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Advice about moving to Pakistan
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endymion248
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It's not about newspaper or perception, the statistics speak for themselves. The murder rates are extremely low in the UK, people have long life expectancies, traffic-related fatalities are low, water is checked 10x before you drink it, same for food,... It's not even a comparison, Pakistan is definitely more unsafe than the West. There are also more infectious diseases in Pakistan (malaria, hepatitis etc...) which don't even exist in the UK. Every year, you hear of a local kid who died due to an unsecured electric cable, people dying in failed bridges, cars not made to standard,...
If you want to move to Pakistan for your reasons, that's fine, but no need to perpetuate this myth that safety is the same.
It is clear to anyone that there is a consorted effort to bring Pakistan down. The most powerful and effective way to do so is via mass media, the opitae of the masses. Sitting outside of Pakistan, one watches the news and thinks the whole country is about to blow up and there is murder, chaos, and debautchery everywhere. However, if you actualy go and live there, you realize that you were brainwashed and Pakistan is actually progressing in all areas and you can actually make a good life for yourself if you are willing to be an entrapreneur. The murder rate is actually lower than USA. Crime/theft and dometic abuse rate is on par and in some cases is lower than Europe and USA. Depression and suicide rates are actually lower than USA and Europe. Many people are living full lives and enjoying their time much more than we in the west can ever imagine. We are living in the west like robots, machines, just produce, work pay the bills and die. No flavor, no purpose, no sense of belonging, or pride in your city or neighborhood. Clealry west is not as good and Pak is not as bad as some of us make it out to be. If i can have wnoguh money, i would live in Pakistan and live a more clolorful and ull life rathar then this numb and mechanical life in west. The point about diseases, rates for cancer, cardiac conditions, and Autisim in kids are higher in the west. No doubt other diseases are more prevelant in Pak, however, that has a lot to do with genetics as well. In pakistan, you are first class citizen the moment you land in airport even if ur visiting for 2 weeks, in the west ur a second or 3rd class citizen the moment u land back, regardless if you lived there 2 decades. Pakistan is no Jannat, but it isa also not the hell u guys think it is. If your finances are relatively good, u can maintain a lifestyle in Pak that you could never imagine in west.
I admire this post of yours!
Idk why but even people who belong to Pakistan have started to believe that it is a hell hole. Even my cousins who spent their teens here consider it some barren wasteland with murderers roaming around. This has to do a lot with our media and how they inflate every small matter and blow it out of proportion. I grew up in Pakistan and I have never found anything wrong with it. We have never come close to a robbery even and once we had to call the police because we thought someone had broken in and there were at our house in 10 mins or so. Things arent nearly as bad as some of you might think. If you earn a decent living, 150000-200000 a month then you can live a comfortable life in Pakistan. If you are willing to pay 10000 for check up then you can get checked by best doctors in the country who are as good as the doctors you find in foreign countries since most do their post graduate studies from outside. Medicine is cheap af as well whereas getting a flu in USA could turn into a headache due to the costs of medical treatment. I usually go out with friends at 1 or 2 am and I feel perfectly safe, this security thing is really blown out of proportions. Yes there are problems but any country with 200+ million people has such problems and there can certainly be lived with.
I have been robbed in nyc, i have yet to be robbed in Pakistan. Let me not even get started about the difference in the food, fruits and vegetables. I travel everywhere in Pak and as safe as i do in west. My mom went to karachi via train by herself 6 mo ths back and had not a simple complaint for feeling of insecurity, and mom is the paranoid type. Karachi is an exception, however, lately it has become much safer. My fam is from punjab, and most cities in punjab are not any less safe than big cities in west.
The uncontrolled media is to be 100%. Everything that happens in Pakistan suddenly becomes a headline, pathetic journalism. I once saw a headline on a Geo about a boxer dropping rs 50000 in the airport, What The Actual HELL.
Syed1
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Visiting Pakistan these days for a month.
Truly no substitute to Pakistan if you belong to an upper-middle class family (and above). Traffic in Karachi could be better though.
Truly no substitute to Pakistan if you belong to an upper-middle class family (and above). Traffic in Karachi could be better though.
HussainRx8
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You guys have raised some good points. But why it that even in the upper-class, some people are looking to move abroad? What explains that discrepancy?
