Job Discussion Forums

[Henry_Cowell]

Most likely very true, Silly.

[Don McChesney]

SS, I think your definition of culture shock as being a lifelong thing is a bit sweeping and a generalisation.
I went to live in Australia over 30 years ago from England. The differences were not 'shocking', but very pleasing from day 1.
I never wanted to go back to the UK, and would dread the thought if I had to.
So perhaps 'culture shock' is a longing for the familiar, until one is comfortable with the present, then it becomes merely 'nostalgia'. Think about the "Vegemite" forum. Culture shock or regression?

[SillySally]

Don do you really think going from England major to England minor is .... lol

Of course you are right Don. I yield.

[Don McChesney]

SS. Dieu et mon droit


"My God, I'm right."

[SillySally]

First time for everything!

[Brian Caulfield]

This gypsy has only experienced culture schock so what do you call someone who is basically living out of two bags and in their 30th country . I haven't been in Canada for 12 years . If I went back home ,that would be cultural shock. God I love being lost in a foreign country.

[Roger]

THis topic crops up here once every half a year or so. I don't think so many people experience a GENUINE "culture shock".
For that fluffy concept of a malady to really take hold of you you need to experience real anguish, depression and despair - to an extent our modest existences do not cause us.
I would call "culture shock" a suffering that results when someone really loses their bearings. This may be the case when they have to throw all their lifelong beliefs and values over board.
IT is self-evident that this can happen to you even in a place you are familiar with.
It happens, for example, when your creed, religion, political persuasion is declared illegal or wrong. This alienates you from your own people, and in some countries it sometimes alienates you from your next-of-kin - China, the former SU, come to mind.
I think people who flee abroad in order to remain true to themselves or loyal to their adopted faith - political or religious - experience "culture shock", whatever this lofty concept means.
It happened to Wang Dan, Albert Einstein, Wuer Kaixi, Gandhi, Solzhenitsin, Fan LIzhi, Salman Rushdie, and lots others.
It probably happened to hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants to Palestine though their plight was definitely cushioned by their common Zionist ideal; exceptions such as Adolf Koestler experienced it because they could not accept the new ideology with all its warts.
But what we TEFLers experience is incomparably mild and it is ludicrous to call it "culture shock".

[tw]

[struelle]

[wigan4]

I think it depends on what you mean by 'culture shock.' I've lived overseas in various places for 12 years and if you add up all the two-week, two-month chunks it's probably another two years Asia, Europe, Africa, Pacific, etc, so in one way I think I'm immune to 'culture shock' in the classic sense of being overwhelmed and 'bothered' by differences.

But there's also just the simple level of 'understanding the rules.' For example, as an American I 'expect' commercial buildings to be purpose-built, and in some sort of generalized 'style.' If I'm looking for a Mexican restaurant I have some ideas what to be looking for; if I'm looking for the tire store I have an idea what it's going to look like--and not look like; if I'm looking for the dentist's office I have an idea what it might look like.

When you get overseas these sorts of subconscious paradigms don't work--or worse, actually work against you. You can look for the 'tire store' in Germany forever until you realize its the residential building with nothing but a little 2-foot square sign tacked to the side. As you're whizzing through town your mind is dismissing that 'home' as a possible suspect--and you can't help it. Sure, I know enough to know that wherever I go things won't 'look' like America, but that doesn't help me know what I should be looking for until I have some experience in place X.

If you're trying to drive straight through town on the 'main road' it won't make sense to you that the road through town loops back on itself two times before finally finding its way out the other side of town somehow. You'll get yourself lost trying to edge in the right direction as the main road loops around and around by trying to apply American rules born of a grid to the hurly-burly of an Italian city center. Your American common-sense rules don't 'work' there and you'll end up lost and frustrated until you learn to quit 'thinking' and just follow the priority road symbol regardless of how it 'feels.'

I remember my 'local' in England--of course the publican and family lived upstairs. There was a little handwritten sign at the foot of the stairs pointing up saying 'Restaurant.' I finally asked him if there was really a restaurant upstairs, and he was a bit offended--he said something like 'Can't you see that sign?' But as an American I don't expect a 'restaurant' to be the fourth bedroom set up with a couple of tables and chairs--it just doesn't fit my 'pattern' so I asked the question. I didn't understand the rules.

If you're in a gasthaus and you go up to the bar they're going to think 'You selfish American, just sit and wait your turn like everybody else.' But if you're in a pub and sit at your table waiting for someone to ask you if you'd like another beer you'll sit there forever and they'll think 'You selfish American, get up and get your beer like everybody else.' Now, everybody 'knows the rules' in a pub or a gasthaus--but when you're in a situtation where you don't know the rules you'll be tentative, you won't understand what you're seeing, and you won't know how to act.

I think you can call all these subconscious disconnects and resulting confusion a form of 'culture shock' that will last until you gradually begin to re-form your paradigms and analyze what you see and experience correctly. Until you've learned how to fit all that 'crazy stuff' into patterns properly you're always going to be a bit tentative and unable to operate efficiently and confidently in a situation where you're always questioning whether you're playing by the rules.

It's more benign and doesn't manifest itself by getting upset because people are 'staring at you' or going into a meltdown because you aren't flexible about food or conveniences, but I'd say its still fair to call those things a form of culture shock.