This is the question I was asked yesterday.
I wish I had a good answer.
After I waffled for a while, the person who asked tried a different tactic. “Can you recommend a good book on how to overcome culture shock?” she asked.
Um … nope. If you can, please tell me about it. I can recommend books on differences between cultures, and a few articles about what to expect when in a new-to-you culture, but not one book which specifically addresses strategies for overcoming culture shock.
Hence this blog post.
What is culture shock?
It was a hot and humid afternoon. All day I had been in class trying to get my tongue around the sound ‘ts’ – a sound I can say easily when it ends a word like ‘cats’, but couldn’t say at the start of a word like ‘tsai’ (菜 – vegetables in Chinese). Then I returned to my homestay accommodation, where a kind and generous Taiwanese family hosted me. I climbed the stairs and turned my key in the lock.
Removing my shoes, I entered their home and sat wearily on a tatami mat in the Japanese style bedroom in front of the fan. How could I be so exhausted this early in the day? The mother came in and said ‘Blah blah blah ‘ … something I didn’t understand. Then taking me by the hand and leading me to the bathroom, she gestured to the toilet paper and the bin and the toilet and suddenly I understood. I should throw used toilet paper in the open topped rubbish bin rather than flush it.
Had I clogged their system? I hadn’t noticed, but then again I don’t usually stand around and watch the paper go down … or I hadn’t up until that point. I do now.
Tears flooded my face. It was an over-reaction, I knew. It wasn’t just the toilet paper. It was everything.
The kind lady took me by the arm and led me out of the apartment. Her kids didn’t need to witness this meltdown. We walked down the street, around the block, me sniffling and dripping sweat while she talked. What she said I don’t know, but I did understand the words ‘Home’, ‘mother’ and ‘father’. They brought on fresh paroxysms of grief.
And that, friends, is culture shock.
An official definition
Culture shock: a sense of confusion and uncertainty sometimes with feelings of anxiety that may affect people exposed to an alien culture or environment
“Culture shock.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture%20shock. Accessed 11 Aug. 2022without adequate preparation
(I added the strikethrough since some of us can be quite well prepared but still experience culture shock, albeit perhaps less intensely than had we no preparation at all.)
When in the midst of this confusion, uncertainty and anxiety, we may react in different ways. In my case, I was constantly exhausted. I was no longer sure of who I was, although it was clear that I wasn’t the competent professional teacher than I had been in my home country. Any little thing irritated me. And during my first year or so, I was obsessed with fresh, fluffy, familiar bread, with the expected results.
The good news is that most of us adjust. Eventually.
Adjustment
The following diagram shows the usual period of adjustment to a new culture.
In the ‘honeymoon phase’, everything is new and wonderful. I made new friends, wandered the night market marvelling in every little thing and even raved over durian (a sweet but stinky fruit).
Then we often become negative and struggle to manage well. The humidity drained my energy. I craved privacy and even became frustrated with the two cute little girls in the family with whom I stayed who often looked through my belongings and poked my white skin in wonder. (I hope, though, that I didn’t communicate that frustration to them.) It was during this phase that I had my meltdown over the toilet paper correction.
Eventually we adjust and move on into our ‘new normal’. We are not the same as we once were, but we’re generally doing well. After two or three years, I was back in the classroom as a teacher (though I never stopped being a language student), enjoyed practising hospitality in my home and felt like I had something to offer once again.
The curve looks nice and neat, but in my experience, it is more often a wriggly line though following this general shape of a dip and a rise.
Some tips for weathering ‘culture shock’
The friend who asked me how to overcome culture shock would rather like a quick and easy answer, I suspect. So would I.
However, the following tips are the best I can do.
- Realistic expectations
It’s normal to be tired and grumpy. That doesn’t give me license to sin, but it is helpful to have realistic expectations of my need for extra sleep, time out, and a little more ‘tender loving care’ than usual. Expecting this adjustment period is important, and recognising that it may last for months and even several years keeps us from giving up in frustration. - Suspend judgement
Our language coach told us early on, “For the first two years at least, I don’t want to hear a word of criticism about how things are done locally. For example, don’t walk out of this room and say, “Why are they MOPPING the carpet rather than vacuuming it?”
To my astonishment, we did walk out of that room and find staff mopping the carpet in the hallway! Many years later, I now spray my own carpet square with water before brushing it in order to get the car hair out of it. - Use a ‘task list’
I thought I should enjoy social times with Chinese friends. And I did … eventually. But in my early years in China, it was exhausting. That was amplified even further in settings such as a ballroom dancing hall where many of my friends liked to go. Once I decided to make it a ‘language and culture learning task’ and added it to my task list, to be ticked off, I embraced such activities more enthusiastically. In fact, it even became fun! - Find a ‘cultural broker’
There are people who have a reasonable understanding of both local culture and of my background, and these people can be exceptionally helpful in making sense of all we see and experience. - Educate myself as best I can about the culture which I am trying to understand
There are some fabulous resources out there. Some are more general while others are specific to the particular cultures with which I am interacting. In my case, adapting to a predominantly North American team proved to be an unexpected stress, but finding a little book about Australian / North American differences helped a lot … as did giving it to North American colleagues to read! (I think the world of some of my North American friends, by the way.)
A blessing
The New Testament character Saul was a tremendously competent and powerful Jewish leader … until his position and power was stripped from him on the road to Damascus. He went on to become the apostle Paul, an exemplary cross-cultural missionary and early church leader.
Paul claimed to ‘boast in his weaknesses’ rather than his many strengths. He wrote about a ‘thorn in the flesh’ – something we can’t identify exactly from his writings. I doubt it was ‘culture shock’ but I think the application – to take pride in our confused, exhausted, frazzled state in the midst of culture shock – is valid. Paul wrote this:
“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses…. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:10
The blessing I would like to speak over my friends and colleagues in the thick of culture shock, then, is one which you can speak over me when I next find myself struggling to adjust to a different environment for a season. It is this:
May Christ’s power be evident even and especially through your weaknesses. May you remain focused on the one who calls you, for he is strong.
Ouch. Now I don’t think that is the response my friend wanted to hear when she asked, “How do you overcome culture shock?”
Slowly, slowly, my friend.