Nobody is arguing Pakistan is better than foreign countries. The point here is Pakistan is very much safe and liveable from the middle class up and has almost all the resources you'd find in a foreign country but of course standards are a little lower but absolutely nothing to cry about. The media has portrayed the image in such a way that people are now thinking Pakistan is some barren wasteland with disease that could kill you and murderers and robbers roaming the streets. This is what most people on this post think judging by their response. But if you have ample amounts of money then obviously the west has a lot more to offer, no arguing.
The reason why people who are quite comfortable in Pakistan still dream of moving out is because the grass is always greener on the other side. Some reasons include, movies/hollywood which potray a falsified lifestyle of living in the west. Pakistanis watch these movies and think they will be showered with hugs and kisses by blue eyed blondes the moment they land at the airport; and of course everyone is rich in the west and always partying and licing it up. Money also grows on trees and everyone drives a nice car and is happy. Pakistanis visiting from abroad also come to Pak and put up this act in front of everyone about the heat, the pollution, etc as if they are living perfect lives back in the west. So the Pakistani locals when they hear the visitors moan and complain and lie about how perfect everything is outside, along with western propaganda and brainwashing, want to leave and live the perfect life that supposedly everyone is living abroad has. Reality is that most living in west are not living the ideal life they pretend to potray when the visit pak. The neglect to mention that their lives revolve around the jobs and free time revolves around grocery shopping and running other errands. They dont mention how dry/montonous/ meangingless their day to day lives are, how fake their neighbors and co workers are, or that the big house that they brag about having purchased and the furnishings inside are not really owned by them, but are mortaged and now they are enslaved to try to pay for the next 30 yrs. They dont mention that much of the US and Europe is segerated and everyone pretty much sticks to their own race for the most part. That a 3rd generation kid is still asked where he is from. That u leave ur house at 7 and come back at 7 to pay off the mortage and leases on the car. They dont mention that most get 3 weeks off a year. They dont mention the leash they have everyone on, the golden handcuffs if you will. If tou are making comfortable income in Pak, there is no other country that can offer the freedom of time and place, and life style that your mother land can.
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HussainRx8
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Fair enough. Haven't been to Pakistan in a while, so can't comment objectively. But I have always felt there exists a dichotomy: Pakistan is extremely rewarding for the upper class. Conversely, it is extremely punishing for the working and middle class.
What would be interesting to me is hearing from people who have already made the move or know of someone has done so, or are planning on doing so themselves. With less governmental regulations, there is a lot of potential for growth there. Just have to get into the right niche before it becomes saturated and over regulated like almost everything has already in the west. The floor is open for people's input.
Its not actually. We have been a middle class for our entire live, not upper middle but middle middle class and in earlier days a little on the lower middle class side and I can tell you that its been perfectly fine. Even while working as normal employees my parents were able to give us the best education and facilities and I never felt like my childhood lacked anything.
The problem with out country is that our people are hadharam!. Nobody wants to work but everyone wants to enjoy the benefits of a job. Working in mcdonalds would be considered as shameful for a person in pakistan and the same person would sweep floors in a foreign country. This is the difference. People have considered Pakistan as their property and expect everything out of it for 0 hard work. There is a guy who washes cars in the parking lot of my college and he easily earns 30-35k Rs in a month and at the same time people as capable as him are begging and finding hard to survive.
DW44
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Some world class ignorance about the realities of life in Pakistan on display here by people who have either never lived in Pakistan for any reasonable length of time and have an idealized notion of what the country is like that is far from reality, or others who have only lived here but are so desensitized to what happens here on a daily basis that they think it's completely normal and Pakistan's poor image is because of propaganda by western media and not because of the actions of Pakistanis. If you think middle class existence in Pakistan is comparable to the west, wait till some family member of yours is struck by a debilitating illness and there's literally one hospital in the entire country equipped to treat it, and, to add insult to injury, that hospital charges north of 10 million PKR to treat you. This isn't a hypothetical example and this has happened to two close relatives of mine, one of whom passed away because they couldn't afford it and the other survived because her employer covered about 20% of the costs while they lost all their savings. If a female relative of yours get raped here, they'll get thrown in jail for adultery if they report it unless the rape was committed in the presence of four pious male muslims who are willing to testify. That, again, is hardly a hypothetical scenario given how common rape is here - a fraction of a fraction of victims report it and the number of cases still run into the thousands every year. If you own a piece of choice real estate, the land mafia can literally walk in and claim the property as theirs and there's nothing you can do about it. It's become especially common in Pindi/ISB because the land mafia here is both politically connected(mostly PML-N) and carry big guns(the muscle comes from various proscribed organizations). If you think it's bad that a third generation minority is asked where they're from, imagine a country where the wrong answer to 'what are your religious beliefs'(not an uncommon question at all) can have potentially fatal consequences. If you have children, imagine having to face the possibility of them being gunned down in their own school or university, something that has happened more than once in recent years and before someone says that the army has cleaned things up, the most recent attack came long after the army started claiming that they've broken the terrorists' back.
