How long does it take you to adapt to new cultures, ideologies, philosophies – way of life? How lon does it take to truly understand one’s culture, ideology, philosophy – their way of living life?
Some people say they fell in love with a lifestyle, a belief or a place/culture immediately.  But is that truly adapting?  We all say that after we visit a place and have a truly wonderful experience that we  love this place or those people or that belief.  However when we have one bad experience with these we immediately and vehemently oppose it without even giving it a chance.  We don’t take the time to understand it fully.
In my experience, I’ve never really had the chance to understand what truly adapting was all about until I moved out to the UK.  I’ve travelled quite a bit internationally for work and for leisure and have ‘loved’ a few places.  But what I was missing was the actual day to day experiences of living and breathing the life of the people that were brought up in this way. 
I mentioned ideologies and philosophies in the same way as cultures because these too are things people are brought up with and don’t really see what the other side is like.  Take for example Catholics.  If your born and raised a Catholic and never experienced for more than a few years another denomination of Christianity do you truly know what it means to be a Catholic in the eyes of others?  Or vice versa do you know what it’s like to be a Protestant or a Baptist.
Similarly, I’m in Hong Kong at the moment and people say they love Hong Kong.  But what is it that they like about it or love about it? Depending on the angle you take there will be slight differences in experiences.  To truly grasp the Hong Kong way of life. The true way of life – and I’m not talking about the ex pat highly paid nice corporate housing western eating restaurant type of life.  I’m talking about the true essence of Hong Kong – you really need to embrace the language and the true way of living here.  
It’s like America.  Does living in Chinatown in one of the big major cities in the US mean you are living the American way of life? I would argue that it is not the American way of life.  But they do it anyways and would consider they are Americans and love it.  But equally, by living elsewhere and not adapting to the true way of life, in my opinion is living a fallacy.  Meaning you don’t know what it means to truly be that culture, that ideology or that philosophy.
What am I trying to say here? You gotta love it, breathe it and embrace it as it is.  Don’t try to change things or force your ways upon them.  Learn, adapt and integrate.  Don’t be an outsider.