In July 2023, after multiple Covid lockdowns, Julia Mann was finally able to fly from her home in Shanghai back to the UK , where she grew up. It had been seven years since her last visit, and she was taken aback at the sense of safety she felt at landing on British soil. “The feeling was overwhelming,” she remembers.
“The UK feels so safe after the Shanghai lockdowns, where vulnerable people were forcibly removed from their own homes because they were sick.” After more than a decade in China, during which she got married and had a son, Mann is now making plans to return to the UK , although it will take her a few years. “Nearly all of my expat friends left after Covid,” she says.
“Many faced, for the first time, the strong arm of a dictatorship that in many respects had not exercised its authoritarian nature in Shanghai.” She estimates that her salary might halve in the UK, and she may well lose the luxuries her life abroad affords, such as live-in domestic help and affordable eating out, but believes the benefits will far outweigh the cost. Whether post-pandemic or spurred by political unrest, climate change or the cost of living, it seems that turmoil across the globe is acting as a catalyst for a wave of regretful expats, who are rethinking their lives in faraway countries and considering how to get home , if they haven’t returned already.
(I began researching this piece before the terrible racist riots began in the UK, which changed beyond measure the f.