Can you avoid cultural shock (and other psychologic issues) before experimenting it?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In this post, of this thread I was about to start a little polemic about a matter that have obsessed me for a while, but I didn’t because that wasn’t the right place. Well, this is the right one (I hope) ;). I’m picking up this again because I’ve just seen the referred movie and my mind did the trick without consulting me. :rolleyes:

From the depths of a failed relationship that I didn’t really want to recall (but I did), one of our endless discussions was about the cultural shock. My ex-girlfriend lived in Japan for two years (perhaps some of you may remember the case which I exhibited here in SDMB) and she experienced a similar case to Charlotte’s (the girl portrayed by Scarlett Johannson in Lost in Translation). It’s like a coincidence, the only difference is that my ex did left her husband and came to me, only to end, as I said before, in a failed (and disastrous) relationship.

I’m not here to discuss the moral aspects of our case. I’ll pick only the details to enhance my opinion. She felt alone in Japan (married but alone), returned from Japan and we started being together.

But the “cultural shock” was a very difficult issue to beat. She stated that she was very depressed there. And I understood (hormones, I tried to guess). She discovered she didn’t really like her husband. I understood (bad decision, anyone can take it). Difference from cultures was very shocking, I understood that part very well. What I didn’t accepted was when she started to state that if I had been there, I would have suffered that way, too, and I would have depressed in the same level as her.

No, I told her. Not now. Maybe when I was younger, when I was a teenage. Or now, but if I wasn’t aware of such thing exists. You and I are different, I tend to take problems with a philosophical mind. I’m not Confucio, but I try hard. I’m usually calmed in polemics, speaking low and clear, my dear, you’re the opposite. She started yelling me (at that moment I wasn’t aware of her psychologic unstability), feeling hurt, because I’ve never been there, so I can’t talk about it. “End of discussion” she cried. Believe me, she had a tendency to break down for anything, so it’s natural to expect that the proverbial “cultural shock” was an earthquake for her mind.

But there are some people (count me in, please) who are more objective and rational in their view and handling of foreign (or another kind of) experiences. We may be not perfect, but if we know what we are going to face and which the threats and dangers are, maybe the strike will be softer or null at all. I have always believed that for not falling in traps, we have to know where and which ones they are. Maybe all we need is to develop a fine sense of “empathy”.

Please don’t see me as a presumptuous guy or think I started this thread to provoke the “you can’t talk because you haven’t been there” reaction, or to provoke those who had really suffered the cultural shock, I respect you all; I’m only trying to present this idea in the the rationalest possible form. She won’t read this (she doesn’t mind discussion forums), so my concern is not to find a way of beating her (we’re not in touch anymore). But if you like, I’d consider it a challenge, even for another psychological issues as, for example, marriage or drugs/drinking problems. What a pity that I’d have to travel to India or Japan to demonstrate my theory, but as I can’t do it for now, we’ll have to keep it in a theoric level. Or maybe some of you agree with me?

(Note: In case you wonder, we’re both from Mexico)

2

Culture shock is a strange thing.

First of all, it’s not what people often think it is. It doesn’t happen all of a sudden when you get off the plane: “Oh my god! Things are so different!” From what I understand it typically sets in after about two months. At least, that’s how it was in my case.

The strange thing is that you don’t need to feel unhappy to suffer from culture shock. When I went through it, I was having the time of my life. And yet, every morning, I would wake up convinced that my heart was going to stop. Literally. I knew this was completely delusional, but I couldn’t help feeling terrified. Now, that’s one possible expression of culture shock, other people go through more typical depression symptoms.

Like I said, you don’t need to be having a hard time to experience CS. However, if you are having problems already, the depression can have disastrous effects. I have seen friends go through complete, destructive psychological meltdowns as the depression and life circumstances formed a terrible feedback loop. Of course, things like that happen with any sort of depression. In that sense, I don’t think culture shock is much different from, say, seasonal affective disorder.

Often, people will go through cycles, with each depressive episode becoming less intense as your environment starts feeling less foreign. I was lucky to only experience that one episode that didn’t have much destructive potential.

Sometimes worst than culture shock, though, is reverse culture shock. It’s bad because many people don’t expect it. You’ve been through the roller-coaster ride abroad and you’re thinking: “man, it’s going to be good to be back home!” And it is. For about a month. Then, the depression sets in again. This time, however, there is no exit. You can’t tell yourself that if worst comes to the worst you can just go back home. You are home, but home doesn’t feel like home anymore.

Like with any depression, or other psychological ailment, you can never know what people are going through; you can only, at best, empathise. There is nothing to understand as it is completely irrational behaviour.

Can you avoid it? I don’t think so. When it sets in, you can take steps to make it better, you can take precautions so that your temporary mood doesn’t interfere with your life. As far as I understand, and as far as my experiences go, culture shock is not caused by one single thing. Rather, it’s probably triggered by the cumulative stress of having to make many, many little changes in your life. Unconscious changes. Adapting to the way things look, to the smell of air, the sound of the city, the taste of coffee, etc.
Again, remember that while your girlfriend might have gone through bouts of sadness or loneliness (I suppose), you might have a completely different reaction and suffer from insomnia, for instance - although everything else is going fine.

3

That’s it! That’s exactly what happened to her! I forgot that fact, indeed, and it seemed to me as irrational so I couldn’t see it or define it at that time, Luckily, now I know what I’d be facing the day I’ll have to travel and coming back.

Althought I agree with almost everything you said, jovan, I still think that expecting things make them easier to stand. She was a little disturbed already before she went there (I didn’t know that until now), but it seems to me, reading your opinion, that if I can’t avoid culture shock, at least I can turn it into a beautiful experience, rather than make it a disturbing or depressive or difficult episode.

Imagine: “Hey man! How different things are! So? It’s logical! I’m not home! But that doesn’t mean home is better! Now I’m back, in a ‘lesser world’, oh, my! Things are better there! That doesn’t mean home is worse, ok? Places are just places, cultures are cultures, customs are customs” and believe me, we can enjoy it instead or deploring it and let it leading us down, taking things just the way they are!

I’m happy. Then I was right, at least partially right. Knowing this make me feel a lot better.

4

Jovan’s bit is very good. I still think you’re taking this too lightly. Yes, expecting culture shock can help you to deal with it, you can try to take it as upbeat as possible–but that won’t make it go away.

It is really hard work living in a different culture 24/7. Even when you’ve learned the language, you’re walking around in a fog all the time. It is very tiring, because you almost never go on the auto-pilot that we naturally spend most of our time in; instead, you’re in this sort of low-level, watchful, “get ready to fight-or-flight” state all the time. You get angry with yourself for not adjusting faster, and for not knowing exactly what it is you’re not adjusting to. Oh, and you’re gaining (or losing) weight and your digestive system is out of whack, just because the food is different from what your body is used to. And your period has gone all funny (should you be female).

Like jovan, I was having a great time. I had worked hard to get the chance to live in a different country, and I was thrilled. I had a support system designed to help me with the culture shock thing. I am also a congenitally cheery person, virtually never unhappy or blue. I still had a really hard time with the CS thing. It was still difficult, it was still hard work to get through every day, I still cried for no immediate discernible reason. That’s just how it is; your body and your brain can’t adjust to all those subtly and obviously different things without freaking out at least a little.

5

I can’t really speak to the kind of culture shock shown in Lost in Translation, my stint working in a foreign country was more like “three weeks away, four weeks home, three weeks away, four weeks home” over the course of three years. But I feel like I had some moments of mild culture shock.

I think it’s probably true that different people will experience culture shock to varying extents, and some people not at all. Certain types of personalities might be more prone to it, and I guess that being the kind of person who consciously tries to prepare himself for change and new experience could help somewhat.

