A few weeks ago I met a fellow expat in the Czech Republic.

“Amercian people are very open-minded,” she told me, “But Czechs never change their views. Their attitude is completely wrong.”

“Could anyone say anything to change your mind?” I asked.

“No.”

“Well,” I said, “How very open-minded of you.”

Expats in the Czech Republic often complain about the infuriating mentality of the local people, but the real frustration is the culture is different from their own. Consequently, they try to narrow the cultural distance between the country that raised them and where they now live.

Recently I’ve begun to wonder whether closing this gap is a good idea. Expats warn against living in an expat bubble, i.e., only surrounding yourself with other expats, but there is another kind of bubble rarely discussed: the protective bubble of not fully understanding the particulars of your host country.

The most obvious example is politics. My knowledge of the Czech political landscape is sketchy to say the least, so a few months ago I resolved to educate myself. As I trawled the Czech papers, I soon began to feel depressed. Then I thought: ‘Why do it to yourself? An advantage of being an expat in the Czech Republic is you can shut these things out.’

I already read a lot about British politics. Does this enrich my life in any way? No, it just makes me angry and indignant. Unless you’re doing something to affect social change, political knowledge is merely something to complain about. Today, whenever a Czech person rants about the Czech government I feel lucky not to be weighed down by it.

Living in ignorance may sound bad, but many expats are unknowingly living like this anyway. A Czech friend moved to the UK a few years ago, and I recently met up with her when she returned to the Czech Republic. She said she hated being back because Czech politics was getting worse and worse. Clearly she had failed to notice the terrible political climate in Britain (if I could just stop reading about British politics, and combine this with knowing nothing about Czech politics, I might actually be happy).

The good thing about living in your own country is your implicit understanding of the culture, the downside is you know it too well so you see all the bad stuff. I recently interviewed a Czech expat about her life in the UK. When I asked what she didn’t like about living in the UK she replied “nothing.” Ask a British person the same question and you’ll receive a list as long as a monkey’s arm.

Similarly, Czechs know their own country so well they’re baffled that I choose to live as an expat in the Czech Republic. They think England is a paradise (free museums, polite people, Big Ben) and are surprised when I point out its more negative aspects.

The idea that people want to live abroad because ‘it feels exotic’ is a huge oversimplification. What they really seek is an increase in cultural distance – and all the crap they no longer to have to deal with which comes with it. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, there will always be ugly brown patches, but an upside of living abroad is you’re less likely to roll around in them.

*First published in Milk & Honey, České Budějovice, Czech Republic