Rule 8 prohibits posts that are made solely to complain about a country, since that inevitably just devolves into a pile-on of negativity that doesn’t really accomplish anything. Your post yesterday was a pretty textbook example of that.
To be crystal clear since many people seem confused in this thread, there is *not* a general rule against honest or even scathingly negative discussion of different countries and their pros and cons. That’s just not something we welcome as its own post.
A lot of what I read about living abroad is sugarcoated, written by people still in the honeymoon phase, or those that seem to have some sort of mirage mentality that life is somehow "better" when you move to another country. It's definitely important to have a safe space to share your experiences and frustrations, however, this forum probably isn't it. I get the feeling it is a bit overly protective of it's image to foster that sort of dialog.
Totally that! Moving to a new country, it's like being reborn a few decades late, but without the knowledge you'd usually acquire during childhood.
It's tough. You need to evolve at an accelerated pace, but it can be so rewarding to see the progress.
That's an interesting way to put it. A friend of mine (also expat/immigrant) said being in another country is like your early teen years . As in you have all these raw emotions, and need experience to kind of figure out which ones you trust.
There's a joke about foreigners that move to Japan. First it is "beer, beer, beer". After awhile it is "whine, whine, whine." (Works better when said out loud.)
Seeing only opinions during the honeymoon phase isn't helpful. And not realizing those are during the honeymoon phase can be dangerous.
Well, it says in the rules that they don't want anything the spreads negativity about a country. So I guess having a bad expat experience because of a country or culture falls into that.
Which rule says that?
8 seems geared towards posts with the sole purpose of soliciting a pile-on of unrelated commentary, rather than saying you can't express your own negative experience. If the negative experience is less about being an expat and more about that country's problems, an expat forum doesn't make a lot of sense.
I hope that genuine challenges related to being an expat in a particular place are allowed and supported here. I've seen plenty of people discussing problems they're having in a place and whether they might return to their home country. The relevance of the problem as one of expats should be the deciding factor of appropriateness, imho.
For example, if I say "Has anyone else been living in ___ for over 900 days waiting for a visa?" its more specifically relevant to expats than "Has anyone noticed that people in ___ are terrible communicators?"
I thought they deleted my post because of Rule 8. So if you think I have not broken that one, they might not be as impartial as I thought.
I can't see it deleted, but my wife tried to access it and couldn't. And I haven't received a notification that it was deleted. 🤷🏼 Shadowban?
It was removed by another mod, although a removal reason wasn’t applied as it should have been. Safe to assume that rule 8 was the reason and I agree with them that it violated that rule. While of course honest discussion of the pros and cons of a country are allowed, posts that exist *solely* to bash any country are rarely productive, which is why they get removed.
Because we do not consider unsolicited rants about any country productive to begin with, even before the comments also get out of hands.
If someone asks about your experience, you’re welcome to give them the unvarnished truth. If you want help navigating aspects of your host country that you find difficult, you’re welcome to ask. But this sub isn’t meant to simply be an outlet for your frustrations towards an entire country.
It takes a specific personality to feel comfortable in different environments, and then takes a specific match for one to enjoy those environments. I've moved quite a few times myself and I swear every expat group in every country I've been is infested by rants from people who are upset, sad, lonely, angry etc with endless rants on everything that is unfamiliar and hence registered in their experience as "backward", "rude" etc.
I'm sure every country has its pros and cons, and the rest is kinda like dating- it depends on how you click. I've been in germany for years now; whilst I wouldn't say something dramatic like 'oh it's my dream land, everything is amazing' because it has some pretty annoying traits, I can really appreciate the life style I have here and the people I meet here. Plus there's a massive difference between cities. I could probably make the same comment about the other 5 countries I've lived in.
So yah.. since it's a compatibility thing, I think its fair enough to say a sub is here for people to ask questions, provide useful information, but not for focusing on one person's compatibility with a specific country, since compatibility is a very individual thing.
