Expat Stories – Ray Bond

Ray Bond is the Head of Distribution - Asia Pacific - at Cigna Global IPMI.

Voici son témoignage d’expatrié.

Tell us about your expat story.

I’m based in Hong Kong and I’ve been living here for 13 years. I moved here from Brighton in the UK. My wife was three months pregnant during our expat move so you can imagine things where pretty hectic at the time! We’ve been living here ever since so time really does fly by!

Quelle a été selon vous la meilleure façon de se faire des amis en tant qu’expatriée ?

Since my wife was pregnant when we moved here, she pretty quickly found other women in the community who were pregnant as well. Making friends through her connections was a real bonus for us settling down here.

Even today, I’ve still got friends who are husbands of the people that she met who were pregnant all those years ago. Since the kids were all born around the same time, they became friends and kept in touch, so that’s one of the biggest way that we’ve made friends here.

I’ve also personally made a lot of friends through work as well. Our business is quite a small community here in Hong Kong because of the specialist insurance industry that we are all in. Due to this, it is very easy to become friendly and get connected with the people that you work with.

Ray with daughter Vicky, aged 10.

Quels ont été les points marquants de votre vie d’expatriée jusqu’ici ?

Making friends with people from so many different backgrounds and culture has been a real highlight of mine. I think also learning about life in different countries has been really interesting.

Quels ont été les principaux défis à relever jusqu’ici ?

Obviously being away from home is a challenge, especially with the eight hour time difference. I think for the kids, getting to see their grandparents only once a year is a bit tricky. I’m from Devon and that is quite a nice part of the UK to visit in the summer so we’re quite lucky in that sense. We tend to go there for a 2 week holiday every summer.

Comment jugez-vous votre rôle chez Cigna ?

I really do consider myself quite lucky to get to do what I do for a living. You get to meet so many different people across all walks of life and you also get to visit a lot of different countries all across the world.

For me in particular, it is the Asia Pacific region that I do my work in. In our line of work, our business can make a really positive impact on people’s lives. I think it’s a really good business to be in.

I think another reason I enjoy my role so much is because my Cigna colleagues are such a great bunch of people to work with. I’ve got to meet so many great people over the years and that’s been fantastic. It really makes a big difference!

Quel conseil donneriez-vous aux personnes qui envisagent de s’expatrier ?

First of all, I’d tell people to do it. Secondly, I’d tell people to try and stay open-minded and try not to apply your own countries way of doing things in your new place. Sometimes change be a good thing so it’s best to stay open-minded along the way.

I would also tell people to prepare for the fact that your two year planned stay might end up being 13 years! You might end up staying longer than you thought you would, so that’s also worth bearing in mind.

Finalement, comment décririez-vous le parcours des expatriés en 10 mots maximum ?

An amazing eye-opening education about life and different cultures.

 

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