When the spatula flew across the kitchen
: on moving to Portugal is much harder than I thought (4.5 months’ update), the tension between wow and woe, regaining clarity. Plus, a peek at my new collection of line drawing with watercolour art.
Fling! And the plastic spatula flew in fury across the tiny house in a tinier kitchen.
The dreaded thing happened two months after we moved to Portugal—all the little adjustments of our new life in this new country, have gotten to me. I lost my cool over some silly quirks1 with my husband.
“Some people think that culture shock means like you're shocked, that it’s something you're seeing in a new culture. But it's anything that causes anxiety or discomfort when you're in a new culture…
…When you're in a new country, everything is a little bit different. And when you compound that daily, it gives you a little bit of anxiety until you get used to it.” ~ Dan and Michelle from Honeymoon Always.
This couple moved from the US to Portugal in 2021. In the video below, they talked openly about the good side of their moving and some of the harder things. Everything is a little bit different when you’re in a new country…
Grab a coffee or tea, and watch this video.
Everything is a little bit different when you are in a new country…
The European Portuguese language
Almost everything we see in our daily lives here is not bilingual. It was cute initially to use a translation app when we grocery shop, scanning every single item to read the labels. Still, it gets to you eventually, staring at the items and not understanding the words. Which cut of the pork is lombinho again?
We are thankful that people are patient and accommodating of our linguistic lack. But the gritty discomfort caused by the lack of a familiar language to oil our daily life, is not something to be trifled with. At least that’s how we felt.
I mentioned this in my previous article, “Though it might have made our transition much easier to go for a fully English-speaking church community (instead of Portuguese to English translated sermons), we feel that we want to also integrate with the Portuguese community. Hence, accepting the discomfort of adjusting to a new language.”
16 church services later, I can say that sometimes it’s muito difícil (very difficult) taking in two languages simultaneously, week in and week out. Not being able to worship corporately (singing worship and praise songs together) in English is also affecting us. We felt that we needed to “take a break” to extend the mileage of our adjustment period. So, for the past few weeks, we’ve been attending an English-speaking church online. The familiarity and ease of the language helped us tremendously. We are grateful for our pastor in Portugal who understands our situation and prays for us.
If you want to move to a country with a language you don’t speak, the time needed to learn the language is a big consideration. (Unless you are ok with getting by without learning their language.)
That being said, I’m currently of this mindset, that I will not think I’m doing something wrong when I couldn’t speak Portuguese to a non-English speaking Portuguese. Because I’m just making it harder on myself. I am learning the language and it takes time.
Food
I am still longing for the amazing variety of different cuisines we get to easily eat out in Malaysia. There’s nothing much I can do about it, it is a fact that I can’t change. What I can do is change my mindset and find some recipes for food we like to eat (of course, with the available ingredients in Portugal). Still, the drool is real.
Home
From the temporary Tiny House in Porto, we’ve moved to another rented house in Aveiro. The house is furnished, so we couldn’t do much with it, but we made this house a homier home as best as we could. It has yet to feel like home, home, to me. And I miss the familiarity and comfort of our home in Malaysia. Of course, of course, of course, most of all, the daughter person living there…who’s reading this and I love you to the moon and back.
Loneliness
Getting to know new friends in such a short time is nothing short of Heaven-sent. But, sometimes, I felt pangs of loneliness. I guess it’s normal given that I’m a estrangeira (foreigner; female gender), in a foreign land.
So, there you have it, the area of differences in our daily life now. Communication, connection, comfort, convenience.
Maybe, não é tudo muito diferente em um cidade nova, entretanto é uma grande diferença quando consideramos tudo junto! (not everything is a little bit different in a new country. However, it's a huge difference when you consider it all together!).
Other less obvious things
Then, especially during the downtimes, there are unseen elements which surfaced: sometimes feeling guilty about moving here, the guilt trap from some people, and the come-and-go doubts. Should we be here? Why are we doing this again?
I’m not sure if people talk about these things, but it’s real. It’s not all “Instagram-worthy, dreamy, how I wish” which quite a lot of people assumed of the “you can work while you travel” kind of life.
Yes, we have all these wow experiences, which we won’t get if we choose sameness over different.2
But, believe it or not, even good things come with a cost, a tradeoff.
"Are the non-financial and financial costs and tradeoffs—worth it?”, we asked each other, my husband and I. Given that, we don’t have financial, education, work opportunities, or security reasons to make this big change! Instead, our reason for coming to Portugal is to experience: living, working, and at our own pace, explore and get to know the country and its people. Migration wasn’t our motivation. It was supposed to be a more flexible, more modular arrangement—see how it goes after we’ve lived here for some time, then take it from there.
But the past four months have seen us, unknowingly, prematurely, going on a permanent move tangent that didn’t jive with us.
The undetected shift to a permanent move mode was causing major unease. Not until numerous going nowhere conversations later, did we regain clarity on our why of doing this move.
“Hang on… this (swift shift to moving here permanently) wasn’t what we signed up for!”
It's like two people who are on a first date and the next thing you know, one of them is talking babies and mortgage. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down.
Both of us talked about it and acknowledged that we want to keep the flexible arrangement for now. The clarity gave instantaneous relief to our burdened hearts. Because though we have lived here for almost five months, building friendships3, and being part of the community—we are not ready—to change the home in our hearts.
And não há problema em levar o seu tempo4 (it’s ok to take your time).
My new collection of line drawing with watercolour art.
I took a break from my art business in August and September to answer this question: why do you make the art that you make?
I needed to take a big step back; to focus on rediscovering my art. It took a lot of courage to say, stop. But, I recognised that taking action to recalibrate is—progress.
I’ve since gone back to the studio in early October, and completed my new collection with nine artworks. I’m happy!
Here’s a peek.
I’m still finishing up some backend work for the collection. And I’ll share them with you once they are ready.
That's all for now, folks. Thanks for reading. I'll see you in the comments or in my email. Take care!
No. It’s not a habit of mine to throw plastic spatulas. If I do, I’d still have 1% wisdom to choose non-breakable things.
We’ve definitely, ultra-gratefully checked off our reason for why we are doing this move to Portugal. Moderate climate, check. More outdoors, check. More cycling and long walks, check. Draw and paint way more, check. Read: I’m moving from Malaysia 🇲🇾 to Portugal 🇵🇹! (Wait. What? Wow!)
Dear God,
Thank you for the new friendships formed over four+ months; for the friends from church who are praying for us, behind the scenes. And took the time to reach out to us to see how we are doing in this new land. A land which was also new to them years ago when they moved here.
My Portuguese friends who are reading this, please help to correct my translation if it’s not right.
When the spatula flew across the kitchen
Good to hear from you. Did you not write for a while or did I miss some of the newsletters. Anyway good to have you back. Sorry to hear things have been tough. Give yourself time. It will all settle down and you will start enjoying your new identity.
I've been wondering how you've been getting on. I'm sorry it's been hard but I'm glad to hear you are making progress in things like the local language. I was recently lucky enough to have some overseas travel and spend a month in Europe, I had a wonderful time but it did remind me how challenging it is being in a place where you don't know the local language.