Message from the Editor:

Naghmeh Bashar, Executive Editor

The World is an Increasingly Small Place

In the last three years since I temporarily relocated to China, I have seen a growth in the expats from around the world who arrive to China for work. Many western companies have headquarters here and are also expanding to other parts of the world, such as India, Ethiopia, Dubai, and many other countries that offer financial rewards.

More importantly, the number of American expats and their families are increasing rapidly in this region. Expats’ children are born in these foreign countries, or if born in the United States, they have now relocated to the foreign countries, attend international schools, and adapt to the foreign cultures. Under certain circumstances, their parents may be bound to these countries’ jurisdiction and laws. Many expats also marry citizens of these countries and establish families. Some choose to remain in the foreign country indefinitely while maintaining assets and debts in the United States as well as in several other countries, and some choose to move back to the United States, bringing with them their new family while maintaining assets in the foreign country.