I still think we're on the same page for the most part, I've long agreed with every word of your first comment. Now there can also be a very big difference bet

I still think we're on the same page for the most part, I've long agreed with every word of your first comment. Now there can also be a very big difference between living in a place versus being born & raised in that kind of place. The latter being far more depth of immersion than a tourist or long-term visitor, and is actually the kind of detail that makes the difference between whether one is indigenous to that environment or not. Being born & raised in a "tourist town" surrounded by nothing but tourist towns is not all that common but may be extreme enough to give the kind of awareness that some indigenous "cultures" can present themselves to visitors in an almost completely imaginary way compared to "normal", and over the much longer term than others. That's the same kind of feeling that I get in a place that's unusually good or unusually bad, but where they have lots more going on than tourism the dose is minuscule by comparison. Well I do recognize that a minor facade can be completely unintentional but just as difficult to see beyond. Some people travel more than others too, or venture further from their origin, sometimes you need to play the role of a tourist, sometimes act the host. As well as you know how to do, in either case. What about when other cultures come to visit you more than you visit them? A lot of the same familiarity can be built anyway. When every visitor is from someplace different, they're not bringing much of their "culture" with them, rather they are relatively isolated and completely surrounded by whatever indigenous culture exists, for the better or worse, some things are just more inclusive or co-existable than others. OTOH when there's a crowd from one single culture passing into a foreign area, an almost infinitely larger amount of culture comes along for the ride. If they stop to stay for very long this might be the first time when the indigenous host has to "contend" with a foreign culture beyond trivial accommodation. This may be too challenging for some cultures to handle when you've got some lands where assimilation has been so successful that there's not a close second, and others not like that at all. And everything in between. The concept of better or worse can take on infinitely greater scale, maybe even reverse unexpectedly. Then there's the part when you return to your origin, and your particular indigenous culture has been almost completely lost, all that remains are the scarce dwindling "outliers" but you yourself are not any more indigenous to any other place. You could end up being an "ex-patriate in your own hometown". From your further comments I think you might agree what it feels like, when the same place migrates from "unusually one way" to become "unusually the other", left to themselves the entropy is strongly from bad to worse rather than vice versa.