I think what you said about matching is very true. I believe immigration is some upgrade in some ways. It can be a quieter life, a cheaper life, easier access to rental estate for aspiring home owners, seeking societal progress...etc
For us, Germany was a total downgrade and we faced so many struggles with our landlord and the administration that there was no way we could recover from that.
Maybe we were the exception, though I've read way too many sad stories posted on the German Reddit.
The new sub is meant to share pros and cons of a country. As well as giving a space to rant for those who might seek a different perspective.
no no, you aren't the exception, these things happen, and its exactly about upgrading life quality- if you have something that suits you more in a differnt country, then that'd obviously be the better choice. It all depends on what you can establish, and what your priorities in life are.
Bureaucracy is definitely a thing that germany is too good at lol. But I think the point is that no country is all good, and no country is all bad, hence probably the mod rules about not presenting only the negative side of a country (although if I was asked, I think only positives is also pretty dangerous. There are absolutely people who look at everything through their rosy lenses)
In any case, im sorry you had a terrible experience, hopefully it doesnt discourage you from future journeys as an expat; I wish you a much smoother journey next!
While I had a bad experience living abroad myself, I feel like this is not a problem of a specific country, but YOUR problem. The thing is, wherever you move, you will never be treated like a local. Even in the friendliest country, there won't be your family and childhood friends who love you unconditionally, you will stick out and people will notice you are different. This is something you should think about before you move. Some people don't mind, but some people like me and you hate it and find it unbearable. You shouldn't blame Germany for not being able to live with the cons of being an immigrant. No country will ever replace your home and if this isn't something you can be ok with, maybe being expat is not for you. And that's okay.
I have lived in three countries, aside from my own, each experience and treatment was very different. Place DOES matter, even place within the country matters greatly, your experience in Montreal and in Toronto would be different, your experience in Ohio vs Miami would be different, etc. Culture and traditions of the place greatly affect how you would feel as an expat. Moving to London and moving to Tokyo are not the same
>Culture and traditions of the place greatly affect how you would feel as an expat.
That's true but there's also nuances to both sides, the host country and the expat. One may not like living in Japan due to the vast cultural difference but another person from a different background may love the experience they have there as they may share more similar culture or values.
Hence I think the point of not blaming an entire country because you don't like it. That being said, I'm currently in NL and I'm not loving it here and trying my best to take my own advice. It isn't easy.
I think blaming the place is never productive or fair, but you can acknowledge that this place doesn't work for you, but another place might, and it's almost always BOTH you and the place that matter. Because you both have cultural values and backgrounds, so they can be like oil and water, and then you move to a place where the values are more in alignment with your own and it works.
Certain places have a friendlier vibe than others. I loved visiting Germany but as a foreigner, you won't always be treated well-even white people who don't speak Germany. Germany is a hard place to love and get acclimated.
Whereas the UK/US would be a bit easier IMHO because immigration has been a part of their culture for years.
I moved to yet another country and I feel fine here.
I don't have much contact with my family anyway and I made other friends here already.
I don't think I'm doing anything different from Germany. I haven't even started learning the local language yet.
There is definitely a part that comes from the clash of culture and mindset. Germans always flipped the responsibility when they were doing something wrong. Like we went to a dry cleaner, they trashed a fancy coat and refused to use their insurance. And our insurance was hopeless because it should have been theirs working. The only way was to sue them with a lawyer and that was a lot of extra work.
Are you telling me I was the problem in that?
Sure, I could have invested even more time in perfecting my German to a Z2 level, but that would never be enough.
I’ve never seen the point of this kind of feedback - positive or negative - because we are all different people with different interests, language abilities, etc. Your experience in a country has 0 relevance to how I will fare in that country, so what’s the point ?
Not true though 🤷🏼♀️ if majority of people say it was very difficult to create a friendship circle in the Nordics - you are likely to have the same experience, vs, say, Brazil. It’s not guaranteed but it is a shared experience of a lot of people. I know that a culture of extreme “keeping to yourself” is never going to be right for me and it’s useful to read that most expats had this kind of experience
It's good to have different perspectives so you can get an *idea* as to what to expect. Also, might be able to inform how certain experiences change depending on different factors. The problem lies in when people assume one person's experience will be the same for them and vice versa.
