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Comment by TheChaplain | Hacker News Reader

Well, I lived in asia for a few years and that is unfortunately not an uncommon attitude from americans.

Few are loudmouths on social media, but there are more in expat social gatherings, complaining about just about everything that is different in their new host country.

Canadians however, seem to really work to fit in. Almost all I met learned the language, participated in cultural events and made local friends.

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I try to stay away from the expat crowds mostly because they usually did not put in much effort to be where they are. They often get sent overseas by their company, everything is arranged and they are generally (not all of them) people who have little appetite for risk but like to paint themselves as the adventurers.

they also do not mingle with locals. Even in the South of France I knew many Brits who did all their shopping at the "British groceries" store to buy "Australian wine" and they generally do not welcome non-native speakers or much preferably also Brit (note native speaker to the colonialist always means the person does not speak another second language - e.g. Indians will never be "expats" in their eyes)

Have seen many Australians, Kiwis, Canadians who actively tried to avoid that specific expat crowd, but Brits/Americans (or also Japanese) are _very_ rare to mix with locals outside their work environment.

It doesn't mean they're bad people. I have many friends who would never bother to go abroad unless it's a 5-star wellness trip isolated away from all the reality (and locals) of the country. They're just not the most interesting or adventurous people and so it's OK if they stay in their own little bubbles without bothering the rest of us imo :)

Usually if I hear my mother tongue in a foreign country I usually change to the other side of the street.

Weird. Generally the expats I know are the opposite

Keep in mind that if you're a native, or even a more "outgoing" kind of expat, you probably won't see those insular expats at all.

I'm also an expat/immigrant. I met some people who have been living here for 10 years and haven't picked up the language yet. The only reason I know about them is because they heard me speaking another language in a quick phone call and wanted a friend.

Like parent said, nothing wrong with that (plus, I'm not American, so I can't speak about the problems mentioned by the GP post)

I lived and worked in SEA for about 10 years. I’m pretty sure I never went to an expat social gathering. I never understood expat communities. Primarily socializing with an insular expat social groups seemed to defeat the purpose of moving abroad to a certain extent.

I wonder if people would say the same about immigrant communities in their own country it’s basically the same thing you just get to see the other side of it.

Insular immigrant communities who take no interest in local customs, or even worse, attempt to coerce local conformance to their own customs are generally viewed as rather contemptible in every country. If you can’t adapt to the local way of doing things, then you’re simply a bad immigrant. The western identity politics view that this is somehow racist or xenophobic is anomalous and you won’t find it anywhere else in the world. I made a lot of great friends living in SEA, and met a lot of locals who were very welcoming of me. But those same people would typically (and rightfully, imo) hold a rather dim view of westerns who moved in, had no interest in learning the local language, little interest in learning local cultural customs, and little interest in participating in local communities.

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