[jll29]

There is a lot of truth to this.

Having said this it helps you in terms of personal growth to immerse in another country, culture and language as much as you can. (If you view it as a challenge that you enjoy taking on, and you enjoy the target culture.)

One observation is that cultural distance is not always proportional to geographic distance: for instance, there are things that German and Japanese culture treat identically that British culture treats very differently.

Being an expat may be hard, but being an ex-expat is easily as hard or harder: returning after extended absence, and expecting things to be the same, you will find out that people have moved on, and that the good things that you were missing (perhaps over-idealized) may no longer be good, or may never have been so great in the first place.

  "You can never come home again."
    -- Bill Bryson