Integrated Into What? Why Living Abroad Does Not Always Mean Belonging.
My last post asked why the same person sometimes pursues assimilation intensely in one country and barely at all in another. The argument was that migrants learn, through everyday experience, what assimilation is likely to buy them in a particular place.
Then Ludmila Ghil, a multicultural and intercultural mediator, questioned: integrated with whom?
But the question did not stop there.
Ludmila speaks fluent Thai. She has lived the experience she is describing from the inside. Recently, the Thai ambassador in Brasília invited her to the embassy and officially named her a friend of Thailand. Their entire conversation was in Thai. That is a story about what language actually opens when you go far enough inside it.
I want to follow her thread because I think it takes the argument somewhere the first post only implied.
Integrated Into What
When we say someone is integrated, we rarely ask the next question.
Integrated into the country? The local community? The workplace? The international school? The expat WhatsApp group? The Brazilian diaspora? The professional network that happens to meet in Bangkok but operates entirely in English?
These are not the same thing. And a person can have a rich, meaningful, socially full life abroad while being integrated primarily into an international or expatriate environment rather than into the broader local society.
Ludmila put it directly: a foreigner can live many years in Thailand, work, have friends, participate in churches or organisations, and be deeply integrated into the international and expatriate community without necessarily being integrated into the broader Thai society. The fact that Thai people exist within those spaces does not eliminate the question, especially when those Thai people have learned to move comfortably through the codes of the international community.
That is not fake integration but a different kind of integration. And we rarely distinguish between the two, which means migrants often judge themselves against a standard that does not match the life they are actually living.
Integration, assimilation, and belonging are related but not the same thing, and you can be legally integrated into a country, culturally assimilated to varying degrees, and still not feel that you belong. And you can feel a profound sense of belonging inside a community that exists within a country without being deeply integrated into the broader society around it.
I think of belonging as a network of relationships rather than a single destination. The question is not simply whether you have integrated. It is who you have integrated with, in which language, through which relationships, and into which version of the society around you.
The Thing Nobody Wants to Say
Not only Brazilians but many foreigners in the context of Thailand stay inside their expat bubble. Ludmila also raised something more uncomfortable: the possibility that some expatriates arrive with a subtle sense of cultural superiority toward the local culture.
That is the thing nobody says out loud. And it deserves to be said out loud because it changes the question entirely.
If part of what keeps migrants inside the expat bubble is not just comfort or practicality but a subtle sense that the local culture does not require the same investment, that is not a calculation about linguistic capital. That is something else. Something older and less comfortable to name.
It does not apply to everyone and it is not a universal accusation. But it is honest to acknowledge that the decision not to learn a local language or engage deeply with a local community is not always purely strategic. Sometimes it is shaped by assumptions about which cultures are worth the effort of entering. And those assumptions have a history.
The Prestige Asymmetry Between Languages
This is where Ludmila's observation about language lands hardest.
Not all languages carry the same perceived value. The decision about whether to invest hundreds of hours learning a new language is made against a calculation about what that language will give you, not only in the country where you currently live but in every country you might live in after this one.
As Ludmila put it: an expat might justify learning French, German, or English not just for integration in the country where they live, but because those languages carry a particular linguistic and symbolic capital internationally. Faced with Thai, a different question can emerge: what is this going to do for me after I leave?
That question is not necessarily about disrespect for the language or the people but about perceived return. And the perceived return is shaped by a prestige hierarchy between languages that operates powerfully on the decisions migrants make. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called this linguistic capital, a form of symbolic and economic capital that can be accumulated, transferred, and spent in contexts far beyond the place where it was acquired. Some languages travel while others are perceived as staying behind.
But Ludmila's own story complicates that calculation in the most interesting way possible. She invested in Thai. And the return was not professional capital that travelled internationally. It was access to a level of relationship and trust that, as she put it, is not accessible in the same way without the language. What Thai opened for her was relational depth, not transferable credentials, and that distinction is worth sitting with.
What the Language You Learn Actually Changes
Language is not just a tool for ordering food or navigating bureaucracy. It can change which relationships become available to you. Which jokes you understand. Which stories you hear when you are in the room. Which parts of someone's personality become visible because the conversation can finally reach there.
In Ludmila's experience, speaking Thai fluently changed the relationships available to her. When the relationship deepens, she said, it is common for Thai people to give you a Thai name. You continue being a foreigner, of course, but you begin to occupy a different relational place. There is a proximity and a trust that are difficult to access in the same way without the language.