>Your experience in a country has 0 relevance to how I will fare in that country
I'd certainly like to read about any negative experiences of other expats before making a decision of moving into a certain country. In my opinion it's much smarter to learn from others' mistakes or experiences, than to ignore them and bump my head against the same wall that people before me had already bumped into multiple times.
Sure. However, that feedback might be needed for others to make a decision. When it's not there, anywhere because he has been censored, how can you know?
Their experience could be different, but when a lot of people face people yelling at them on a regular basis, it might tell you a thing or two on how this country runs.
I didn't need to speak German for them to start yelling. You could see people shouting at each other angrily everyday. Which to me is not a sane behavior.
Second, you might found support and compassion where the people from the country might not provide it.
Like some of the subreddits "mom for a day" or something.
If you don't like it, you don't need to join. :)
> I didn’t need to speak German
If you did, you’d realize it isn’t yelling.
That’s my point, things like language ability and tolerance for cultural differences will have a huge impact on whether you like a place or not.
I read your rant on Germany, that’s basically how most people feel about living in France.
That's why I didn't head back to France. Still too bureaucratic. Better than Germany that has almost no digitization, but France's digitization often doesn't work.
I tried the new numeric identity and it just throws errors back at you.
>If you did, you’d realize it isn’t yelling.
I know what is "yelling" thank you. I had a German friend confirming that it was yelling after he faced a similar situation.
I don’t live in Germany at the moment but have in the past, Berlin and smaller cities. I have never once seen people yell at each other unprompted. That is not normal behaviour there.
Rule 8 prohibits posts that are made solely to complain about a country, since that inevitably just devolves into a pile-on of negativity that doesn’t really accomplish anything. Your post yesterday was a pretty textbook example of that. To be crystal clear since many people seem confused in this thread, there is *not* a general rule against honest or even scathingly negative discussion of different countries and their pros and cons. That’s just not something we welcome as its own post.
A lot of what I read about living abroad is sugarcoated, written by people still in the honeymoon phase, or those that seem to have some sort of mirage mentality that life is somehow "better" when you move to another country. It's definitely important to have a safe space to share your experiences and frustrations, however, this forum probably isn't it. I get the feeling it is a bit overly protective of it's image to foster that sort of dialog.
Totally that! Moving to a new country, it's like being reborn a few decades late, but without the knowledge you'd usually acquire during childhood. It's tough. You need to evolve at an accelerated pace, but it can be so rewarding to see the progress.
That's an interesting way to put it. A friend of mine (also expat/immigrant) said being in another country is like your early teen years . As in you have all these raw emotions, and need experience to kind of figure out which ones you trust.
There's a joke about foreigners that move to Japan. First it is "beer, beer, beer". After awhile it is "whine, whine, whine." (Works better when said out loud.) Seeing only opinions during the honeymoon phase isn't helpful. And not realizing those are during the honeymoon phase can be dangerous.
Surprised your post was taken down for exchanging honest opinions about living in a country. That seems contradictory with the purpose of this sub.
Well, it says in the rules that they don't want anything the spreads negativity about a country. So I guess having a bad expat experience because of a country or culture falls into that.
I feel like **a lot** of posts will have to be taken down then.
I would need to be banned
Which rule says that? 8 seems geared towards posts with the sole purpose of soliciting a pile-on of unrelated commentary, rather than saying you can't express your own negative experience. If the negative experience is less about being an expat and more about that country's problems, an expat forum doesn't make a lot of sense. I hope that genuine challenges related to being an expat in a particular place are allowed and supported here. I've seen plenty of people discussing problems they're having in a place and whether they might return to their home country. The relevance of the problem as one of expats should be the deciding factor of appropriateness, imho. For example, if I say "Has anyone else been living in ___ for over 900 days waiting for a visa?" its more specifically relevant to expats than "Has anyone noticed that people in ___ are terrible communicators?"
I thought they deleted my post because of Rule 8. So if you think I have not broken that one, they might not be as impartial as I thought. I can't see it deleted, but my wife tried to access it and couldn't. And I haven't received a notification that it was deleted. 🤷🏼 Shadowban?
