I am Chilean. I have thought of an Atlas Shrugged scenario in Chile, and Chile does have a lot of lithium, but...OK, I have no idea if the government is going to socialize what is currently Soquimich's ill-gotten concession, or if Obama is going to mess things up real bad, but I do know that getting a citizenship is a major pain in the ass. Major, major pain in the ass. An American I know lived here for twenty years, married a Chilean, and still had to do about three year's worth of bureaucratic bullshit to get a citizenship. That said, it's not that hard to immigrate or get a residency.
Now, if you want to chill out here for a while, sure, it's a great idea, but you have to keep a few things in mind. First, you're probably going to make more American friends than Chilean friends. Chileans often confuse Americans by telling them they'll do something sometime but never call and are very dodgy. It's not easy making friends. This is coming from the experiences of exchange students, teachers, and family friends that came to Chile for a while and found things to be somewhat different than they expected.
Then there's the flayte factor. [1] What I'm getting at is that there are quite a few people that aren't totally friendly to Americans or English speakers in general. They think they can take advantage of you. This should come as no surprise because I have yet to travel to a country where the default attitude towards Americans is friendly. Anyway. Taxis try to rip you off for sums that are not insignificant. People may try to steal from you. However, if you're 6' or above you're unlikely to get shit because people here are small compared to the first world. So yeah, a lot of reverse racism, and people sometimes have no class. OK, and customer service sucks. But it's not all bad.
Things are cheaper here, there are nice restaurants, cool neighborhoods, human rights, beaches, skiing, and so forth. So there are reasons to come, but for Americans, I recommend staying in the better parts of Santiago, turning off the trust instinct, going to malls, making friends in the international community, and going to a lot of restaurants and ski trips.
I know less about this, but the work environment is more chilled out than in US, but also somewhat more "Dilbert".
[1] So..."flayte" comes from someone who gets high. It's a corruption of the English "flight", as in Spanish someone who is high on weed can sometimes be referred to as "estar volado", literally "being flown".
Now, if you want to chill out here for a while, sure, it's a great idea, but you have to keep a few things in mind. First, you're probably going to make more American friends than Chilean friends. Chileans often confuse Americans by telling them they'll do something sometime but never call and are very dodgy. It's not easy making friends. This is coming from the experiences of exchange students, teachers, and family friends that came to Chile for a while and found things to be somewhat different than they expected.
Then there's the flayte factor. [1] What I'm getting at is that there are quite a few people that aren't totally friendly to Americans or English speakers in general. They think they can take advantage of you. This should come as no surprise because I have yet to travel to a country where the default attitude towards Americans is friendly. Anyway. Taxis try to rip you off for sums that are not insignificant. People may try to steal from you. However, if you're 6' or above you're unlikely to get shit because people here are small compared to the first world. So yeah, a lot of reverse racism, and people sometimes have no class. OK, and customer service sucks. But it's not all bad.
Things are cheaper here, there are nice restaurants, cool neighborhoods, human rights, beaches, skiing, and so forth. So there are reasons to come, but for Americans, I recommend staying in the better parts of Santiago, turning off the trust instinct, going to malls, making friends in the international community, and going to a lot of restaurants and ski trips.
I know less about this, but the work environment is more chilled out than in US, but also somewhat more "Dilbert".
[1] So..."flayte" comes from someone who gets high. It's a corruption of the English "flight", as in Spanish someone who is high on weed can sometimes be referred to as "estar volado", literally "being flown".