But I think maybe part of what the OP is missing about culture shock is that it’s, well, shocking. It’s surprising. You can try to anticipate what might feel new or uncomfortable for you, but inevitably there’s something that will have slipped by you, which is precisely what might trigger it. Or things beyond your control – being ill, for example, can be an utterly weird experience while in a foreign country. Or a major event – I’m a New Yorker, and was already off the Italian assignment by the time 9/11 happened, but the guy who picked up the job after me happened to be in Italy then. In addition to all the other emotions that we all went through after that, he found himself experiencing a reaction to life in Italy that wasn’t at all pleasant, because he felt “trapped” there, as if he couldn’t come home even if he wanted to, and this feeling remained even after air travel resumed.

Sometimes I had weird moments of disconnect when I would come across something that was very American, or otherwise very familiar, when I wasn’t expecting it. That became weirder than the things that were obviously foreign.

Sometimes, the thrill of fun new stuff is exhausting. While I didn’t have chronic culture shock of the depression type, after a while I noticed I was much more prone to zoning out than I usually am, it’s like my senses got overloaded with new experiences, and I mentally shut down periodically without even realizing it at first. I am not at ALL a day-dreamy type person in a business situation at home, but in Italy I repeatedly caught myself drifting off mentally. (Like in the middle of staff meetings, my boss loved that :wink: although oddly enough, my boss was a very uptight person at home, and became much more relaxed and social when we were away – her personality changed quite a bit, I think because on some emotional level she felt like she was escaping the personal issues that plagued her at home. Atypical, but possibly a kind of “reverse” culture shock as well.)

Again, I think it’s different for everyone. Some of the people I worked with who seemed to go through it the worst were the same people who claimed to be the most prepared at the onset of the project. The woman who was fearful of it didn’t really seem to get it at all – probably because she spent all her time complaining about how everything was foreign and different, so there was never any jarring situation that caught her off-guard – granted, I don’t think that was a good attitude either, I’m just pointing out that someone who NEVER let herself forget she was in a foreign country was surprised by nothing.

6

Of course, we can prepare ourselves to face the changes. Maybe in my OP, I said avoid, but I’d like to change the verb, maybe make the shock softer.

What I really say is that doesn’t have to damage your psyche, the way you take experiences and handle emotions influences too much in the outgoing result. Please notice that I’m in fact experimenting a kind of CS when I’m dealing with all of you: I’m one of the very few whose native language is spanish (you may notice it in my frequent mistypes), and sometimes I commit some mistakes that make me shiver when I find that I wasn’t correctly understood.

Some years ago, a german guy came to our town and he was very amused and amazed and shocked, that’s right, imagine coming from Germany to a little Mexican town where all customs and social manners are very very different. But he adapted himself really fast. He learned a good spanish in three months, he was 23 and I never saw him depressed. Au contraire, he was very happy in a new sort of freedom that was completely new for him. I saw no signs of CS, at least at a conscious level. He was very smart and self-confident, so I think those could be two important factors. The other case (my ex who cried) was a mess. Well, it’s different, ok, but I’ve known some people here in Mexico who has traveled and doesn’t have suffered that way. So, perhaps the fact I’m trying to defeat is the exaggerations on the effects of the CS rather than the CS per se.

7

Aha. You didn’t see him freak out at all. No one saw me do it either, except that I had some weird episodes of flakiness (like not showing up for important events). Sure, everyone deals with it differently, some better than others. Your girlfriend seems to have been an extreme case, exacerbated by depression and other factors. But the vast majority of people who go to live in another culture for more than a few months do experience some kind of culture shock. (I haven’t seen this movie you mention either, btw.)

