[jitix]

It depends on your goal. If you want to just work, pay taxes and save money and move back after retirement then maintain your home culture all you want. But don’t complain about PR then. Especially on the basis of how much money you make.

But if you want “permanent” residency then yes you have to be a bit of a “pretend-Frenchman” or however you want to put it. I just pointed out that tradeoff in the GP comment.

The biggest hypocrisy is that you will never be considered a real Chinese/Japanese/Indian/Vietnamese even if you learn their languages and adopt all their cultural traits. Western countries are very generous about this but you do have to meet them half way. B1 level proficiency is not even that high of a bar - compare that to living in China.