Reverse culture shock
Even if you’ve never experienced it, culture shock seems quite natural and not very surprising. Culture shock is basically the feeling you get when you live with people from another culture. They think differently and act differently than you are used to, and it feels a little strange at first. You need some time to adjust. You expect to experience culture shock when you go live in another country where they speak a different language and have a totally different culture than what you are used to.
Reverse culture shock is more unusual. Reverse culture shock is the uneasy feeling you have when you return to your own culture after having lived away from it for a while. Obviously, the longer you’ve lived away, the stronger reverse culture shock is. When I first learned about reverse culture shock I didn’t give it much thought at all. I couldn’t even imagine that I’d ever have these feelings. I’ve since learned that reverse culture shock is much stronger and more unusual than I’d ever imagined.
Imagine coming back to your own country after living somewhere else for several years. You see your old friends and family and try to catch up (catching up means to talk to someone you haven’t seen in a long time. You need to make up for lost time and share all the stories that have happened since you last spoke). Things change slowly so you don’t really notice how you’ve changed over the years. After talking with your friends and family, you realize that things aren’t quite the same as you remembered. They seem to think differently than you do now. They talk about different topics than you do. They have a different understanding of the world than you do. It can be quite difficult to fit in with your old culture. I find that it’s a very weird feeling, especially since I never really believed it could happen to me.
Add and I are back in Canada for the summer. We’ve already been here for over a month. I’m starting to get used to life here again, but it was really hard at first. In some ways, I forgot what Canadians are like.
One of the biggest things that surprised me was how much people here talk about houses. A lot of people are always commenting on how someone else’s house is really “sweet” (sweet is slang for amazing), and what they plan to do to make their own house even sweeter. They love to make their house and yard look really nice. I’m not saying it is a bad thing, but it’s something I’d never really noticed before. When people start talking about this, I find that I’m quiet because I have nothing really to say about it.
Please share any of your own culture shock or reverse culture shock experiences.
July 16th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I totaly understand.
I’ve been thinking in a different way from other Japanese since I stayed in America for sevral months.
But I’m happy a little bit because I feel like I got released from biased views and got many way of thinking.
July 19th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Hi everyone!
I’ve always lived in the same country but I really understand what you are talking about. I’ve lived in very different places (big cities and little towns) and even being all of them in the same country, when I came back “home” I felt like a foreigner in my own city. Even in my own family.
It’s true we all change and being away makes it more evident. But on the other hand, I like to think that having lived in such different places and with such different cultures has made me a little wise person.
I read somewhere that when you have felt like a foreign person at home you have became a “citizen of the world”. More than one place has influenced you enough so you can’t say that you are “from that country” anymore, you have become a citizen of the world.
Thanks for the blog, I really like the way you write.
I wish you two a great holiday!!!
Pau.
July 24th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Hey guys, thanks for the podcast! I’ve been enjoying the show.
I’ve experienced the reverse culture shock. It was a year and half ago when I came back from Australia where I spent nearly 5 years straight (without even once coming home).
I felt really weird as you can imagine. My home coutry is Japan. I felt people were much more modest, in other words not that open, too formal or too much politeness. One very good example of that time is that I was helping my parent’s moving. My dad just passed awayso Mum was moving to near where my brother and his wife lived.
Obviously there was so muc stuff to chuck out. However I wanted to sell or give away those things if possible. I put on some adds in a local free paper and people started ringing and visiting me for what they wanted, just like I did when I was going to leave Australia.
I felt it was just as normal but Mum was like “Honestly I feel a bit unconfortable that people I don’t know visit here one after another”.
Then I realized something was different. And suddenly a lot of things looked really troublesome to me.
I can think of a lot of other expamples too but I keep them for the next time.
In the end, what I think is experiencing the reverse cultue makes you think cultural differences in an unbiased way.
Each culture has got some good and bad but you’ll be able to torlarate or have better understanding of those after having had the reverse culture shock.
And as a result, you will also be able to proud of your own culture.
Thanks.
TUK
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:38 am
Hi everyone,
i never experienced to live in another country yet. but this will change. next year i’m going to work in south africa. it’s totally different from my country i think. i don’t have much information about this country. i need to research about it for my travel not to be a shock. but live in another country is good to grow up like a person.
bye,
daniel
August 12th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
I really understand that feeling, I myself experienced it when I had to live abroad from my town for 18 months, people and things are always changing maybe in a slow and subtle but permanent way. Anyway, Canada is such a fantastic country I can’t imagine you could have experienced too many problems to adjust back quickly to it.
August 17th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Hi, that’s a very interesting topic. I kind of experienced something like a reverse culture shock on my own but in a far minor scale when I move out and came back on a visit. But that might also has something to do with “growing up”. That does not compare to coming back to Canada after spending a long time in China, I guess. Moving from a village, small town into a big city – respectively contrariwise – can also cause a (reverse) culture shock.
