Moving abroad is fun, scary, enriching and fraught – a whopping challenge to the core values that make up an identity. In other words, it’s like becoming a parent. At some point, you’re going to end up looking wide-eyed into a mirror, asking yourself in utter bafflement, “My god, how do people manage this?”

No wonder the increasing internationalization of the world economy is being accompanied by a boom in how-to books like The Canadian Guide to Working and Living Overseas, by Jean-Marc Hachey; and Teaching English/Japan, by Jerry O’Sullivan. People on the move are looking for a travelling Dr. Spock to help them cope with unexpected hiccups – even their own Joy of Sex if they need a little advice getting started: International Jobs: Where They Are, How to Get Them, by Eric Kocher; or Jobs in Paradise: The Definitive Guide to Exotic Jobs Everywhere, by Jeffrey Maltzman.

Of course, few things are easier than tittering at how-to books. Too many of them state the obvious in prose that runs a brief gamut from banal to excruciating. They’re also predicated upon insecurity and some pretty naked hopes, so the titters they raise are tinged with embarrassment. Standing in a cashier’s line behind someone buying one of these books – worse, more than one – can be a little like listening to a drunk’s confession of failure.

Yet people buy the books, in spades, and taking a look at what we’re buying at any given point is a good way to map changing social requirements. What are we currently asking of ourselves? Or, to put it another way, What does society ask of us? Great sex, good vibes? Martha Stewart houses and low-fat cuisine? Maybe martinis? Surely not cigars?

A pile of recently released or reissued books on my desk shows that, at the moment, significant numbers of us are being required to move abroad. Canada is not just a destination for reluctant immigrants anymore, a place where people plan to work for a few years to buy some land back home in Greece. It’s also sending out a cadre of just-as-reluctant young emigrants who hope to get enough experience in Japan or South Korea to land a decent job back here. We seem to be descending a little from our lofty First World perch to join other countries in seeking better prospects elsewhere. Yet unlike many other countries, we’re sending out educated, book-buying workers to microserf the waves of employment overseas.

In their introductions, many of these books are blunt about the economic imperative. “Canadians are on the move,” say co-authors Garry R. Duncan and Elizabeth J. Peck in Canadians Resident Abroad. “Depressed economic conditions at home combined with an increasingly global outlook have contributed to an exodus of Canadians seeking employment, adventure, a sunny retirement, a lower cost of living and, yes, freedom from Canadian taxes.”

Then there’s the American approach of Eric Kocher, who waxes more evangelical in International Jobs. “With the recent disintegration of the Soviet Union and the tilt to democracy of Eastern Europe, this is an especially good time to consider an international career.”

The best general guide, though, is Hachey’s Working and Living Overseas. It’s a real doorstopper – maybe a bit too long. Included is a section about résumé-writing that repeats information available in thinner, specialized books, and a lengthy section of overseas job possibilities that looks suspiciously like it was cobbled together from company press releases. Yet the opening chapters of the book are satisfyingly Dr. Spockish, containing some fairly detailed information about the stages of adjustment to expect when relocating, along with some practical tips.

It’s also distinctively Canadian, not least by giving ample, fascinating space to the observations of people in other countries who have worked with Canadians. Our famous search for identity is continued here in a garnering of remarks about our supposedly reserved, egalitarian nature. Meanwhile, the author includes a chapter specifically designed for women working abroad and a section for gays and lesbians, both quite sensitive.

In fact, if you look at all these books in purely sociological terms, it’s fascinating to see the different national approaches to penetrating the growing global market. Unlike Hachey, U.S. writer Eric Kocher wastes few words on the need to accustom oneself to a new culture. It’s true he advises Americans planning to work abroad that Muslims consider the left hand unclean and Thais are insulted when a foot is pointed in their direction. But he has his reasons. “Lack of this awareness,” Kocher points out, “may not only affect your personal relations with foreigners but may also decrease the effectiveness of the work you are doing overseas.”

At the same time, Kocher is bluntly confident that young Americans can find overseas posts if they use a little ingenuity. His can-do attitude is almost laughably stereotypical, yet it’s interesting to note he often advises young Americans to look for work within governmental or quasi-governmental bodies, from the U.S. State Department to the United Nations. I thought Americans of both right and left (such as it is) were supposed to be anti-big-government these days, but Kocher counsels flexibility. “If your aim is to be a New York Times correspondent in Moscow, consider also working as an overseas press officer for the federal government’s United States Information Agency.”

It’s worth pointing out that step-by-step usefulness is not really the point of these books. I’ve moved abroad myself, and like a new parent, you find yourself asking an unending stream of questions. How do you cope with a different sense of time within another culture? When are your co-workers simply adhering to the national definition of the amount of work it’s appropriate to do in a day, and when are they jerking you around? How do you fix it when you realize – weeks later – you’ve inadvertently been rude to someone? What do you do when you finally understand that someone has been deliberately rude to you?

These are not easy questions to answer, especially since each time something happens, it happens a bit differently. Therefore, the best how-to books can do in these cases is counsel you to make friends locally, be open and observant, and keep talking. These books don’t offer information so much as reassurance. At the same time, the best of them inform you about a broad range of normal behaviours, your own and other people’s. You’ll probably feel giddy when you arrive in a new country and depressed a few months later. You’ll occasionally want to close the curtains on tropical paradise and eat Kraft dinner. And if people in the rural African village in which you’re stationed watch you constantly, they’re probably not suspicious or wary, but worried that you might become lonely.

O’Sullivan’s Teaching English/Japan is, like Hachey’s, a thoughtful book that deals with precisely these sorts of questions, though on a more specific subject. It opens with a primer on Japanese society, running through the common culture shocks that relocated Westerners often experience. The book’s closing section includes some pretty specific suggestions about teaching English in Japan. Trained teachers may feel a bit bemused at seeing their profession reduced to a series of tips. The same might be said of Japanese reading the section on their culture. But such are the limitations of guide books, and on the whole, this one is worth recommending.

Less interesting are books like Jobs in Paradise and Canadians Resident Abroad. The first is a book-length list of hotels and resorts where college students looking to spend a few months as a beachside waiter can apply for jobs. Author Jeffrey Maltzman admits most information provided comes direct from the companies listed. Caveat emptor. The second is a rather dry compilation of tax advice for people who should probably hire an accountant.

Yet, taken together, the books are a fascinating record of our times, our concerns, and the new mobility caused by globalization. As Hachey notes, you never feel more proudly Canadian than when you live abroad. Or more indignant than when you come back home and remember what we’re really like.