One afternoon, a woman I met walked me through the ten years she had spent studying, living and trying different businesses abroad. She looked younger than me, but she had been in the city for a decade. She was married and now worked as a music teacher.
After graduating with a music degree, she and her classmates struggled to find work. With visa issues to consider, she decided to apply for a business visa. Her boyfriend suggested opening a milk tea shop because it seemed easy to start. She signed a ten-year contract for the premises, but sold the shop to a Turkish businessman after two years. Running it had been exhausting, and she described difficult surprises involving taxes, intellectual property, staff management and other costs. When she calculated what she had earned over those two years, she had almost nothing left. Even playing music she liked through a Bluetooth speaker had led to a €6,000 fine.
She wished someone had told her what to expect before she started. Later, she and her husband tried other ways of building a life abroad, including real estate, helping people register companies and education services. They made mistakes in those ventures too. Hearing her experiences challenged some of my assumptions. Life abroad and starting a business were not as easy as I had imagined. I was glad to have a more realistic picture before making my own decisions.