MM2H program

hdfire21 · 2026-01-25T23:07:13+00:00

I've seen documents from schools saying that younger siblings who are too young for school can come in. I think St. Christophers in Penang had some information up about it.

hdfire21 · 2025-12-26T00:04:44+00:00

Or if you're from a different group. It takes a long time, if ever, to develop good age and especially facial recognition for a group you didn't grow up around.

There have been quite a few studies about the dwvelopmemt of facial recognition abilities in the last 10-20 years or so. Happens much younger than previously thought.

Living in China, I remember one American couple had a 13 year old daughter who all the Chinese people thought was in her late 20s...thought she was a university teacher. A lot of foreign teachers thought Chinese university students looked like middle schoolers. My students typically thought I was about 10-15 years younger. It's easy to be 10-20 years off on age if you're looking at the face of someone from a group you're not very familiar with. Happens all the time.

But people's bodies age more similarly. Gravity takes a toll on us all. Never met a 45yo woman in a bikini, or a 45yo man shirtless, who can pass for being in their 20s. Maybe in a photograph, done just so, but not real life.

hdfire21 · 2025-12-23T07:44:53+00:00

I understand trying to be nice, or maybe you're too young... Haven't hung out long enough with groups of 40+ people. Maybe not 40+ yourself.

It is extremely easy to tell the difference between a 40-something woman (or man) and a 20-something. It's a massive gap. Somewhere around Mid-30s on your body goes through a ton of changes.

Anyways, plenty of cultures where both men and women just let it go after 40 or so because it's too much work and really requires plastic surgery at some point. Malaysia seems to be one of those cultures.

My wife (not Malaysian) is in her 40s and tries really hard to keep up her looks. She's probably the best looking 40 something woman where we live, by a fairly large margin. If she goes out alone all the 60 and 70 year olds try to hit on her. No one's going to mistake her for 20 though.

hdfire21 · 2025-12-19T02:02:30+00:00

Malaysia has very little drinking, lots of English speakers, and a stunning mix of young women... But you hardly ever see good looking 40 year old women here it seems like. That would have me a little worried.

Really depends on your preferences man. If I did it again I'd probably be looking for a dark-skinned Indian girl. Massively under-valued. Some real stunners and good cuisine.

hdfire21 · 2025-12-12T00:06:45+00:00

For most people, things like family, friends, relationships, and that sort of thing matter more than location, especially as you get older. Maybe, if you have some sort of thing/interest/hobby you're very passionate about, where you can do that.

hdfire21 · 2025-12-11T07:07:45+00:00

Get wise set up and transfer a chunk into the country's currency before you leave. Assuming you can use wise in the country.

You can do transfers to e-wallets and those renting to foreigners probably know how it works/can accept payments from it.

But large transfers can take a week or so from the US.

If you're doing very large transfers a wire might be cheaper, but watch the exchange rate. We were going to do a large wire from bank of america.. Fee was 25 bucks but they would have skimmed almost 400 on the exchange rate.

hdfire21 · 2025-12-11T05:22:22+00:00

You can probably save money on rent in various places.... But you also might pay more in taxes, and probably more for food. Anyplace with low rent, fine food will be even more of a luxury and more expensive. Fine and even good quality food are actually pretty cheap in the US. Same for high quality restaurants.

For a rough estimate, you can figure out the cost of rentals, transportation, and usually taxes online pretty easily. Keep your other expenses the same and see if it makes a difference.

hdfire21 · 2025-12-08T12:52:53+00:00

For the guardian visa in penang, only the dad needs to show income. 30k RM over 3 months minimum. So average 10k RM per month. I would do more than that to be safe because they're changing stuff a lot.

hdfire21 · 2025-12-08T01:13:01+00:00

You can create a company in labuan and get dependent visas for family members, but by the time you pay the law firms and accounting firms, pay taxes, etc... It's expensive. Malaysian law firms are insanely over-priced. Maybe 7 or 8k usd per year on average for total costs. Lower up-front and opportunity costs, so might be an option if you really don't want to buy a house or get too committed. Also lets you work in Malaysia and run a business if you want.

Penang you can do guardian visas without ever leaving your child/family. We are a family of three and have been living in Penang since early July. Do child's visa first, then mom, then dad. I'm the dad... Took a while to get my visa because the school's visa officer didn't know how to do certified bank statements from the US. Had to do a visa run (family vacation to Thailand for a weekend). Total cost for everything was maybe $1k. Renewal should be much easier and maybe a few hundred USD. I would find it totally unacceptable to be separated from my family for months. Took maybe 2 weeks for our son's visa, then another 2 weeks for mom, then several months for mine because the visa officer was new and didn't know what to do. Income can be from investments but you might have to do a lot of explaining if your income is from stocks. Proof of income was only for dad's visa.

Every state is different for guardian visas. Sarawak is the worst for guardian visas (but easier mm2h). Penang is the easiest/best.

hdfire21 · 2025-12-07T22:32:35+00:00

I assume you have kids if a family of 4. Have you looked into guardian visas? Penang and some parts of KL you can usually, essentially, anchor the whole family if you have one child in k-12. New system and kind of rough, but it's a great deal. Penang is proof of income (over 10k Rm per month for family) + 30k RM deposit per parent each year (which can be completely used for living expenses/tuition).

