Prepare Yourself for Culture Shock

Melissa has been living overseas for 2 1/2 months and lately, finds herself feeling disorientated, anxious, and frustrated. much of the time. She is surprised by these feelings because when she first arrived, she had fallen in love with her new culture, where she was enraptured with the novelty and wonder of everything she explored. Lately however, her patience is weak, her temper flares often, and she overreacts to the smallest differences between her old and new worlds.

She now has insomnia, feels nauseated often, feels frustrated when riding on a bus without knowing where to get off, becomes impatient when a salesperson asks her to repeat herself for the third time, and she feels the need to bathe and wash her hands frequently. Sometimes Melissa feels she is being treated like a child. All of a sudden, nothing seems familiar or automatic, and for the first time in her life, she feels hopeless and helpless and embarrassed. She feels homesick, mentally fatigued, and lonely.

What Is Culture Shock?

Melissa is experiencing culture shock, something that everyone who lives in a new culture for an extended period of time experiences in reaction to the differences which surround them in a new environment. In short, culture shock refers to the anxiety and feelings (of surprise, disorientation, confusion, etc.) felt when people have to operate within an entirely different cultural or social environment, such as a foreign country

Causes

Most experts in intercultural communication agree that the basic cause of culture shock is the abrupt loss of the familiar, which in turn causes a sense of isolation and diminished self-importance. "Culture shock", says anthropologist Kalvero Oberg, "is brought on by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse. These signs or cues include the thousand and one ways in which we orient ourselves to the situation of daily life: when to shake hands and what to say when we meet people; when and how to give tips; how to give orders to servants; how to make purchases; when to accept and when to refuse invitations; when to take statements seriously and when not."

According to Dr. Oberg, these cues, which may be words, gestures, facial expressions or customs, are acquired by all of us in the course of growing up and are as much a part of our culture as the language we speak or the beliefs we accept. All of us depend for our peace of mind on hundreds of these cues, even though we may not be consciously aware of them. "When an individual enters a strange culture," Dr. Oberg says, "all or most of these familiar cues are removed. He or she is like a fish out of water. No matter how broad-minded or full of good will he may be, a series of props has been knocked out from under him."

Symptoms

Common symptoms of culture shock are as follows: hostility toward the new environment, anxiety in public situations, irritation over delays and other minor frustrations, refusal to learn the language of the host country, paranoia of being harmed, physical illnesses, insomnia, changes in diet, preoccupation with returning home, depression, isolation, excessive criticism of the new culture, and longing to be around people from one's own culture

Those unaccustomed to being part of a minority group, generally suffer from culture shock the greatest.

Spouses, accompanying their mates or a work assignment abroad are particularly vulnerable to severe culture shock, because they are interacting with the new culture on a regular bases, often without support from members of their own culture.

Phases of Culture Shock

According to Michael Winkleman, a scholar on culture shock, “there are four distinct phases of culture shock that are experienced by virtually everyone who spends an extended period of time in a different culture.

We will discuss these 4 phases in the next post.