For me, this is where the distinction between multicultural contact and deeper intercultural engagement becomes interesting. Multiculturalism can describe cultures existing alongside each other. Interculturalism goes further: it involves sustained exchange across cultural difference, enough mutual engagement for people to learn how the other person's world actually works. You can live in a beautifully multicultural environment without ever crossing very far outside your own cultural codes. And that can feel like integration, because it is a form of integration, just not necessarily into the broader society.
On the Word Farang
Ludmila raises something worth sitting with before we use the word too easily.
Farang is commonly used to designate Western foreigners in Thailand and historical linguistics links the word to early Persian and French brought via Indian and Middle Eastern trade routes to designate Western Europeans. More than assuming a simple translation, she argues it is worth understanding what being farang means in Thai social relationships rather than treating it as a static label.
There is historically a complex relationship between Thailand and Western powers, and that history helps explain why trust cannot be assumed automatically. But when a Thai person perceives that they can trust you, Ludmila says, you may continue to be called farang, but the relational meaning of being farang changes.
The word may not function as a fixed category in the way it first appears but as a relational one whose meaning shifts depending on the trust and depth of the relationship. And that distinction matters for how we think about whether belonging is available.
What This Means for the Question I Started With
Ludmila's observation raises a question I want to leave here for the next conversation: to what extent does the case study of the Brazilian community in Thailand reveal characteristics of Thai culture, and to what extent does it reveal the level of intercultural integration of that specific Brazilian community?
That is a genuine question and the answer changes what conclusions we can draw.
What I take from this exchange is something the first post did not quite say clearly enough. The calculation migrants make about assimilation is not only about what the destination society offers. It is also about what the migrant brings to the encounter, including the assumptions they carry about which cultures are worth entering, which languages are worth learning, and which relationships are worth the discomfort of crossing into unfamiliar territory.
The inherited scorecard does not only measure you against yourself. It also tells you, often without announcing it, which worlds are worth your effort.
That is worth examining, and Ludmila's experience of learning Thai gives us one powerful example of what deeper intercultural engagement can make possible.
Navigating these unwritten rules of linguistic prestige and social belonging is at the heart of identity migration. If that phrase is new to you, Parenting Unpacked is where it lives in full.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean to be integrated into a new country?
Integration is not a single destination but a network of relationships. A person can be legally integrated into a country, employed, and socially active while being integrated primarily into an international or expatriate community rather than the broader local society. The question is not simply whether you have integrated but who you have integrated with, in which language, and through which relationships.
What is the difference between multiculturalism and interculturalism?
Multiculturalism generally describes the coexistence of different cultures within a society, while interculturalism goes further and involves sustained exchange across cultural difference, enough mutual engagement for people to genuinely learn how the other person's world works, and you can live in a multicultural environment without crossing very far outside your own cultural codes. They are related concepts but they describe different levels of engagement.
What is linguistic capital?
Linguistic capital is a concept developed by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to describe language proficiency as a form of symbolic and economic capital that can be accumulated and spent in social contexts. Some languages carry greater linguistic capital in global markets and open more doors across more countries. This affects the decisions migrants make about which languages are worth investing in, sometimes independently of how useful that language would be for deeper local integration.
Why do some expats not learn the local language?
The decision about whether to invest in learning a local language is shaped by many factors including time, difficulty, and perceived return. An expat might weigh not only how useful the language would be in their current location but how transferable it would be after their next move. Languages with high international prestige may feel like better investments than languages perceived as geographically limited, even when the local language would open significantly deeper relationships in the place where they actually live.
What is the expat bubble?
The expat bubble refers to the tendency of foreign nationals to socialise primarily within international or expatriate communities rather than integrating into broader local society. Living within an expat bubble can provide genuine community, friendship, and practical support, especially in the early stages of a move. The risk is confusing membership in an international community with integration into the wider society, and then judging yourself against a standard that does not match the life you are actually building.
Can you feel at home abroad without being fully integrated?
Yes. Belonging does not require integration into every layer of a society. A person can feel genuinely at home within a specific community, whether that is an expat network, a diaspora group, or a professional environment, without being deeply embedded in the broader local culture. The more useful question is not whether you are fully integrated but where your belonging currently lives and whether that is the life you actually want.
This post grew directly out of observations shared by Ludmila Ghil, who speaks fluent Thai and has lived the experience she describes from the inside. Her question, integrated with whom, her observations about the prestige asymmetry between languages, cultural superiority in expat communities, the relational meaning of farang, and what changes when you learn a language deeply enough, made this post possible. Thank you Ludmila.
The original post that started this conversation is here. Click Here
Jessica Gabrielzyk
If you have ever wondered whether you are inside the right community or simply the most convenient one, Parenting Unpacked was written for that question. 💛
