Henry Lau Quotes

I was very surprised when I first started spending time in America. The culture shock was something I wasn't prepared for. I had a lot of work to do to try to begin to understand this enormous and complex country that I thought would be an easy process.

In addition to the research, I enjoyed learning French and assimilating the culture of another country.

I couldn't settle in Italy - it was like living in a foreign country.

China was the first time I truly felt like an outsider. I fell in love with the process of trying to become intimate with the culture.

Foreigners are not like the people I am used to here.

It's hard when you are trying to ingratiate yourself in a completely foreign world. It takes a long time.

As an immigrant, I learned by watching other people.

If I had not been coached well about how to deal with a culture and a set of values that were foreign to my own, I would not have been able to be successful.

I didn't realize how interesting the place I come from is until I left home and saw how other cultures handled things differently.

If you go in Spain, you have to play with another style. The English culture is the English culture. If you come here, you have to play in this style.

I felt like the Germans were being mean to me at training, but they were actually just trying to help. I learned really quick - which made me a better player. I'm appreciative of the way they treated me. It's just the language and, of course, as an American, I had to learn that. No offense to them; I love them to death, and I love my teammates.

I actually love the challenge of being in a new place where I'm so obviously the foreigner.

When I was 16 I took the first opportunity I had to play basketball in a different country. I flew to Europe for the first time and found myself in the small town of Macon, in France. That was the first time I lived far away from my people, from my culture. I was young and had to adapt quickly.

When you're an outsider and going into a culture like America, it's easier to stay away from any cliches because you're not really aware of what they are.

Going to the U.A.E. for the first time was a real cultural shock. Everything was different. People didn't speak my language, it was all new, a huge change. But I loved it.

Breaking down barriers, succeeding away from home, living in another country, another culture, different football, makes you much stronger.

Culture shock is often felt sharply at the borders between countries, but sometimes it doesn't hit fully until you've been in a place for a long time.

I had the interesting experience of having lived and worked for six years in China with Procter & Gamble, and that just changes, I think, your whole perspective in living overseas and living in a country like China.

I feel a little schizophrenic because my life is so totally different from here, obviously. And the French values are so different from American values.

You experience other cultures to give you a kind of shock that makes you look at your own culture. You appreciate it more as a result of being out of it, but you also realise there are some things lacking in your culture.

I am more than proud to be European. I love Europe, I love France, but I have an American mentality, and I don't know why. The way I see things, the way I talk, I'm the kind of person who, if I want to say something, I will say it - sometimes in Europe, it's not always what you need to do.

When I left the U.S. for the first time, I spent my first year abroad in Japan. That culture shock and abundance of new stimuli combined with a lack of guidance forced me to develop my own approaches to learning and juggling.

I do want to learn the way to do it over here. I'm not really looking to just go about my way and do it in the Japanese way that I've been doing. Basically, I'll try to get some advice, learn the way it's done here and go about it.

It's fascinating when you're from another place, but you don't speak the language.

Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds.