Quote:
Originally posted by Moridin:
My point is the same that was made in a previous post. If you are going to come to a new country, you should at least make an attempt to adopt their culture (language, laws...) you do not have to give up your culture, but you cannot come here and expect it to be the same as in your homeland, as unfortunate as that may be!
I intend no offense and I am not picking on the Hmong, I know this stuff b/c I have a few Hmong friends and even they find it ridiculous sometimes!
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I'm sure this is all perfectly true, but it is rather an extreme example...
To respond to an earlier point re language, it does take time to learn a language. Some people are really good at it, and motivated to boot - others are rather fearful... Must be a big jump - when you think about it. Fleeing from your homeland, you roll up in the West, which you'd expected to be paradise (The West gets pretty good publicity in some parts of the world ) and then it turns out to be hell on earth, if of a somewhat different kind than the one you came from. You were traumatised already, now you're even more terrified - at least before you had hope - now you're in some sort of detention centre awaiting deportation to a council estate in glasgow (worst case scenario) or back to where you came from. When things finally get sorted out, and you've got to the council estate or wherever, then you have to try and work out the culture and language of the country you've come to. Small wonder if some are too damaged, dazed, confused, hurt, deeply traumatised or whatever to really make the attempt. Learning English is probably the least of their problems.
Think how many of us here in the West suffer from depression with far less cause. So if someone doesn't seem quite with it, and 'jump to it', well, is it any wonder? (This may not apply in some of the cases mentioned above - I'm talking more about the situation I know most about, i.e. in the UK.)