Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

His uncle is almost an irrelevance. The system continued. It might have even been in the interest of others in that system that his uncle was removed to benefit them in some way. But, none of that really has much bearing upon the original point:

His rule depends upon others, and they will place constraints upon what he can and cannot do. It doesn't matter how enlightened, or how despicable, his wishes are. It will depend upon others to carry them out, or to refuse to do so. And they might have their own agendas and demands as well. That is what I meant by walking on a knife edge. He must balance competing internal interests, plus external ones, in order to maintain his position and the stability of the nation. One critical mistake, and he's gone. The same applies to all of the other people in power there as well. They benefit from their position, but one mistake and they are gone too. Not nice, but that's the way it is.

The Netherlands is interesting. It's nearly guaranteed that their English is better than your Dutch, so if you try anything more than "good morning" then they will generally rapidly switch to English. More politely than in France, but with a firmness that indicates no desire at all to waste time on communication problems when none are necessary.

I do wonder if this is a cultural difference as another fellow commenter mentioned - maybe I was corrected and did not take it as an insult (and don’t even recall it), because I am not originally English or American.

Anyway, my point was that you were propagating a negative stereotype, and not based on your own experience even. The world has enough negativity already... It’s not nice.

I'm French. When I mispronounce something people will correct me. That's how we learn and it is expected.

Now when I voicechat with American people and say something they don't understand I just get some "polite" silence.

So I think it is a case of people taking offense because of a culture difference. "They're white, using the same characters as us so they're the same", nope.

As a native French speaker, this strikes me as odd, since it is typically a foreign thing to consider French as the epitome of spoken languages, that makes most French people I know scratch their heads uncomfortably. I interact with foreigners everyday, most of the time in English. Most of them are PhD students that spend at least three years in France, and usually acquire some French along the way, to varying degrees of proficiency (from greetings to highly technical/rhetorical conversations)

I know some of them that handle it well enough for basic conversations, and I will usually go along with them until it becomes difficult for either party to understand the other.

Actually, I might be a bit too eager to switch back to English as I have a stereotypical view of their possible interactions with other French people, who might not "excel" at English. Usually, I will not correct them on a word unless it was the root cause for a misunderstanding, or they asked me to tell them when they do a mistake. I am also happy to discuss grammar and etymology topics, as I am usually curious about other languages as well. I do not want to keep them from learning French, nor force them to speak it, so I'll play along what I guessed their intentions were, based on our previous interactions.

On the other hand, we are taught French at school with very rigid rules, which are tweaked from time to time (by the "Académie Française"). This helps with uniformization, but could be argued either way. And finally, it might be a bit elitist of me, but a lot of French people struggle with proper writing (French is much harder to write than it is to read or speak), which I think looks very unprofessional and neglected. Quite a lot of people will frown on this (at least those that make fewer mistakes), though foreigners usually get a free pass (from myself at least, not quite sure about others).

I hope that clears things up a bit. I find it a very interesting topic, as are the issues of social integration and forming small cliques.

No one hates the Parisians like the people from Marseille or Lyon.

In the Philippines I found that depending where you were from, depended on whether you left home as early as possible for better opportunities.

Never heard of the dorms thing though.

My wife and I will buy a house one day, but it won't be near any of the "big" NZ cities. Too expensive.

I see the logic too, but surely your mental health must suffer!