Being immersed in another culture certainly changes your outlook on life, doesn't it? For me, I never really lived *outside* the US per-say, but I grew up on a town on the US-Mexico border, so I was exposed to both cultures pretty much since Day 1. You start to appreciate the culture and experiences you have here moreso than others who've never stepped outside of it.

This is the other major aspect to translation/localization: the ability to bring the translated text into a completely different culture than your own, and make it seamless, as if it never existed in another language.