expatriate vs immigrant : the misleading root

Recently i have been wondering why people consider me as an expatriate rather than an immigrant and looking for some tips about it i found out that the web community and social network have been talking over about this matter. But despite a lot of arguments i haven't found a satisfying answer yet.
Unfortunately in this case the latin roots doesn't help, indeed etymologically speaking there's not much difference between expatriate and immigrant.
According to wikipedia (“an expatriate  is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of the person’s upbringing"), you should expect that any person going to work outside of his or her country for a period of time would be an expatriate, regardless of his skin colour or country. On the other hand the majority contend the idea that it's not the case in reality; expat is a term reserved exclusively for western white people going to work abroad. One of the most provocative assumption read so far says that in the lexicon of human migration there are still hierarchical words, created with the purpose of putting white people above everyone else. One of those remnants is the word “expat”.
I think there's the precise intention to amplify a misleading racial discrimination issue with these discussions; the matter in this case is much more simple.
My country of origin has provided so many immigrants around the world and still now most of them proudly consider themselves italian immigrants. Argentina, Australia, Usa, Brazil, Germany are plenty of italian immigrants and, if not mistaken, we are white. So the word "immigrants" doesn't sound discriminating to me.
In my point of view it's not about the social class, country of origin or race. Basically the trick is in the common bad meaning attributed to the term "immigrant". Actually the purpose of the two different groups set the red line between immigrants and expats.
The purpose of an immigrant is to live permanently in a foreign land, leaving the native country because of economic, religion or conflict reasons. And this is exactly what is happening with afrikaans, south americans and middle east people. And the same happened during 50s and 60s for italians. Both in the past and nowadays they strive and struggle to escape from the native land due to the mentioned reasons, with the precise intention to acquire the new citizenship (in some case they also lose the origin country's one).
It's quite easy to understand then, regardless races, that British, Americans, Germans or Scandinavian have not these priorities at all thanks to the wealth conditions typical of such countries and the only reasons that bring them around the world are related to temporary business opportunities. They might set up later in the foreign country but we cannot consider them as immigrants because they still feel belonging to their origin countries and as i notice they live like they were still at home without any cultural integration.
Put in another way, immigrants may have a larger emotional commitment to their new place of residence.
In conclusion i could say that being an expatriate is a choice, but when you're forced to move then you become an immigrant.

South East Asia culture shock

The first time you set foot on south east Asia you feel disoriented, especially if you reach a remote area. Climate and weather make you feel like in a never ending sauna, spicy and intense food flavours make your mouth requiring flood of beer, different habits and manners make your integration hard.
Being an expatriate then is definitely different from a backpacker or a tourist.  As expatriate you look for an ordinary daily life as closest as possible to the one at your hometown. You have to be prepared to accept quite a few weird habits as well as avoid to complain because as i use to say when you are in Rome do as romans do.
If you can't afford it would be so distressing you will regret the day you left.
Working abroad in another culture is not only about facing a language barrier, it's about dealing with other people, manner, religion, food, lifestyle and priorities.
The most important thing is to avoid using your background as the proper culture when trying to understand or accept another habit, customs, what people do or how they do it. Don’t judge the other culture comparing it with yours. It won't help you getting on well with your colleagues or friends.
What may be consider as impolite in Italy is perhaps not at all in Malaysia.

Luckily, my cultural impact with SE Asia has been toned down after few trips in Thailand, China, HK and Japan where i learnt how to get on well with such a different customs and where actually i started to appreciate their philosophical attitude.  They might not be straightforward, they won't socialize at the first approach, people say asians lie, they just smile to mask their emotions, particularly Thai and Japanese. True or not i much prefer people smiling rather than the coldness of other countries.
Anyway my colleagues were quite surprised to see me eating almost everything at the Kopitiam using chopsticks as well as driving easily through the traffic jam of KL or don't complaining about weather and hygienic conditions.
Well, i'm not saying i'm get already used to the local culture, i probably won't get used to it at all. I'm too critic, smartass, curious observer and joker to do it.
Mucking around the malls during the weekend indeed i had the same feeling when i looked astonished at Germans wearing socks with sandal at the Arena of Verona; they might feel comfortable but people like me kept looking at them as a social awkward. I mean Malaysians are not Germans at all and they probably have never worn sandal with socks but the culture shock i've experienced walking around is well represented by the metaphor mentioned.
The outcome of dress policy imposed for women is to a certain extent preferred compared to the appearance habits adopted by malaysian men and that says a lot about it.  I'm not talking about style, not even about a proper colours outfit, i'm not that pretentious. Let's just say that tidiness, hygiene and good smell are not a priority at all for most of them.

Exactly priority, as i said, just like when you see a Mercedes S class 500 owner eating at Kopitiam a 5 MYR dish!