Five short years ago this week, Pauline and I were struggling to figure out how to enjoy watching the Summer Olympics from our brand new home in Taiwan. We didn’t know that broadcasts of the Games would be geolocked. My experience of watching sports as an expat came from using Direct TV in Costa Rica, which had plenty of broadcast options in both Spanish and English. So we discovered the value of a low-cost, effective VPN that was easy to set up across multiple devices.
Once we had our VPN setup (which was quick and easy and instantly switchable to many different countries – thanks Tunnelbear! – we discovered that NBC’s coverage for expats was terrible. Actually, even if you’re streaming from the US, online coverage is only free if you’re already paying a US cable provider. Fortunately, our kind neighbors to the north – thanks Canada! – have great livestream options of all the events. So we’d like to give a shout out to the CBC! We’ve even let their streams run while we were doing other things just to give them as many commercial views as possible.
Watching from abroad with more than one home
Something that really adds to our Olympics watching experience is that we now have more than one home country. Of course, we always root for the US to medal, but now we’re over the moon when Costa Rica or Taiwan medal. We really do have such a deep fondness for both of those countries that have welcomed us foreigners to live within their borders and culture. This last Olympics was especially exciting for us here in Taiwan, as we were able to watch the men’s badminton beat the team from China in the final gold medal match! It was truly an open the windows and cheer in the streets moment.
With so many great athletes to cheer on, watching the Tokyo Summer Olympics was really a pleasure. It also happened to hit right at the end of Taiwan’s first serious lockdown due to COVID-19, so it was a much-needed way to connect with the rest of the world. We weren’t able to have any Olympics watching parties, but we were able to call up our friends in different time zones and watch together. And social media gave us the opportunity to put up real time celebrations in chat groups with other expats and local friends.