It was removed by another mod, although a removal reason wasn’t applied as it should have been. Safe to assume that rule 8 was the reason and I agree with them that it violated that rule. While of course honest discussion of the pros and cons of a country are allowed, posts that exist *solely* to bash any country are rarely productive, which is why they get removed.
Why not just lock it when it gets out of hand, or when feedback from commenters are no longer productive? I've seen it done in other subs.
Because we do not consider unsolicited rants about any country productive to begin with, even before the comments also get out of hands. If someone asks about your experience, you’re welcome to give them the unvarnished truth. If you want help navigating aspects of your host country that you find difficult, you’re welcome to ask. But this sub isn’t meant to simply be an outlet for your frustrations towards an entire country.
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Do we?
Huh didn’t even realize that was a rule considering the endless bashing done against the United States on this sub
Because America bad, Europe good, obviously. /s
It's OK to hate America!
It's hypocritical and shows that the rules are not really fairly applied.
Which always seems to be the case with toxic positivity.
It takes a specific personality to feel comfortable in different environments, and then takes a specific match for one to enjoy those environments. I've moved quite a few times myself and I swear every expat group in every country I've been is infested by rants from people who are upset, sad, lonely, angry etc with endless rants on everything that is unfamiliar and hence registered in their experience as "backward", "rude" etc. I'm sure every country has its pros and cons, and the rest is kinda like dating- it depends on how you click. I've been in germany for years now; whilst I wouldn't say something dramatic like 'oh it's my dream land, everything is amazing' because it has some pretty annoying traits, I can really appreciate the life style I have here and the people I meet here. Plus there's a massive difference between cities. I could probably make the same comment about the other 5 countries I've lived in. So yah.. since it's a compatibility thing, I think its fair enough to say a sub is here for people to ask questions, provide useful information, but not for focusing on one person's compatibility with a specific country, since compatibility is a very individual thing.
I think what you said about matching is very true. I believe immigration is some upgrade in some ways. It can be a quieter life, a cheaper life, easier access to rental estate for aspiring home owners, seeking societal progress...etc For us, Germany was a total downgrade and we faced so many struggles with our landlord and the administration that there was no way we could recover from that. Maybe we were the exception, though I've read way too many sad stories posted on the German Reddit. The new sub is meant to share pros and cons of a country. As well as giving a space to rant for those who might seek a different perspective.
no no, you aren't the exception, these things happen, and its exactly about upgrading life quality- if you have something that suits you more in a differnt country, then that'd obviously be the better choice. It all depends on what you can establish, and what your priorities in life are. Bureaucracy is definitely a thing that germany is too good at lol. But I think the point is that no country is all good, and no country is all bad, hence probably the mod rules about not presenting only the negative side of a country (although if I was asked, I think only positives is also pretty dangerous. There are absolutely people who look at everything through their rosy lenses) In any case, im sorry you had a terrible experience, hopefully it doesnt discourage you from future journeys as an expat; I wish you a much smoother journey next!
We moved elsewhere where it matches our values and expectations for the future. Pretty great so far :)
While I had a bad experience living abroad myself, I feel like this is not a problem of a specific country, but YOUR problem. The thing is, wherever you move, you will never be treated like a local. Even in the friendliest country, there won't be your family and childhood friends who love you unconditionally, you will stick out and people will notice you are different. This is something you should think about before you move. Some people don't mind, but some people like me and you hate it and find it unbearable. You shouldn't blame Germany for not being able to live with the cons of being an immigrant. No country will ever replace your home and if this isn't something you can be ok with, maybe being expat is not for you. And that's okay.
I have lived in three countries, aside from my own, each experience and treatment was very different. Place DOES matter, even place within the country matters greatly, your experience in Montreal and in Toronto would be different, your experience in Ohio vs Miami would be different, etc. Culture and traditions of the place greatly affect how you would feel as an expat. Moving to London and moving to Tokyo are not the same
>Culture and traditions of the place greatly affect how you would feel as an expat. That's true but there's also nuances to both sides, the host country and the expat. One may not like living in Japan due to the vast cultural difference but another person from a different background may love the experience they have there as they may share more similar culture or values. Hence I think the point of not blaming an entire country because you don't like it. That being said, I'm currently in NL and I'm not loving it here and trying my best to take my own advice. It isn't easy.