Anyhow, I thought about this a little today. And I’ve developed a small theory about CS. Most of it is not on a conscious level; it’s not like you can make it go away completely by smiling and thinking “Hey, it’s all good, happy fun times.” It goes on while you’re having the fun. Because, and here’s my theory, a lot of it comes from your body and brain working hard to adapt to new surroundings. And your instinctual brain does not think that difference is good, and we can all get along if we hold hands and sing. It isn’t modern or civilized; it’s primitively interested in keeping you alive in a mean and nasty world. It knows that different is dangerous, that you’re no longer in your tribe, and that these people just might decide to kill you in your sleep.

8

My hypothese is that it might be caused by accumulated mental fatigue. When I first got off the plane, I thought everyone looked alike. For over 20 years, I had been accustomed to search for certain features on people’s faces to tell them appart. I had to make adjustements to how I looked. Those were small, unconscious adjustements. There are essentially hundreds of little things like that, that you have to cope with - all at an unconscious level. On top of that, you have to adjust physically. You mentioned diet problems, and that is very true. There are also differences in temperature, humidity, ambiant light levels, diseases maybe. All of that takes a toll and for a while, your brain doesn’t function quite the way it should. In many cases, the symptoms are mild. Sometimes, though…

9

Yes! But not my instinctual brain at an unconscious level… that would be a real danger!! :wink:

I agree with you but not so inconsciously. I hope all my fears would be easy to identify… And I prefer it that way. What I fear? What is making me feel so bad? I’m a stranger in a strange land. No one knows me here, and I’m acostumed to see the same people every day. Things are not like home. I fear that I wouldn’t comprehend every aspect of the new social interactions, I’m afraid to be not accepted by the new people… Can we reduce all fears to be identified and try to get a rational solution to all of them. Not unidentifiable fears.

Come on, the most of times that we feel bad, we, the average people, *know * why we feel bad! It’s hard to recognize it but not impossible, with a little training we are able to get the motives of our discomforts. Only the extreme cases reacts hysterically and aren’t capable to get the source of the hysteria.

Agree again. But then, and that’s good for me, then CS can be applied to the sensation of loneliness that I felt when I went to the University (20 years ago), then I had to move from my little town to the big city (Mexico D.F.). So, she had not the right to tell me that I was not able to understand what she felt, only because she was in Japan and I’ve never left our country. I experimented exactly the same sensation. But in two or three weeks I was making friends in the college and feeling better, and she started living with her husband in a building that was *full of latinamerican students * (this is related to my OP). Then, again, I felt she exaggerated with her hysterical behavior.

Just let me state again that she is my ex girlfriend and we’re not in touch anymore. I only try to see if I wasn’t a bad man (as she said) when I told her not to exaggerate. I know, I know, I should have been more tolerant and comprehensive, but the reason I wasn’t… well, the way she behaved is not really the point of this thread. :slight_smile:

10

I’ve had reverse culture shock, and believe me, it’s nasty. I was pretty mad for several months.

The outward part was fine - Japan, China, Hong Kong - I knew things were meant to be different, so I expected it. I felt a little lost and disoriented from time to time, but it wasn’t a problem, because I was in foreign parts.

Returning after a few years, though, really screwed with my head. jovan sums it up beautifully.

My similar take is that your rational mind looks at your home culture and life and instructs you: “this is what is normal”, but you’ve been in an alien place for so long that your subconscious says “aha! But it isn’t! It’s weird to you now.”

So when reality now appears weird, cue panic attacks and deep visceral feelings of loss and sadness. I feel that that particular conflict was at the root of what happened to me.

11

I’m no one to spoil all teachings that come from Freud’s school, but the recent years to date I’m starting to be a little skeptic of the “subconscious” chit chat. I don’t mean you are lying jjimm, I believe you, but I don’t think that because someone have experimented to that level, the rest we have to suffer it the same way.

I have feelings, too, and I don’t pretend to be a robot, like Data, who states that he lacks emotions (and he’s a real nice guy). But I don’t want to fall in the believings that the subconscious mind is always something beyond our control. Maybe with some training, we can enhance the performance of the rational mind to, if not suppresing, understand this feelings, try to neutralize them or at least not to let them take control of our behavior.