Pakistan may offer certain privileges to certain classes but a comparison between a middle class existence in Pakistan and the west is a non starter.
Pakistan may offer certain privileges to certain classes but a comparison between a middle class existence in Pakistan and the west is a non starter.
Everyone is dying to flee the country. Hong Kong has become a hub for Pakistani 'refugees'. If given the chance to leave the country, nobody would stay behind! There are just no prospects in Pakistan for you and your children.
DW44
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Pakistan basically gave up any hope it had of becoming even a moderately developed nation when Mush signed the FTA with China. We gave up literally the only tool that any nation can use to transition from a poor nation to a rich one and things will get even worse because of CPEC once the initial economic benefits from all the construction activity die down. The economic future of Pakistan, considering our economic policy and the quality of our human capital, is bleak to put it mildly.
Your response is ragging with erroneous insinuations some of which I would like to address. Firstly, no one is saying that Pak is perfect. Everyone is saying that Pak is no Jaanat but it is no Hell either, and the west is not the perfect Utopia you want us to believe it is. No one is comparing middle class existence in Pak to middle class existence in the west. Middle class in Pak is someone who makes 30-50k rupees a month. No one here said that such an amount is what would buy them a comfortable lifestyle. The numbers thrown around in this post are closer to 2 to 2.5 lakh a month with a house and a car that is already paid off That is hardly "Middle Class." So that is assumption is wrong. The assumption that people die in Pakistan because of poor medical care vs in the west where they are taken care of and cured. I have 2 family members who died in theie 40s both in the U.S. My uncle received care in George Town University hospital and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with him and he died after 10 years of misery/ repeated hospitalizations/ and being thrown under the massive monster that is the American health care system. My aunt also received care in the best hospitals in with repeated visits and meetings, but guess what she also suffered and died. Speaking of suffering and dying, ever have a chance to visit any Nursing Home? Full of miserable elderly who are abandoned by their children and die depressed and lonely. I am not talking about a nursing home here and there, I am talking about the institutionalized misery of the elderly who die in their soft beds and air conditioned rooms, but they die depressed and abandoned. So guess what? People get sick, suffer, and die in the west too. Not to mention the higher rates of depression and suicide. Again, I am not saying that Pakistan is Jannat, but it is not hell either, especially if you are upper middle class as someone else said before.
proud_pakistani
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When its talking about moving to Pakistan you have to consider many factors and for everyone it will be a different case scenario. Considerations you need to take
1 - Real value of money being earned - Whether you can earn enough in Pakistan that you can maintain the same standard of living at least in your house which is something that you can control. If you are earning less in Pakistan but you can still maintain that standard which you had in US it is OK I guess
2 - How you are planning to earn your living - If you are trying for a job, you may as well try and once you get a job consider the perks before making a move. If you are venturing into a business, Pakistan is an emerging economy and with development happening with the CPEC there is scope for businesses to flourish. However that is a different discussion and for that you will need to analyse seperately.
2 - How much does the law and order situation bother you - While law and order situation is getting better I highly doubt it will be better than the US. Besides that ofcourse there are the issues with terrorism. Some say it only happens in certain places and it does not bother the daily lives but fact is that it can happen to any one. Taking that into consideration not even Europe is safe these days.
3 - Infrastructure - There will be times when you will have a shortage in supply of water, load shedding, we even had a shortage of CNG for cars not so long back. These are some of the uncertainties that are there. Pakistanis are resilient so they manage to find a way. Will you
4 - Red tape - In Pakistan any work you need to get done from authorities - passport renewals, Id card, visas etc does not get done if you use the straight route. You need to make and use those contacts. I know some people who just could not fathom doing that when they moved from places like London/Dubai back home.
5 - Your further major expenses - Do your kids need to go to university. How old are they? etc. If they are still small it may not be too bad to move at this point in time however if your kids are close to going to university you should stick around and ensure they get a premium education at low cost in the USA.
