From California. It costs me more to fly from hometown to SF, than it does to fly from SF to Asia. I’ve eaten plenty of solo meals at home for what I’ve paid to fly to whole ass other countries. Living in the US is a scam at every turn. We have absolutely horrid public transport and getting from one destination to another via car can take multiple days which most visitors don’t wrap their heads around until after they arrive thinking they can drive from NYC to the Grand Canyon in a day or something. Probably the biggest reason against the US for most though is that we have by far the most expensive healthcare in the world. If you have to seek medical attention for any reason at all, you better pray you have really great insurance or be prepared to drain your life savings and be in debt until the day you die paying it off.
Exactly. There are people born and raised in Japan, who were not ethnically Japanese and in spite of growing up there, speaking the language, etc. were never accepted as Japanese.
In Thailand there is a certain level of “Thainess” one needs to possess to be accepted even as a local and an ethnic classism that favors the Thai-Chinese.