I said before that I felt something similar when I moved from my town (really small town) to a big city, where everything was different and no one knew me even in the same block. The same sensations of weirdness, loneliness, I cried, but I noticed that my mind tended to supress them when I saw other people who had adapted very well to the same changes, some of them faster than I did. If I had known all of this stuff at that time, I wouldn’t have cried.

I’m pretty sure that now I can move smoothly to another culture and knowing what is alien here and what is alien there.

12

What you’re describing is “homesickness”, which I have also experienced. Reverse culture shock (if that is in fact what happened to me) is a whole 'nother ballgame. My interpretation, pseudo-Freudian or whatever - though personally think Freud was full of it - is just me trying to get my head round what I went through, which is unlike anything I’ve experienced before.

13

I’ll take your word. But also you take mine, in consequence, that I’m convinced I can. No, sorry, not just me. Everyone like us, rational-oriented people, can do it. I bet that if you were prepared and mind trained, you would also had avoided (ok, not all, but at least in a big amount) the culture shock, or reverse culture shock. That’s what I’m pretending right now, because I hope to travel in a not-so-distant future. And not having the trained and disciplined mind of oriental people.

I also hope to be still part of this boards when I finally made my goal of traveling. Believe me, it’s a personal goal, to know and live in other cultures, as much as demonstrating my theory, not for her, but for me (I don’t give a shit for her anymore, but she inserted the challenge in my mind).

I really like when two (or more persons) may slightly or strongly disagree and keeping being polite as well. That’s why I love the SDMB.

14

There are two ends of the travel spectrum: people who love it and people who hate it. Some people are born to travel and once having been bitten by the Travel Bug, can’t wait to travel again. Some people are born, live and die in the same town.

I suspect it’s a genetic/survival trait in that the stay-at-homes live a safer life with no new dangers (so they breed) while the travellers experience new environments to which they must adapt (so they breed). I experience very little CShock (sounds like a game title) because that’s how I am, always taking people and things on their own terms. Emigrating from NZ to Oz gave me my biggest CS - felt like missing the last step, or expecting one more - in the details: wrong colour on a box of Weetbix, etc. Living in Tahiti gave me no CS, nor trips to Bali, KL or Far-western Europe.

15

First of all, “Everyone like us, rational-oriented people, can do it” sounds a bit arrogant, though I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way. The truth is, no matter how “rational” you claim to be, the human brain is not an entirely rational machine. If someone really close to you dies, can you rationalise the sadness away? I don’t think so. What you can do is take steps to make sure it doesn’t take over your life and destroys you and the people around you. It’s the same thing with CS.
The real rational thing to do is to understand that you do not control everything that goes on in your brain. As a matter of fact, you don’t control most of what goes on up there. You have to understand that no matter what kind of personality you have, no matter how happy you think you are, you might still get CS. When you do, however, you will be prepared, which gives you a much better chance at fighting back.
CS has been studied by serious people and there are lots of good resources out there about coping. Don’t be so sure that you’re different and you can cope by yourself. Maybe you can, but you’re taking a risk if you think that way. Instead, read up ahead, follow the advice of people who’ve looked into the subject, or lived through it. That’s a lot more “rational” than simply saying: “it won’t happen to me!”

16

I remember feeling rather culture-shocky when I travelled in Spain (my first real time travelling by myself). After three days in Madrid, I had a miniature breakdown and had to spend a day absolutely doing nothing unfamiliar. Basically I hung out in the hostal room all day, except when I went to check my email. After that, I felt a lot better, and sort of gave into being a tourist and resigned myself to the fact that I would be acting semi-dorky most of the time.

The feeling did come back to some extent when I was feeling particularly cranky (such as when I was excessively hot or tired), but never with the same intensity. Acknowledging that I couldn’t make my whole vacation “productive,” as it were, nor that I would really be able to blend in and that that wasn’t particularly shameful, made life a lot easier.