It takes more than a few years to understand a different people.

In the novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursulak Leguin, the main character Genly Ai struggles to fit in with a new people. Genly is an envoy sent to a completely different planet, Gethen, which means Winter, his mission there is to establish a political connection from the Ekumen, a galactic governing body, to the planet. Genly not only has incredible difficulty adapting to the extremely harsh weather of the planet, but also a very difficult time trying to understand those who live there. His first concern is that the people of Gethen do not have a define sexuality this proves to cause many barriers in the way Genly approaches certain situations. Another problem is the fact that the king of Karhide, one of Gethens largest cities, is completely insane, and within his insanity lies a great fear of the mysterious alien, which makes the king view the envoy as a possible threat. Along with all of this Genly has to put up with the fact that no one in Karhide will actually tell him anything of what is happening. Genly's other problem which in a way he creates himself is the fact that he does not really want to believe in some of the Gethenian rituals "I had been longer in Karhide now than the Investigators had, and i doubted that there was anything to the stories of the Foretellers and their prophecies."-pg 55. Much like when Genly does this he prejudges other things of Gethen, such as when he lost an ally, Estrevan, and he thought that he had been completely betrayed.