Reverse Culture Shock

I wasn't thinking of countries like Bangladesh — I was thinking of countries like France or Germany!

Not sure that Danes can really talk about artificial borders, given how it's recently become very anti-immigration.

America is way ahead of almost all of Europe in terms of access to transgender healthcare.

In most of Europe, it's not uncommon for trans women to be forced to crossdress in public in order to get hormones. It's not uncommon for trans women to be denied hormones for a number of stupid things: if you're attracted to women (you have to be 100% straight to get hormones in most of Europe), because the outfit they wore to the doctor isn't feminine enough (you have to be wearing a dress), because you have no interest in bottom surgery, because you don't specifically hate your penis, because you didn't play with dolls as a kid, because you've had any sexual thoughts about being a woman. You have to go out of your way to prove to the shrinks there that you're trans enough, and their standards are so ridiculous that they'd tell 90% of cis women they're not really women.

It varies by country. Denmark and Finland are the absolute worst about this. Denmark in particular has been condemned by Amnesty International for this [0]. Norway is pretty bad, but I've heard stories of people who found a sympathetic GP who's willing to go around the law (in Norway, it's illegal to prescribe estrogen for transition outside the gender clinic system, but a doctor can prescribe estrogen for other reasons, and doctors don't have to report their prescriptions to anyone). I've heard Spain is one of the least-worst countries, actually, so much that trans people from other European countries actually go to Spain for treatment. Same goes for parts of Eastern Europe (estrogen might even be OTC in some Balkan countries). The UK used to be horrible, but they've gotten better in the last 2-3 years or so, which is entirely thanks to a single private doctor (Dr. Webberly). In Germany and France, it depends on exactly where you live.

In the US, I can just walk into any informed consent clinic or in some cases the offices of certain GPs, sign a paper that says I know what I'm getting into, get my blood taken, and walk out with a prescription for estrogen once the bloodwork comes back.

Oh, and in some European countries, you can't even legally change your name unless you've had surgery. I know this is the case in the Czech Republic (you can take a gender-neutral name, but you cannot take a female name if you have testicles). It's sad, because access to hormones is better in the Czech Republic than in most of Europe.

[0] News article about it in English: https://www.thelocal.dk/20170303/amnesty-slams-denmark-for-d... -- Amnesty International's actual report, in Danish: http://amnesty.dk/media/2263/amnesty-transkoennedes-adgang-t...

That's one thing about old cities that people often forget about. A lot of people treat the age of their city's buildings as a point of pride. Old architecture is pretty, and there's so much heritage and historical significance.

But the downside is that they're not nearly as livable as new construction. Disability access is one. Nobody's going to install a wheelchair ramp in a 500-year-old building.

Here's another: air conditioning. I'm from Dallas and still live here, but my family is from New York City. I visit my ancestral home every few years, and what really jumps out at me every time I visit is the lack of central air conditioning. In any residential part of Manhattan, all you have to do is look up, and you'll see hundreds of room air conditioners hanging out of every building. The house in Westchester my aunt and uncle lived in when I was a kid had neither central AC nor heating; I have memories of staying in the guest room with this ratty old radiator grill that was encrusted with unidentifiable gunk. Actually, that whole house just felt ancient. Visiting my aunt and uncle felt like walking into a time machine because of how old their house looked and felt.

You don't see places like that in Dallas. Dallas is a pretty new city; the city proper didn't reach its current borders until 1977, and the suburbs were mostly farmland until the '80s and '90s. The northern part of Dallas where I grew up was built out in the late '70s and '80s, after central AC had become standard. The suburb where I work wasn't built up until the '90s and the '00s, and there are places not too far north of here that were built this decade. Everyone has central AC and heating here. The idea of going without is ludicrous, because all our construction is new enough that central AC and heating were incorporated in the design from the start. Now, yeah, the sweltering climate has something to do with it; state law requires landlords to provide AC at all times, and it's actually a crime for them to fail to resolve complaints about a broken AC within a certain amount of time. But a lot of it is just because Dallas is mostly newer construction.

lived better half of decade in China, returning back to EU was pretty much smooth:

- sky here is always blue

- drivers in EU are kinda annoying stopping and letting me pass when just standing next to crossing even when I dont really intend to cross yet

- streets are completely empty

- sidewalks are empty, not full of trash and people occupying them with their illegal stuff

- cashiers are kinda lazy, you have to take stuff out of your basket and put it on moving belt, already used that in China cashier was doing everything

- shops are closed half of the time, very ealy in evening, almost all weekend, not open 7 days a week like in China

- almost nobody stares or pay attention to my nonwhite wife despite currently staying in very small town, I was being stared at all the time even in cosmpolitan Beijing

- people here in EU in general are very soft and weak caring too much about others instead of being selfish, more agressivity would be sort of welcome, though it is to my advantage

- cars have to wait for dumb green light when turning right (always green in China)

- I can go straight from my apartment to train or subway without single check, unlike like 7 checkpoints in Chinese train station

- cash is still very common when buying things like ice cream though Visa paywave is very convenient in bigger shops, just touch terminal and you are done, in China you can live with Wechat payments in your phone but very inconvenient with scanning QR codes instead of just touching card to terminal in Europe

- even in very small town you can find people speaking English or at least some basics, you would have trouble even in cosmopolitan Beijing, dont dare in some smaller place

Overal I am glad I moved back, though life in China was more easy going and less serious, because it was considered more like videogame than real life, because we all know as foreigners there is no future there and you have to go back sooner or later.