When you change places, culture shock happens. The stages are usually euphoria, disappointment, and adjustment. When you first arrive, everything is wonderful. Then, a few months later, you realize how many things aren't working well. But later, you adjust and get used to it, and start functioning normally again. However, the euphoria stage is largely gone—everything now is just "normal."
Tourists are usually in the euphoria stage because they haven't been in the place long enough to slide into the next stage. But some expats (and even immigrants) remain in that stage for a very long time—sometimes for years. You still see their happy grins, and they perennially brag about how they've never had even one single problem.
How come?
Two shields protect them:
They have enough money or work some high-paying online or multinational job.
(Linguistic) ignorance. They don't learn the local language beyond a few phrases and don't bother to study it (English is enough), so they cannot understand what the locals say or write.
To give you an example close to home: in Akron, Ohio, there was a Chinese restaurant I always went to. Its owner and workers were Chinese, plus one Guatemalan. Their English was learned on a need-to-know basis: "You want rice? Fried rice? Chow mein? Sorry, no English." They spent most of the day stir-frying in a wok or mixing noodles. Their faces had blissful smiles on them. They were doing a lot of business, selling a lot of food, making a lot of money.
Now, imagine I am an all-American racist who doesn't like all these "Oriennnuls" in my country. I walk in and say to the staff: "You goddamn sl*pes, g**ks, c***ks, z*pperheads, sl*t-eyes, go back to Chiner!" Then I turn to the Guatemalan cook and say, "You w*tback, you go*****ed b*aner, you sp*ck, you g****seball, go back to Mexico!"
What would be their reaction?
Nothing. They would just smile and ask, "You want flied lice or white lice?" And if you answered, "I don't want your g**k rice," they would smile and say, "Solly, no English."
They didn't understand your painful, mocking, racist words. They don't know what they mean!
My parents never learned even one insulting word in English except "f..." so talking to them about all the racism and other types of discrimination in America was useless. And for maybe a decade, my father sang hymns of praise about Americans: "Oh, what sensitive people!" "Oh, what wonderful people!"
The same thing happens in other countries when you are an expat there. They talk negatively about your kind all the time, but because you don't understand the language and only communicate with the (sort of) English speakers among them, you have no idea what is going on! And your euphoria lasts a long time.
Oh, I forgot one other shield: the belief in total superiority of your race, country, or nationality.
No matter how many times a Chinese person calls a Brit a "gweilo" and a "gwaidzu," ( foreign pig) it doesn't affect him. He has no respect for the Chinese and their opinions. To him, Britain is the only country that is right, and being British is divine.
Plus, he does not know what those words even mean.