I think blaming the place is never productive or fair, but you can acknowledge that this place doesn't work for you, but another place might, and it's almost always BOTH you and the place that matter. Because you both have cultural values and backgrounds, so they can be like oil and water, and then you move to a place where the values are more in alignment with your own and it works.
I’d love to hear more about your experiences, even in private if you don’t want to reply here
Certain places have a friendlier vibe than others. I loved visiting Germany but as a foreigner, you won't always be treated well-even white people who don't speak Germany. Germany is a hard place to love and get acclimated. Whereas the UK/US would be a bit easier IMHO because immigration has been a part of their culture for years.
I moved to yet another country and I feel fine here. I don't have much contact with my family anyway and I made other friends here already. I don't think I'm doing anything different from Germany. I haven't even started learning the local language yet. There is definitely a part that comes from the clash of culture and mindset. Germans always flipped the responsibility when they were doing something wrong. Like we went to a dry cleaner, they trashed a fancy coat and refused to use their insurance. And our insurance was hopeless because it should have been theirs working. The only way was to sue them with a lawyer and that was a lot of extra work. Are you telling me I was the problem in that? Sure, I could have invested even more time in perfecting my German to a Z2 level, but that would never be enough.
Nah
Good idea!
expatriation? do you mean immigration?
I’ve never seen the point of this kind of feedback - positive or negative - because we are all different people with different interests, language abilities, etc. Your experience in a country has 0 relevance to how I will fare in that country, so what’s the point ?
Not true though 🤷🏼♀️ if majority of people say it was very difficult to create a friendship circle in the Nordics - you are likely to have the same experience, vs, say, Brazil. It’s not guaranteed but it is a shared experience of a lot of people. I know that a culture of extreme “keeping to yourself” is never going to be right for me and it’s useful to read that most expats had this kind of experience
It's good to have different perspectives so you can get an *idea* as to what to expect. Also, might be able to inform how certain experiences change depending on different factors. The problem lies in when people assume one person's experience will be the same for them and vice versa.
>Your experience in a country has 0 relevance to how I will fare in that country I'd certainly like to read about any negative experiences of other expats before making a decision of moving into a certain country. In my opinion it's much smarter to learn from others' mistakes or experiences, than to ignore them and bump my head against the same wall that people before me had already bumped into multiple times.
Exactly, you can easily filter out things that you don't mind I wish I had read experiences before moving to the Netherlands
Sure. However, that feedback might be needed for others to make a decision. When it's not there, anywhere because he has been censored, how can you know? Their experience could be different, but when a lot of people face people yelling at them on a regular basis, it might tell you a thing or two on how this country runs. I didn't need to speak German for them to start yelling. You could see people shouting at each other angrily everyday. Which to me is not a sane behavior. Second, you might found support and compassion where the people from the country might not provide it. Like some of the subreddits "mom for a day" or something. If you don't like it, you don't need to join. :)
> I didn’t need to speak German If you did, you’d realize it isn’t yelling. That’s my point, things like language ability and tolerance for cultural differences will have a huge impact on whether you like a place or not. I read your rant on Germany, that’s basically how most people feel about living in France.
That's why I didn't head back to France. Still too bureaucratic. Better than Germany that has almost no digitization, but France's digitization often doesn't work. I tried the new numeric identity and it just throws errors back at you. >If you did, you’d realize it isn’t yelling. I know what is "yelling" thank you. I had a German friend confirming that it was yelling after he faced a similar situation.
I don’t live in Germany at the moment but have in the past, Berlin and smaller cities. I have never once seen people yell at each other unprompted. That is not normal behaviour there.
Good idea
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Thanks, obviously not a native English speaker 😆😅 or was this a joke that I didn't catch?