Ca
September 24th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
hey, everyone, my first post here. I can’t say any more that was already said, I agree with everyone. I used to live in a very small town, 8 years ago I moved to a big city, but my parents still live in that town and from time to time I visit them. Everything seems alien to me, I feel like I don’t belong that place anymore. My life in a bigger city is much faster and more intense and slow style of life in my hometown breaks me down. And just one note, it was written that in Canada people like to talk about their houses and try to make them even better and more beautiful. So, in Russia (yes, I’m russian) it’s a bit different. If Jack has a good house, his neighbor don’t want his house to be better and doesn’t do his best to do it, he just burns Jack’s house
it’s a joke of cause, but as we say there’s always some truth in every joke 
September 28th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Ha ha ha – funny about the Russians burning down the house! Yeah…it drives me nuts to hear people talking real estate and investments…I mean I understand we are at that age so it’s just part of life – but abroad – when we spoke about real estate/investments it was just 2% of the conversation topics…there was so much more interesting things to talk about…life, books, our travels, the crazy work environments, the cultural differences, etc. I loved being part of an expat community – it was so much more REAL in many ways…simply because we interacted on an “essential” level and not just as these pieces set up on a game board. Hope that last bit made sense…It’s really hard “coming home” even though I missed “home” for so many years….but the fear of mediocrity/stagnation is a bit overwhelming. Nice to know I’m not alone! Here’s a link to a favourite poem of mine, hope it might make sense to some of you: http://ithaca.rice.edu/kz/Misc/Ithaka.html
Good luck everyone!
November 24th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I would like to comment on real estate bit of your message. It seems to me that English speaking world is a bit obsessed with real estate ownership. Owning “a sweet house house” is kind of a status thing. In continental Europe though, and our Continental European friends may correct me if I am wrong, people rent en masse and owning your own house doesn’t become a central topic of many discussions.
I live and work in New York but I am originally from Uzbekistan. The attitude toward real estate back home is exactly like what you decribed in Canadian – having a sweet house has some intrinsic value which many people respect you for.
Even in New York where people are supposedly much more mobile than anywhere else in the country or in the world for that matter, you can see discussions being dominated by real estate related topics.
April 19th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Hi everyone, I just to find this page, and I am really interested about it, because I am living my own reverse cultural shock, I am from Veracruz Mexico for 24 years, after I moved to Cancun for 6 years , Mexico, after Las Vegas NV for 3 years and finally I am back in Cancun since 2 months ago ,so for me right now is very weird and I feel that I don´t belong to this society, I knew it because I was reading articles about my emotional shock when is over my cicle and you need open a new stage in the life, but to be honest to live it is hard but…. I am very happy to read this comment and share my feelings… chao!!!!
July 24th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
it’s really amazing for me to see there are still some people out there who are still thinking about these disguised issues and i’m not the only one.
it’s been 8 months since i left the home land.
and haven’t actually hit by the reverse culture shock yet but the over adaptable person i am ,i’ve so adjusted to the new country i’m living in which often i’m unable to understand the messages behind occasional talks i have on the phone with my old friends or family members. which is by the way quite frustrating.
for example back there people usualy don’t ask you a favore directly they just imply it while here they are so blunt. so you can picture me on the phone talking with someone for 30 min about sth and i’m supposed to understand him implying sth while i can’t.
pretty awsome
September 16th, 2009 at 3:25 am
hi, I can absolutely…ABSOLUTELY relate to this discussion on reverse culture shock…I am going through it now,and I hate it….I’m so depressed,you have no idea…:-(
I have been living abroad for many years…first, in Zurich…then in Los Angeles…then in Milan, and as much as I disliked random things about those places, I recently came back to my hometown of Ottawa,Canada, and I don’t know what I’m doing here
…I studied fashion design in Milan,got my diploma,and now I’m here,cause my student visa was on the verge of expiration,and did not find a job in that time to keep me there.Now I’m here,and I feel like Ive regressed,and my family have all moved away,except for my parents,who have reached senility,and don’t seem to be aware of the changes in me, nor do they see me as a grown woman. I walk around the city,and I just feel like I don’t belong here,and I feel like crying…I tried to hook up with old friends,and the only one I found left in the city,gave me the coldest shoulder ever…I was so HURT!
I keep telling myself..”I’m not in a rut…I will find fashion work and get out of here”…but its strange,I am staying with my parents,and I find it really difficult to be my own person around them,and I feel mangled by the neck…and I am completely humiliated going back in time,being older,and coming back to a life that no longer exists for me…any advice would be appreciated.Thanks.
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June 19th, 2011 at 8:47 am
Haha Katy, after this joke foreigners think that russians are crazy. But we don’t
I felt culture shock, then was on vacations in Spain. They ride their 5 years children in baby carriage. It’s really shocked! Spanish kids so spoiled. Their dogs spoiled too, I didn’t see ones in good physical shape, all of them ware fat, like japanese cats.
Even though I was in Spain only for couple weeks, I get used to smiles and friendly people, so then a returned in Russia I noticed that everybody have sad faces. Maybe russians always upset because price on vodka constantly rise up. Just kidding
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