It's a wild, wild life for expats
It's a disorder that's been spreading through the expat population for years, undetected, untreatable. It starts as soon as you step off the plane and doesn't stop until you leave. It infects family, destroys morals and defiles sense of duty.
It's expatisis. The term, coined by family physician and health blogger, Dr Richard Saint-Cyr in a series of blog posts on his website My Health Blog (www.myhealthblog.com), gives a name to the phenomenon of increased drinking, smoking and stress experienced by a surprisingly high number of expats living in Beijing.
Expatitis, Dr Saint-Cyr explains in his blog, is "a syndrome of multiple physical and mental illnesses brought on by maladaptive coping mechanisms to the stressors inherent to living abroad".
