Diverse lifestyles of Western retirees in Cambodia and Malaysia.
Abstract
This paper explores the lifestyle decisions of international retirees in Cambodia and Malaysia. drawing on fieldwork in 2015 to 2018. For every participant, Cambodia or Malaysia was now their permanent home. A striking finding was the diversity of their choices, and the contrasting activities now filling their lives. All spoke of resistance to stereotypical expectations of older people in their home culture. As they aged, their original country could no longer fulfil their needs. At one end of the spectrum there were itinerant people living as cheaply as possible, budgeting strictly each day, and moving from place to place. They are, effectively, permanent tourists, enjoying the novelty of travel, without the responsibilities of citizenship. A second group, also with modest funds, rented low-cost rooms and found a sociable community. A third group, settled and generally better off, earned from small businesses. The fourth group enjoyed a luxurious life of leisure in Penang, Malaysia. A smaller group was running charities in Cambodia, feeding, educating and/or employing people who were otherwise the poorest-of-the poor. As committed benefactors they hoped they had sufficient healthy years remaining to ensure the continuity of their projects. Even for the most financially precarious of these retirees, mobility had meant empowerment. This paper offers an exploratory typology of western retirees in these two countries, and commentary of their own subjective perceptions about how ageing and wellbeing had become transformative in their new situation.