Current Mood:
Confused
I believe the expression is that the good comes with the bad. This is always true I believe. There are always negative sides to things, or ways of looking at situations and events in a negative way. You can try to be optimistic, but the bad is always there. That’s what I do. I always try to be optimistic and accept the negative points of life while embracing the positive things. But even the best of us can stumble from time to time.
Since coming here, I have exchanged a few emails with Carnegie Mellon’s study abroad coordinator, Eve Mergner about the issue of culture shock, which I am most certainly experiencing. She sent me the study abroad student handbook, which has a large section about culture shock. For lack of a desire to create a structure for this entry, I will simply respond to the various parts of the culture shock section of the handbook. If you are interested, you can download the whole PDF file for yourself and read through it. I have found it to be very helpful. The section on culture shock starts on page 31.
Study Abroad Handbook.pdf
Understanding Culture Shock
Culture shock is a slow, cumulative feeling of frustration. Many factors contribute to the mounting feeling of culture shock. It can cause intense discomfort, often accompanied by hyperirritability, bitterness, resentment, homesickness, and depression. In some cases distinct physical symptoms of psychosomatic illness occur.
This is exactly as I feel. In Switzerland the culture was very similar to my own, on the Marshall Islands, I lived on a military base with Americans, in Turkey, it’s very different. Many aspects of life are different and many things contribute to negatively to my life. Hopefully I can outline some of those for you.
Culture shock comes from:
- Being cut off from the cultural cues and known patterns with which you are familiar — especially the subtle, indirect ways you normally have of expressing feelings.
- living and/or working over an extended period of time in a situation that is ambiguous.
- having your own values (which you had heretofore considered as absolutes) brought into question — which yanks your moral rug out from under you.
- being continually put into a position in which you are expected to function with maximum skill and speed but where the rules have not been adequately explained.
Not everyone will experience a severe case of culture shock, nor will all the symptoms be observed in any single individual. Many people sail through culture shock with relative ease, only now and again experiencing the more serious reactions. But many others do not. One might say that culture shock is the occupational hazard of overseas living that one has to be willing to go through in order to have the pleasures of experiencing other countries and cultures.
Points two and four are the ones that really struck a cord in me, and inspired me to share this pamphlet with you. The first, living/working in an ambiguous situation is very frustrating. Because of the language barrier, I have to rely on other people to take care of things in my life. My visa, air conditioning in my apartment, wind surfing club membership and lessons, information I need about our compressors, health insurance questions… everything requires that I go through someone else to get done. My attitude has always been to tackle something immediately, quickly see that it’s done and then be free of it. Adding a middleman to the process who must translate and do some leg work for me, adds time. Further more, the fact that they are Turkish means that there is no rush to get it done. I am therefore put in a situation where I don’t know when the guy will come and install my air conditioning, and I each day, I am told a new day that they will come. I have very little confidence in the people that I have to rely on in my life.
The second point is somewhat my own doing. I don’t think I am expected to continually function at maximum skill and speed at all, but I feel I should. I hate wasting time – you may have another opinion about how I use my time, but I argue it is never wasted if I can help it – and sometimes I feel like I should be doing more. Furthermore, there are high expectations for Murat and I here and I feel a bit ill equipped at times to meet those expectations. I have spent six weeks asking every week to get documentation in English, and each week, I am told it is being done. It wasn’t until this week that the issue was actually addressed. Thus, for many things, I am forced to work at the leisurely speed of the rest of the company (thus why I have had so much time to blog), which drives me crazy (it also drove me crazy in the Marshal Islands, but Danny and I continually found new tasks for ourselves). Even small things about changes in the working hours that don’t get told to me add a little bit more ambiguity and therefore stress to my life. I could go on and on forever, but it would just be me being very critical, which doesn’t help anything. I just want to give you an idea.
In order to understand culture shock better and therefore how
to counteract it, you should recognize that there are distinct
stages of personal adjustment while living abroad.
These stages are:
- Initial euphoria
- Irritability and hostility
- Gradual adjustment
- Adaptation or biculturalism
So I am not sure which of these phases I am in right now. I am sometimes in all of the first three. In Switzerland I never made it stage four because I didn’t interact with the Swiss too much. They were not terribly friendly or welcoming so I stuck to the foreigners. Perhaps we foreigners had an Erasmus student culture all our own that I adopted.
