alt Hacker NewsQuestion, have you been an immigrant? Do you know any immigrants?
When you immigrate into a country, all of a sudden all of your reflexes are wrong. Some are obviously wrong. Some are more subtle. It is overwhelming, and too much.
While in retrospect it is easy to say that they should prioritize some things over others, in practice they tend to learn from experience after people respond badly, and those who are a little more used to the culture explain why they are wrong. And the experience of being told that they are wrong all of the time will make many hold on to some of their old habits extremely strongly.
Don't criticize how slowly immigrants adapt to a new country, until you've been an immigrant in a foreign culture.
Replies
I was an immigrant to a new country. I made an effort to learn the new rules. The immigrant adapts, not the country.
As an immigrant myself, this criticism on driving is valid. What you said should apply to more social contextes like table, public manners.
As an immigrant (I immigrated to Hong Kong)，I disagree when It comes to road safety. I believe that it's the responsibility of every driver to learn the differences when driving and until then practice safe defensive driving.
I agree with you that it takes a while to adapt to new sociale mores and it's worth cutting immigrants some slack but that's different from driving a multi-ton heap of metal where safety is important.
Sidenote: Of the different cities I've lived in Asia, HK drivers are some of the worst. Combination of aggressive driving with refusal to signal their attention (by using their turn signal) makes for very poor driving. Not everyone but a significant percentage.