilingue, multiculturel et hautement qualifié. Se considérer expat, cela pourrait être entrer et sortir du pays quotidiennement, mais j’ai choisi depuis mon premier jour de travail au Luxembourg d’y vivre. Après avoir vécu en Allemagne, vivre au Luxembourg m’offre la possibilité de continuer à travailler en allemand, tout en enseignant ma langue maternelle le français et en apprenant une nouvelle langue le luxembourgeois. L’expérience est donc complète et s’annonce riche en défis professionnels nationaux et internationaux pour les décennies à venir.
Eve Lejot
I came to Luxembourg in late June 2018. In the past I have lived in NY for a couple of years as well as two years in Singapore but each time with my family. This time I came alone. My wife would have joined me but she had to take care of her mother in Japan who needed help in her daily life. It is actually tough for me. First of all, there is the language problem. I do not speak French, so I often even encounter problems at the supermarket. For example, I did not know if the detergent I found was to be used for dishwashers or washing machines, so I took a picture of the product and showed it to my colleague next day just to make sure this was what I wanted to buy. Secondly, I live alone, so I have nobody to talk to. I did not make any friends here yet which can be very frustrating especially during a week-end. I go for walks but only in the city, otherwise, I stay home and watch old Japanese movies on the internet. My colleagues told me that there are many hiking trails in Luxembourg which I never dared to explore because I am afraid I might get lost. As I do not speak French or Luxembourgish I do not know how to ask for help. I also try to use the car as little as possible because the car documents are all in French. I do not like to sign anything unless I understand what it says and what I agree to in case of an accident. I basically spend my whole day in my office or my apartment which is why I have only visited a very limited area in Luxembourg and why I have no particular connection to the country, which, I guess, will remain that way until I go back to Japan.
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