Progressive Stages of Culture Shock
1. Initial Euphoria
Most people begin their study abroad experience with great
expectations and a positive mindset. If anything, they come
with expectations that are too high and attitudes that are too
positive toward the host country. At this point, anything new
is intriguing and exciting. But, for the most part, it is the
similarities that stand out. The newcomer is really impressed
with how people everywhere are really very much alike. This
period of euphoria may last from a week to a month, but the
letdown is inevitable. You’ve reached the end of the first
stage.
This is how all my weekends feel; Full of energy and excitement. I am anxious to meet new people and to take advantage of all the wonderful things that a culture center like Istanbul has to offer.
2. Irritability and Hostility
Gradually, your focus turns from the similarities to the dif-
ferences, and these differences, which suddenly seem to be
everywhere, are troubling. You overreact and turn little,
seemingly insignificant difficulties into major catastrophes.
This is the stage generally identified as culture shock, and
you may experience any of the symptoms listed in the chart.
Irritable and whiney from time to time, check!
3. Gradual Adjustment
The crisis is over, and you are on your way to recovery. This
step may come so gradually that, at first, you will be un-
aware that it is even happening. Once you begin to orient
yourself and are able to interpret some of the subtle cultural
clues and cues that passed by unnoticed earlier, the culture
seems more familiar. You become more comfortable in it
and feel less isolated from it. Gradually, too, your sense of
I am getting there. I becoming more and more comfortable with my situation as I have to rely on other people less and less.
humor returns and you realize the situation is not hopeless
after all.
I will rue the day I lose my humor. Humor is extremely important to me. It is often a healthy way to release stress and pent up negative energy. It is also very important I think to be able to laugh at yourself. If you begin to take yourself to seriously, and cannot laugh at yourself, you will lose your humor all together.
4. Adaptation and Bi-culturalism
Full recovery will result in an ability to function in two cul-
tures with confidence. You will even find a great many cus-
toms, ways of doing and saying things, and personal attitudes
which you enjoy — indeed, to which you have in some de-
gree acculturated — and which you will definitely miss
when you pack up and return home. In fact, you can expect
to experience “reverse culture shock†upon your return to the
United States. In some cases, particularly where a person has
adjusted exceptionally well to the host country, reverse cul-
ture shock may cause greater distress than the original cul-
ture shock.
Not sure I will ever get to this point. I will certainly have to learn Turkish first though.
The interesting thing about culture shock is that there are
routinely not 1 but 2 low points and, even more interestingly,
they will accommodate themselves to the amount of time
you intend to spend in the host country! That is, they will
spread themselves out if you’re going to stay for a longer
period or contract if your initial plans are for a shorter time.
How long will culture shock last? As we have suggested, that
varies with the length of your stay. But it also depends to
some extent on you and your resiliency, and on the degree to
which you are immersed in the culture. You can expect a
letup after the first dip, but be prepared for the second down-
turn, which will probably be somewhat more severe. Stop a
moment and consider what you can do on your own to com-
bat the onset and alleviate the effects of culture shock.
Responding to Culture Shock
1. Realize that, in fact, practically everybody who goes over-
seas for a substantial period of time experiences culture
shock in some form and to some degree. It’s natural and not
a sign that you’re deficient or strange — and you’ll live
through it as thousands of others have.
2. Be ready for the lesson culture shock teaches. Culture is a
survival mechanism which tells its members not only that
their ways of doing things are right but also that they are
superior. Culture shock stems from an in-depth encounter
with another culture in which you learn to the contrary that
there are different ways of doing things that are neither
wrong nor inferior. It teaches a lesson that cannot be learned
as effectively by any other means: that one’s own culture
does not possess the single right way, best way or even a
uniformly better way of providing for human need and en-
joyments. Believing it does is a kind of imprisonment —
from which the experience of culture shock, as painful as it
may be, can liberate you.
The importance of this point is often overlooked, and I constantly remind myself of this. It is very easy to sit back and say the US is better because of this, this and this. But that means closing one’s mind and learning nothing. It is not easy. When people ask me what my impressions of Turkey are, and how it compares to the US, I stop them, and simply respond that it’s just different. I try to not focus on the differences so much and instead I try to understand all that I do not understand here without making comparisons to my own culture. Of course, this is impossible to do absolutely, but it is not a bad thing to work towards. Like being bilingual, being bicultural takes a very long time to achieve. Thinking in terms of another culture is perhaps more difficult than simply thinking in another language.
3. Select one or two areas of interest and investigate them
more thoroughly than the other topics. If you are a fan of
American football, for example, don’t just sit around and
grouse about missing the weekly games. Cultivate an interest
in their football – soccer — or other national sports.
