A Foreigner in a New Country: Between Respect and Self-Respect

How to adapt without shrinking or losing your voice

Today, I found myself reflecting on something many foreigners experience, yet rarely say out loud.

For some people, it feels completely normal to belittle those who come “from the outside” and do not belong to their system. Not because they are bad people, but because they do not know how to relate to difference. This behavior is often labeled as professionalism - directness, order, efficiency. But when respect is missing, these words turn into tools of suppression.

Most foreigners do not arrive unprepared. They come with experience, skills, and a genuine desire to contribute. They arrive with respect for the country, the culture, and the rules. With openness to learn, to adapt, and to understand how things work.

But adaptation does not mean erasing yourself.
It does not mean tolerating humiliation.
It does not mean being seen as less capable simply because you come from somewhere else.
And it certainly does not mean giving up your voice in order to be “easy to manage.”

Conformity Disguised as Order

In many organizations, there is a strong but unspoken culture of conformity. Difference is perceived as a threat, sensitivity as weakness, and the ambition of a foreigner as a problem. If you are “inside,” you are protected. If you are “outside,” you are expected to fit in first, to shrink, to stay quiet, to adapt without resistance.

This is not strength.
It is fear of difference.

Truly stable systems do not need to suppress people. They know how to integrate them. They understand that diversity does not undermine order, it enriches it.

Respect Is Not One-Sided

As foreigners, we respect the country we come to. We respect its culture, structure, clarity, and rules. But respect cannot flow in only one direction.

True integration is not submission. It is mutual awareness. Awareness that directness without empathy wounds. That order without humanity isolates. And that systems which do not tolerate difference eventually lose the very people who could help them grow.

We Will Not Harden Ourselves to Survive

Many of us are sensitive, thoughtful, deeply perceptive people. And we will not become harsher just to be accepted. We will not abandon ourselves to appear “professional.” We will not pretend not to feel.

We will adapt.
But we will not disappear.

And if that means speaking, calmly, clearly, and without bitterness, then we will speak. Because integration is not about blending in. Integration is about showing up as a human being.