Since we often come to foreign lands by our own choice, we should strive to make our temporary stay productive and beneficial. Each country has its own customs, values, and culture, different from ours. Therefore, we should always behave according to the norm of the foreign environments and be more sensitive to the customs of the place we visit. This will spare us the agony of being caught in difficult situations.
Our stay in another country can turn into an interesting and unforgettable experience if we make an effort to learn a few skills. We need to teach ourselves how to accept another culture so as to cope with unknown conditions. This requires us to make new friends, learn others’ points of view, accept different opinions and values, and seize every opportunity to expose ourselves to wide aspects of the new environment. This does not mean, at any cost, to encourage you to completely change your mind. On the contrary, it is a call to uphold or maintain your values and only change or modify those that you believe could be improved. In other words, we should not accept everything in an anarchistic revolution of morals and modes or limit our acceptance of others’ ideas to where our traits or experiences end.Living in another country gives us an opportunity to develop attitude that we might not be able to have while we are in our countries. This experience creates inside us, whether we like it or not, the attitude of being independent and responsible. Living on our own far from our families provides us with the opportunity to have the responsibility of organizing our lives, taking care of all our belongings and needs, and managing our expenses. If we train ourselves to be independent and responsible, this will in turn provide us with a good and strong meaning of responsibility, as well as help us get through life every goal we dream of achieving. Life abroad can be a lot more fun and interesting, but only if we show respect to those who are different from us.While in the host country, we need to develop an understanding of the importance of respectful behavior. This would lead to learning many ways through which we could show respect, including being considerate of the local people’s likes and dislikes, being sensitive to their feelings, trying to learn something from them, showing interest and appreciation for their cultures, not going along with prejudices and racist attitudes and learning to appreciate the differences they may have rather than fear them. The benefits of living abroad are many. It allows us to have a rich cultural experience and develop a more cosmopolitan outlook. Increased cultural awareness helps to eliminate prejudice and become mentally more flexible. Furthermore, living and working abroad broaden our horizons, give us confidence, and make us gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, see the world from a different perspective, and come to appreciate the best of both cultures.Nevertheless, there are disadvantages too — the distance from family and friends, the cultural challenges and differences, difficulty of making friends, feeling isolated, leaving close friends behind etc. But, when the advantages and disadvantages are evaluated, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