6 - Entertainment - In terms of entertainment some cities of Pakistan are fun to stay in like Karachi and Lahore. There is always a lot to keep you socially active with plenty of weddings, dinners, eid get togethers. They at times get annoying as well. Other things are the norms like restaurants, malls, cafes. However generally I would say there is a lot less things to do in Pakistan as compared to the US.
Hygiene - This for me is a big issue. I always have tummy trouble in Karachi and well generally hygiene levels are pathetic. However, I have been to Islamabad and Lahore a few times and there is far better control on cleanliness there.
I know people who have moved back and settled in while others have been unable to and gotten out as well. So it really depends
1 - Real value of money being earned - Whether you can earn enough in Pakistan that you can maintain the same standard of living at least in your house which is something that you can control. If you are earning less in Pakistan but you can still maintain that standard which you had in US it is OK I guess
2 - How you are planning to earn your living - If you are trying for a job, you may as well try and once you get a job consider the perks before making a move. If you are venturing into a business, Pakistan is an emerging economy and with development happening with the CPEC there is scope for businesses to flourish. However that is a different discussion and for that you will need to analyse seperately.
2 - How much does the law and order situation bother you - While law and order situation is getting better I highly doubt it will be better than the US. Besides that ofcourse there are the issues with terrorism. Some say it only happens in certain places and it does not bother the daily lives but fact is that it can happen to any one. Taking that into consideration not even Europe is safe these days.
3 - Infrastructure - There will be times when you will have a shortage in supply of water, load shedding, we even had a shortage of CNG for cars not so long back. These are some of the uncertainties that are there. Pakistanis are resilient so they manage to find a way. Will you
4 - Red tape - In Pakistan any work you need to get done from authorities - passport renewals, Id card, visas etc does not get done if you use the straight route. You need to make and use those contacts. I know some people who just could not fathom doing that when they moved from places like London/Dubai back home.
5 - Your further major expenses - Do your kids need to go to university. How old are they? etc. If they are still small it may not be too bad to move at this point in time however if your kids are close to going to university you should stick around and ensure they get a premium education at low cost in the USA.
6 - Entertainment - In terms of entertainment some cities of Pakistan are fun to stay in like Karachi and Lahore. There is always a lot to keep you socially active with plenty of weddings, dinners, eid get togethers. They at times get annoying as well. Other things are the norms like restaurants, malls, cafes. However generally I would say there is a lot less things to do in Pakistan as compared to the US.
Hygiene - This for me is a big issue. I always have tummy trouble in Karachi and well generally hygiene levels are pathetic. However, I have been to Islamabad and Lahore a few times and there is far better control on cleanliness there.
I know people who have moved back and settled in while others have been unable to and gotten out as well. So it really depends
DW44
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I never claimed that people are making Pakistan out to be heavenly/utopian but I absolutely do dispute the claim that it's no hell either. By what standards? If you think someone making 30 to 50 grand a month is middle class, you really have no idea what middle class in Pakistan is, do you? If someone has a family(including, say, 2 kids, which is an extremely conservative guesstimate for Pakistani) and they're making 50k a month in a major city, they will have to compromise on one or more of the following: lodging, food, utilities, healthcare, education for the children and savings for tough times.
It is absolutely ridiculous to compare people dying due to lack of healthcare in Pakistan with the same thing in the US. The shortcomings of the US healthcare system aside, people dying because of unavailability and/or lack of affordable healthcare are usually exceptions, not the norm unlike in Pakistan. Your uncle died because he was afflicted by an unknown/rare disease they couldn't diagnose. My cousin died because the only cancer hospital in the country refused to treat him since his father couldn't pay the tens of millions of rupees they were demanding on a government schoolteacher's salary. At least your relatives died despite receiving world class healthcare so I'm assuming there wasn't much that could be done to save them. Over here, people die because of inadequate treatment if they're lucky or no treatment at all. Suicide and depression rates can't be compared since no credible figures exist for Pakistan to compare the western figures with and in such a scenario, to claim that one side has it far worse than the other when figures are only available for one of them is like claiming that Sweden is less safe for women because a higher number of rapes per capita are reported there, disregarding the fact that while Sweden goes out of their way to make it easy for women to report even the most minor case of sexual harassment, the social costs of doing so in Pakistan are so high that people are actually better off not reporting if they get raped.
The bit with the old folk is a run of the mill social issue of which we have plenty of our own. For every old person stuck in a home in the West, there's a youngster in Pakistan getting similarly shafted by our own cultural shortcomings. There's a saying that was been doing the rounds here recently "Pakistan is all about parents' rights - Children's rights go to die somewhere between arranged marriage and log kya kahenge(what will people say)" so we're not exactly short of social issues of our own.