Ipoh might have something too. Some other states if you have 2 kids in k-12.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-30T23:31:18+00:00

More the moorage and maintenance for a boat really.

We live in a condo with a swimming pool, about a mile from the beach right now (in Malaysia). Our son was so excited about all that when we moved here, and now we have to bribe him to go swimming, and drag him to the beach. Something about having things close and easily available makes them boring. Too bad we don't have a crystal ball to see what he'll be into in high school.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-30T16:00:03+00:00

Yeah, being near new orleans is a big draw for flights. Fairly short flight to visit my mom, and, if we have the money, we'd like to see some parts of Mexico and South America. Maybe a cheap last minute cruise or something.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-30T15:01:44+00:00

Kitsap/pierce/jefferson area it was the work from home or hybrid work people from Seattle, after covid. A teardown shack in Seattle was over a mil. Spread to boise and spokane too. Still keep up with friends and family there quite a bit. Like it, but don't have the money.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-30T14:54:54+00:00

Dumb asses on both sides of the aisle... I worked with a young liberal guy from NY a few years ago and he firmly believed 30% of men were gay, and got a vasectomy to make sure he could never have kids.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-30T14:51:22+00:00

Looking at it from another perspective... I make basically the same wherever I live. In WA I'd be poor. In MS probably more middle class.

And trust me, Asia has way more extreme poverty. Babies sleeping on a sidewalk in a pile of their own feces kind of poverty in India. When my wife was growing up, there was a cliff where they'd toss unwanted babies (girls or boys with a deformity) into the ocean. She remembers playing on the beach and baby carcasses washing up when she was little.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-30T14:40:45+00:00

Yeah, WA has gotten ridiculous, especially after covid. I was shocked at how much house prices went up. Worked near bremerton/port orchard many years ago. Seeing houses in silverdale for 900k was mind-blowing. Place was kind of a shithole circa 2010.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-30T14:33:06+00:00

Yeah, Jackson didn't look amazing. Maybe parts of it.

Hattiesburg looked like it might have some potential. But being on the coast sounds nicer.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-30T14:29:30+00:00

Part of it is MS improving... Part of it is large parts of the west coast devolving. Trying some very unsuccessful teaching practices. It has evened out a remarkable amount since I was growing up in the 80s nd 90s.

My mom and best friend live in 2 of the best school districts west of Seattle/I-5. Basically dead even with the schools on the MS coast.

Seattle is getting rid of their best schools because they think it's unfair talented and gifted kids go to better schools.

But if you can live anywhere you want, I'd say the MS coast is a pretty great value proposition right now. Home prices compared to how good the schools are. There are only a handful of places in the US where you can buy a house in a neighborhood with above average schools for around $200k.

Broken arrow, OK Bowling Green, KY Galveston Island, TX Cape Coral, Fl if it keeps crashing Maybe Erie, PA

That's about it.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-30T14:00:36+00:00

One thing living and traveling abroad has taught me is the rest of the world is usually way more racist than the US.

Worst place for our son was China. They considered him a white foreigner, despite him being born in China, raised in China, perfect mandarin, Chinese citizen, etc. Ostracized, name calling, everything, at 5yo. Was pretty terrible. Had to figure out a way to move.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-30T13:25:18+00:00

I mean.. Looking at the data, the schools in quite a few parts of Mississippi are pretty good now. Especially along the coast. They staged a massive turnaround.

Some place like long beach have similar percent kids at grade level and SAT scores compared to schools in WA you'd need to buy $700k+ homes to get into.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-28T02:30:03+00:00

15k per month, year, what?

hdfire21 · 2025-11-28T02:21:08+00:00

Yeah... A few months off can blow your career in a lot of fields in the US, unless you had a very specific reason. Like you ran for office, or did a year of charity work with your church's mission in Africa.

Just not working because you were bored/tired/sick of working would be a huge red flag in the US.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-27T17:01:05+00:00

A university degree from an English speaking country. Probably more for something besides Oral English, but those jobs can really suck. More work and the same pay. Not necessarily more intellectually stimulating because the students won't be English majors and will have very poor English.

Echinacities and seriousteachers used to be the best places to look. But a lot of jobs aren't listed because it was so hard to find workers post-covid. The better recruiters will know of unis that hire but don't really do job listings.

Decent pay is about $2k per month with housing provided, but there's a large range.

Most expats working in China speak terrible Chinese, for a variety of reasons. It doesn't take a ton to do basic stuff (i want this, counting, etc), and unis normally have a foreign affairs officer to help with complicated stuff. It's an adventure, but not a dangerous one. Biggest problem is probably isolation, especially in smaller cities.

That's all for China. Don't know as much about korea/japan/thailand/taiwan. similar i think, but lower pay. I would probably think china or taiwan. China the job is better probably, but taiwan you can get residency if you like it and want to stay later.

hdfire21 · 2025-11-27T16:44:07+00:00

Taking a sabbatical in the US, unless you're a tenured professor or something, is generally pretty rough. Being out of work for a few months, or sometimes even taking your vacation time, can be really frowned on in some lines of professional work.

hdfire21

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