Given that, I feel like you complaining that it made you feel as if you are "walking on eggshells" is meant to be manipulative toward getting me to concede your desires for the culture.

Good luck with that, anywhere. Believe what I say or not, I couldn't care less care how you feel in regard to my good faith sincerity. For Pete's sake. This is a stranger on the internet. I'm not your mother.

You're more than welcome to ignore what I say. I am not invested in you believing me, and this is not whatsoever a debate. I'm informing you of the reality on the ground as I know it to be. You seem to think that you are debating with the culture through me, somehow. My word.

As for the rest: I wrote a long response and then deleted it because of how crazy your response is on multiple assertions. From the reversal of your prior core complaint (to what, try to marginalize the common etiquette by now saying that you never come across it when it was the subject of your prior complaint?), to the hostile label, to the supposed and pointless correction of my phrasing that requires ignoring that it was in the context of your initial complaint. You are being argumentative just to be so, predicated on a false premise to boot. Your post isn't worth responding to more specifically. It's not hard at all to see why you might have some cultural trouble. Though, given what I now see, perhaps it isn't cultural trouble exactly. Perhaps it has more to due with your specific personality. As I have known many more perfectly polite and conversationally skilled foreigners than not.

If this quality of response is typical of your conversational skill, and refraining from it is "walking on eggshells", then I'd suggest you get used to that in order to get by.

Or maybe taking a communication class would help. A lot of people have stumbling blocks of various types, and not only with the specific issue under discussion. Even those who were born here. Conversation is an artform.