Job Discussion Forums

[sweeney66]

http://www.worldwide.edu/travel_planner/culture_shock.html

Thought this might be a useful link for newbies to Latin America, or for anyone wishing to help or just understand.

[Phil_K]

Excellent article. It would reach a wider audience posted on the Newbies forum.

[notamiss]

Very good article.

There's one thing the author doesn't cover, though, and that's the cyclical nature of acceptance. Various other authors have written about how the path from honeymoon through culture shock to acceptance isn't strictly one-way and linear.

You may have experienced this yourselves. Once you reach acceptance, it isn't necessarily a stable state. Rather, you may find yourself cycling or oscillating between acceptance and non-acceptance. At some times, or with some aspects, you feel "yes, it even makes more sense than my home culture" or at least "I'll never understand it but I can live with it." And then later, or with other aspects, you'll be "Arrgh! Why don't they just...." or "This country could be so much better if they would...."

I think it's helpful to know that many people go through this cyclical process, because if you realize that it happens to others, not just to you, you don't feel like you're failing if you go through one of those frustration stages after having already reached a degree of acceptance and adaptation.

[GueroPaz]

notamiss, you are right about acceptance being cyclical, going backward. During my honeymoon phase, I was thrilled by the new sights, the Asians with Mayan faces, all the unpronounceable new things. I was blind to the abysmal state of the mockery that passes as education here. Considering I was a new TEFLer, it only took a short time to wake up and smell the hypocrisy. After five years, it only gets worse. But my language difficulties ebb and flow (that is, my acceptance of my inability to speak Thai after I learned Spanish and even a few words of Tzotzil). My internet speed remains below 100 kbs, and I still rant about that.

So yes, it is uneven. Also, there are some things that some expats never accept.

[sweeney66]

That's a good point, notamiss. But I would call the cyclical part cultural adjustment. You can be frustrated anywhere.
I've been in Mexico for three years, two in Mexico City. There are things I like about it and things I don't like, and things I'll probably never understand.
But for me, that would probably be true anywhere.

I had an episode of culture shock so severe as a kid in India that it was more like medical shock. I shut down completely and slept for almost three days straight. My family was so worried that they called a doctor! But being a kid, I recovered just as fast. I think that kind of inoculated me against future events.

I recently encountered someone who was having an enormous culture shock meltdown, cursing and name calling, the whole nine yards, and it caused a strange reaction in me. It made me really angry. And that's just not my style. So I wanted to change the question from 'WHAT THE F*#* IS WRONG WITH HIM!!!???" to "Well, what is wrong with him, anyway?"

[jfurgers]

Excellent article Sweeney. A good one for me at this time. I'm happy now that I may have a job.

When I first moved from Kentucky to Texas I went through culture shock. It seemed like Texans in the Dallas and surrounding areas were rude.I believed that when I moved there and I stillbelieve that 11 years later.

But now when i go back to Kentucky to visit old friends and a few of my family members, I suffer from culture shock there also. I see huge billboards throughout Kentucky saying,repent!!!! the time is nigh!!! Plus a lot of other religious billboards.

Plus the people drive with manners and they are (in general) a lot nicer and that takes some time to get used to, being around nice people after living in the Dallas area for so long where the only thing that seems to matter is appearence and money.

So it's possible to suffer from culture shock even within ones own country. Anyone else ever experienced that before???

[MO39]

[J Sevigny]

Absolutely true about the cyclical nature of culture shock.

After eight years here, I'm pretty much used to the country's idiosyncracies but there are still a few things that drive me nuts.

For example, being interviewed by a cabbie everytime I take a taxi.

Where are you from? How long will you be visiting? Strange that you're here when everyone here wants to go there. Do you like Mexican women? Blah, blah, blah.

Often, it's the indirect way that questions are asked that frustrates me.

No eres de aqui, verdad?

This, when there are few people who look more "gringo" than me.

Then, of course, when the cabbie finds out I'm an English teacher, there's a litany about a son, daughter or other young relative who studied "up to level 12" at some MacLanguage School. And the other question: is it harder to learn English or Spanish?

Ahh, and why do Americans build houses out of wood when there are tornadoes, earthquakes and terrorist attacks every day.

I know most people are trying to be friendly and I appreciate that. But the fact that the questions are always exactly the same leads me to believe that they come from some common source, probably the television, which is the root of all evil.

[jfurgers]

[notamiss]

[Guy Courchesne]

Some of the best conversations I've had in Mexico were with taxi drivers, in English, French, and Spanish. You find the most interesting stories in the strangest places.

[GueroPaz]

I miss Mexican taxistas. I had to go alone from Bangkok to my old place at the beach, a two hour taxi ride. Absolute silence, no common language. In fact, my friend on the mobile phone that tried to tell the taxi driver where I was going, told me later the driver did not understand Thai, either. Nearly as bad as the Nigerian and Ethiopian taxistas in Houston. I kept thinking that in two hours in a Mexican taxi - make that one hour - I would have known the taxista's life story and he would have known mine.

I once went to Matamoros for the first time in a year to be anywhere in the Republic, and right away I felt at home in the market, buying a Mana CD and a classic E. Zapata camiseta. Mind you, some of the merchants on the border do not want to bargain in pesos - only dollars.

[MO39]

[ontoit]

This may be strange to say, but there are three ways to live on someone else's turf:

1. Accept and embrace the superiority of the other's turf, the food, the women, the culture, etc, and agree quickly and earnestly when individuals from that turf point out the failings and absurdities of where you come from. In short, take your place at the bottom of the pecking order and embrace it.

2. Isolate yourself in your own world within the other's turf to minimize the need for the above. In short, live alone in a crowded world.

3. Be who you are, do what you do, and enjoy all the flavors, agree or disagree as you wish while not taking or meaning anything in a personal way. In short, live your life rather than defend it.

[jfurgers]