I am working on doing exactly this. It’s just things move slowly in Turkey. I would be more comfortable if I had a bit more routine in my life.
4. Begin, if you haven’t done so already, to consciously look
for logical reasons behind everything in the host culture that
seems strange, difficult, confusing, or threatening. Take
every aspect of your experience and look at it from their per-
spective. Search for patterns and interrelationships. You
may be surprised to find that the pieces fit together once you
discover where they go. Relax your grip on your own culture
a little in the process. There’s no way you can lose it any
more than you could forget your knowledge of English by
learning another language.
Sort of what I said in point 2.
5. Make a list of all the positive things that you can identify
about your present situation. (Ignore the negative — which
you’ve probably been concentrating on too much anyway.)
Then tack the list up somewhere where you’ll see it during
the course of your day. You may find it helpful to find an
American who has been there longer, experienced culture
shock, and has a positive attitude towards the host country.
Discuss your feelings and try to get a new sense of perspec-
tive.
6. Avoid those Americans or other foreigners who are in a
permanent state of culture shock and who spend their days
seeking company to commiserate with. They will only per-
petuate any feelings of culture shock you may already have.
I follow this one fairly well. Leyla is the only American I know here, but Murat points out that Tahsin and Izzy are somewhat Americanized. My rebuttal is that they understand English and are not afraid to speak it with me, unlike many others.
7. Don’t succumb to the temptation to disparage the host
culture yourself. Resist making jokes and denigrating com-
ments such as “well, what else would you expect from these
people?†They only reinforce your beleaguered sense of self
or shaky feelings of superiority and slow down the process of
adaptation and of recapturing the true feelings of worth you
are searching for. Avoid other people who make such jokes.
I try…
8. On the other hand, work at maintaining a healthy sense of
humor. Be ready to laugh at yourself. It’s one of the best
antidotes to culture shock there is. Making silly mistakes
because of your unfamiliarity with the culture may cause you
to feel foolish or childish, but the embarrassment will pass.
Share your gaffes with family and friends and get them out
of your system with a good laugh.
Said this already.
9. Make friends with host nationals and try to develop a
deeper, more intimate relationship with one or two of them.
Discuss with them the problems you’ve been having, taking
care to present them in a way that doesn’t sound like you’re
criticizing their culture. It is a truism that Americans who
spend their time associating only with other Americans or
others like them never do adjust to the host country.
I do. The one thing I always loved about Turks is that they make great friends. They are extremely loyal, but as I am learning, they are a bit unreliable. They of course do not see this as a problem but it can be frustrating.
10. When you look for advice, focus on how you are feeling
— what is going on inside you — rather than on what you
consider the causes of your problems, especially when
you’re inclined to think they lie in what is wrong in the host
culture.
I am an engineer, I think in terms of cause and effect, and try to analyze whole systems. Thinking this way is more challenging than it seems.
11. As you adjust to and function more comfortably within
the value system of your host country, don’t worry that you
may lose your own values. This is a thought that comes
quite naturally at some point or other to most people who
live abroad. Your values are much deeper and more
permanent than that. To act according to the customs of your
host country, when and where it is appropriate, does not
make you less of an American. It only makes you more com-
fortable and enables you to feel more at home.
I like the value system that I have, and I think it’s important to stay true to it. I am not sure how much agree with this point. Perhaps I am misreading it. Baris did tell me that I am “the most American guy [he] ever met.†So perhaps I am acting opposite to what this paragraph is saying.
12. During the deepest plunges into culture shock, take a trip
— get away to a scenic spot or a nearby country. When you
return, be open to having good “coming back home†feel-
ings.
Izmir, Efes, Kordon…
13. Prepare some kind of presentation about the U.S. for
your hosts, using slides, film or some other kinds of visuals.
You will have to prepare this before you leave home. Be-
come an “unofficial ambassador†whose mission it is to cor-
rect some of the many misconceptions which replays of The
OC, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Friends have cre-
ated in people’s minds overseas.
I show people lots of episodes of Southpark and The Office. I also never turn down the chance to talk about culture with who ever is interested.
There you have it, a program to get you safely though culture
shock and to make sure that the rewards which come with
the overseas experience will be yours to relive for the rest of
your life.
There you have it: A quick rundown of the bad in my life. Don’t worry though. I am a big boy and I can take care of myself. Just thought you might all be interested to know that life isn’t perfect. This blog may be a window into my life, but it has been a rose colored window. Thanks for the info Eva.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Angry
Recent Comments