People do indeed get sick, suffer and die too but they do so in a system that, for the most part, takes care of them and makes life significantly easier for them than life in, say Pakistan.
It is absolutely ridiculous to compare people dying due to lack of healthcare in Pakistan with the same thing in the US. The shortcomings of the US healthcare system aside, people dying because of unavailability and/or lack of affordable healthcare are usually exceptions, not the norm unlike in Pakistan. Your uncle died because he was afflicted by an unknown/rare disease they couldn't diagnose. My cousin died because the only cancer hospital in the country refused to treat him since his father couldn't pay the tens of millions of rupees they were demanding on a government schoolteacher's salary. At least your relatives died despite receiving world class healthcare so I'm assuming there wasn't much that could be done to save them. Over here, people die because of inadequate treatment if they're lucky or no treatment at all. Suicide and depression rates can't be compared since no credible figures exist for Pakistan to compare the western figures with and in such a scenario, to claim that one side has it far worse than the other when figures are only available for one of them is like claiming that Sweden is less safe for women because a higher number of rapes per capita are reported there, disregarding the fact that while Sweden goes out of their way to make it easy for women to report even the most minor case of sexual harassment, the social costs of doing so in Pakistan are so high that people are actually better off not reporting if they get raped.
The bit with the old folk is a run of the mill social issue of which we have plenty of our own. For every old person stuck in a home in the West, there's a youngster in Pakistan getting similarly shafted by our own cultural shortcomings. There's a saying that was been doing the rounds here recently "Pakistan is all about parents' rights - Children's rights go to die somewhere between arranged marriage and log kya kahenge(what will people say)" so we're not exactly short of social issues of our own.
People do indeed get sick, suffer and die too but they do so in a system that, for the most part, takes care of them and makes life significantly easier for them than life in, say Pakistan.
"Suicide and depression rates can't be compared since no credible figures exist for Pakistan to compare the western figures with and in such a scenario..." So the same can be said about the proposed crime/ murder rates which are supposedly higher in Pakistan than U.S.A. Those figures will all have to be equally unreliable by the virtue of your own argument. Also, I have to point out the obvious to you again. You are giving me stories and instances of the poor people of Pakistan who were not able to afford top notch medical care and therefore suffered ( this is not unique to Pakistan, but the norm across most of the world. Yes unfortunately, if you are poor, you will not have a good time.) The thread was talking about the possibility of living in Pakistan as someone who might be considered a upper middle class and above individual. I don't know how the theme poor school teacher or a mechanic or a shoe repair man ties into this. The poor of every country suffer and it's not unique to the "hell" of Pakistan as you call it. Did you miss the whole discussion on starting your own business in Pakistan, and how if one has a car and house paid for already, can live on 2-2.5 lakh a month ? Did you see anyone suggest that they leave USA to become a government school teacher in Pakistan?
You are fighting a lost battle. Posters on PP love to randomly jump in threads and post their views just by reading the recent 2-3 posts.
My brother's friend is moving back. He opened up some fancy marriage hall and is making a killing,; so much so that he is moving back. Haters and nay sayers can keep saying that there is nothing in Pakistan, but while they are saying that, people like my brother's friend are making most of the opportunities available and proving them wrong. Pakistan has untapped markets, and unsaturated markets and if done right, will reward you more than the developed nations.
I am also planning to go back to Pak. some folks mentioned that one needs around 2-2.5 lac a month for comfortable living. How much money one needs to have for business to earn 2-3 lac a month? Any ideas what kind of business one can start especially coming from usa after 15 years and how much capital one needs? Also if someone wants to buy running business, how much usually it will cost assuming business generates 3 lac month? I am trying to generate some baseline.
Pakistanian
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What's the reason for people wanting to move to Pakistan? No matter how much of a luxurious life you can live, the high crime and security threats affect everybody of all social classes, the lack of functioning services like an emergency ambulance that can get to your home in just a few minutes or roads good enough to drive your car isn't something you can buy.
Pakistanian
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It's all fun until somebody gets robbed or you get death threats from extortionists - that's why people don't invest in Pakistan.
Indiafan
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No, no they cannot, as the west has a robust system of reporting murders too, while in South East Asia it depends on the inspector's mood, whether he wants bribe and how rich the victim's family is.So if the reported crime is higher, then true crime would be a thousand times higher
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