When I spend time reading about culture in other countries, especially Japan and South Korea, but also China, it sometimes sounds intolerable to me. Not because I think it can be said to be overall worse than the one I'm in, it's just bad in ways that I am not acclimated to and would struggle to tolerate. I grew up in the United States, and I have developed spiritual/psychological callouses that let me operate here. Maybe another analogy would be microbiome and immune response.

Anyway, I'm sure the reality is different. These are just the way I make sense of what I hear. After all, people do travel and manage to thrive in many places.