Swearing. I live in South East Asia, where swearing is taboo. Visiting my homeland of the UK, it takes a few days to get back my expletive laden fluency. The first few days are painful, as everyone thinks I’m being pretentiously posh. Upon returning to Asia, typically i offend a few people until my language is restrained. Sadly, Southeast Asians don’t appreciate how expressive, cathartic and fun swearing is, it’s a fucking shame.

About 12 years ago I moved from the US to Vietnam. Moving there was exciting. They do things a lot differently. Modern conveniences are sparse, the people are happy, infrastructure is poor, and most people have mopeds instead of cars.

Moving back it was hard to come to terms with how excessive most things in the US are. I think time is the only way to get used to it.

Do you need advice on coping with it? Sounds like an interesting experience. I haven’t lived in different countries but have lived in many different areas of the US. The southwest, south, Midwest, Pacific Northwest and New England vary a significant amount culturally in addition to the differences between rural and urban areas. I don’t have any real advice but I suppose have had similar experiences… I grew up in a very car centric SW city, basically nothing but houses and strip malls like a mini LA, and thought it was great… I loved driving around and exploring the grid of traffic. However decades later I realized I wouldn’t enjoy living there at all and much prefer towns like central Eugene, OR where you can walk to everything you need within a few blocks.

Mostly this is a survivor ship bias. I moved 23 years ago to the US and have had the reverse culture which every time I visit back.

My explanation is that my mind is still stuck in the country I left at the time and the changes haven’t been organic to witness. It’s like being a time traveler visiting the same space at different times. It’s unavoidable, I think.

If you get married or start dating in the new country, it’s worth being aware of how much more culture shock your partner is likely to experience when visiting your country of origin.

I kind of made this mistake after leaving my home country for many years, getting married, and moving home(-ish) with my spouse. I needed time to readjust to the surroundings, but it was mostly digging up old memories. (Also, it wasn’t exactly where I came from, so some things were different.) I mistakenly fooled myself into assuming that things that I remembered would be natural for my spouse, which was obviously stupid.

I was dumb. Don’t be dumb.

When I go back to visit family I wonder how the hell I ever stayed so long, why did I stay for so long? How did I endure the stupidity and selfishness and lack of decently educated peoole.

It’s like I’m visiting a different planet that my ATM card & Uber app work in.

The single best thing I ever did was move 3200 miles away and start over. My only regret is I didn’t do it the second I turned 18.

How common having like 5-7 people working at your house is. A maid, a cook, a gardener, a caretaker, a guard and a driver. And not like we’re a very rich family. This is quite standard for the middle class. Unimaginable elsewhere.

Also the cheap labour means all manual labor jobs are cheap and noone does any manual labor on their own.

The weekend being friday saturday vs saturday sunday

Test to see if federation works