So my wife is trying to persuade me to move to New Zealand

[GreenWyvern]

@Balthisar

I went to South Africa for work, so I dealt with work people. It’s very, very much South Africa’s problem that “work people” are majority white management, and black labour. It’s very much South Africa’s problem that when I borrow a bakkie and take a self-guided tour through Kruger and the gate attendants, market personnel, and other employees are mostly white.

I assume you were working for some large multinational company - and you take that as being representative of the country in general.

That’s like someone from China going to USA, working for a month at a big tech company in San Francisco, visiting the Grand Canyon, and then claiming they understand everything about American society.

Americans have a reputation in every country in the world of being ignorant and arrogant. While there are certainly plenty of Americans who don’t fit that description, in general it’s a well-earned reputation.

There was an interesting post in another thread by an American who emigrated to Europe and then returned to the US for a visit after living in Europe for many years.

@Cervaise

More fundamentally, I realized I had lost my sense of what I can only describe as “American ego.” This isn’t a negative judgment, not really; it’s something you’re surrounded with, all the time, like the water to a fish. It’s true for everybody, regardless of political persuasion; you know, at an almost chemical level, that the US is a wealthy and influential country, special on the world stage. Then, when you immerse and open yourself to an alternative culture, and you’re exposed to all the little differences in values and lifestyle, you start to realize that these are simply different ways to live, different rules, different philosophies. Some better, some worse, but all, primarily, different. And the American exceptionalism begins to peel away. I’m not an American! living in a new place, bending the world around me; I’m just a citizen of one country living among citizens of other countries, all more or less equivalent, separated only by language and day-to-day habits.

I’m not explaining this very well. It’s a really difficult feeling to put into words. But it’s very real

That’s what you’re missing with your pompous pronouncements about ‘making it a point to understand the locals’.

Have you ever wondered if ‘the locals’ are laughing at you behind your back?