13 ms·

Reverse Culture Shock

257 points by jscholes 10y ago

solidsnack9000 10y ago
Living in Switzerland for a year, and then returning to San Francisco, I had a feeling of disaffection and disappointment for about a year afterward. It took me all of the that time to again be able to enjoy the things around me -- SF restaurants, the weather, &c -- in the way that I did before I left.
SparkyMcUnicorn 10y ago
Just to comment on minor reverse culture shock I had... A few years ago I spent a fair amount of time in some Slavic countries, and I couldn't believe how clean the streets of NYC were when I got back.
- jclem 10y ago
  That's how I felt coming back to NYC from San Francisco.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
bandrami 10y ago
Yup. I'm a "trailing spouse" for an American diplomat, and this is so true. One thing that always, always, always happens to Americans when we repatriate is the "grocery store freakout". At some point, you will go to a grocery store, and freeze. "Man..." you'll keep saying, "Americans really love breakfast cereal..."
- NegativeLatency 10y ago
  I experienced a bit of this when I moved from SF to a less populated place. I imagine it would be more shocking moving from another country.
- rhizome 10y ago
  "Man..." you'll keep saying, "Americans really love breakfast cereal..." Though it's true to some degree, I wouldn't go that far. My sense is that the higher the margin on a product or product-line, the more money the manufacturer and distributors have to purchase shelf space. Cereal, Chips, Crackers, Ice Cream, Mayonnaise. The last time I was at the store I counted 21 separate varieties of Triscuit, 10-12 flavors over three sizes. Don't freak out, it actually is weird.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    That explains too much... why aren't high-margin products in other developed nations' grocery stores treated the same way? Or, if they are, why isn't breakfast cereal one of them? Perhaps because Americans really love breakfast cereal?
    - Rapzid 10y ago
      It's possible the margins are not as high, or they are not as high vs other more popular products. It could be a combination of multiple factors at play. Certainly if nobody was buying cereals in the US the high margins would not be enough to sustain shelf-space spending, so that's a valid point.
    - golergka 10y ago
      I suspect that US producers have higher margins on sugary products because of corn subsidies.
      - hawkice 10y ago
        I'd say you're correct, but in a slightly more indirect way than many might assume (they might read it as, gov. gives money to company, therefore company has more money -- but they still compete with each other on price, so that doesn't totally make sense). But because corn is subsidized, the food is cheap on a $/calorie basis, which means customers can be less price sensitive, because it's all easier and cheaper than eating a non-corn-based meal. We see this reflected in the fact that cereal (a very generic term for a certain type of staple) is emphatically _not_ a commodity. People have types they like more -- so they can compete on something other than price, which lets profits go up. A good line of research to verify is to compare cereal demand elasticity to e.g. meat, where there are variations people like more than others, and it's semi-interchangeable, but because of price people treat it largely as a commodity.
- xapata 10y ago
  Sometimes it's a big smile, "Man, there are so many options!" Well, that's how it is when I'm just wandering around the store for fun. If I want to pick a toothpaste, it's frustrating that I need to make a tough choice for something so trivial.
  - stevesearer 10y ago
    Reminds me of when Boris Yeltsin visited a Texan grocery store: http://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/04/when-boris-yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-clear-lake/ http://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/04/when-boris-yeltsin-...
- gloverkcn 10y ago
  Coming back from India and going to Walmart. so much space with nobody in it. Everything you need to live under one giant roof. There's 4 people at 4 registers and no line for any of them.
  - wavefunction 10y ago
    I enjoy visiting India (I'm an anglo American) but I always know I'm back in the US when I arrive into Houston and there's a fifteen-foot-tall banner advertising donut ice cream in the food court inside the airport.
    - bandrami 10y ago
      I dunno... India is no slouch when it comes to absurdly sweet desserts. I used to get fresh custard apple covered in condensed milk as a "snack" in Mumbai.
      - pm90 10y ago
        Hehe, no question about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_sweets_and_desserts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_sweets_and_dess...
  - ethbro 10y ago
    > There's 4 people at 4 registers and no line for any of them. We are definitely not going to the same Walmart. EDIT: To clarify, I know this is one of Walmart's strengths, but it doesn't improve my experience.
    - ourmandave 10y ago
      At my nearest Walmart, the 12-items-or-less "fast" lane is also the exclusive tobacco products lane which totally defeats the purpose. Buying cigarettes is also a recursive game of 20 Questions about brand, size, filter, we-don't-have-that-do-you-want-this-instead? Okay, brand, size, filter... (And I see you'll be paying in pennies.) </rant>
- hbosch 10y ago
  A relevant scene from The Hurt Locker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PgbNQU3cYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PgbNQU3cYo In this scene, the character has just returned from a tour in Iraq defusing IEDs. The movie portrays him as a total pro in the battlefield, but stunned and anxious as he returns to civilian life. Great movie not just about war, but about the psychology of war and purpose. Edit: here's a better dissection – http://www.cinemablography.org/supermarket-scene.html http://www.cinemablography.org/supermarket-scene.html
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  I just recently returned to the USA from living in China for 9 years, and damn, I think I have PTSD. One night while I was asleep, there was a clap-clap-clap next to my window at 3 AM in the morning. I just assumed it was some old guy exercising early in the morning by clapping and walking backwards...not a weird thing in Beijing. I ran outside ready to confront whoever it was, and it was just...water drops hitting a leaf.
- 55555 10y ago
  Very true! In the same vein though, the selection at places like Whole Foods is one of the best parts of coming home (from the third world). One of the hardest things for me to adapt to is how "liberal" America has become. It's not an objectively bad thing, but I feel like I went into a coma and woke up 20 years later in a world I can barely relate to. As an example, I'm thinking about stuff like Miley Cyrus' performance. And a lot of the social justice stuff -- I really just missed a whole lot of it and I've literally had to learn tons of new words and concepts to catch up and not appear bigoted. Living abroad in a more "conservative" culture and then coming back and adapting with a snap of the fingers is tough. The weird thing is that I was considered "very liberal" when I first left the US. The hardest thing of all is perhaps how violent and aggressive and loud and rude Americans can be (in public, to strangers). It can be downright frightening, coming from Asia. Edit: Also, I can't stop bowing to people. Asian Americans probably sometimes suspect I'm racist.
  - wtbob 10y ago
    > One of the hardest things for me to adapt to is how "liberal" America has become. It's not an objectively bad thing One wonders, if the rest of the world is more cautious about this sort of thing, if maybe it's America that's in the wrong. Maybe other cultures deal with these things more sensitively or more rationally or just better. My experience travelling abroad is that people seem more comfortable in their skins, which is sad given that America is supposed to be the place where anyone can make it.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - astrodust 10y ago
      > My experience travelling abroad... Try doing that with a disability, being a visible minority, being a woman, etc. America is far from perfect, but it's at least accommodating. In other countries they don't hesitate to throw people to the curb. It's the little things: The wheelchair accessible stores and streets, the effort made to deal with vision impairments, institutions that are fighting for women's rights and so on. There are some places in the world where people with disabilities do not seem to exist, they're always hidden away.
- kasey_junk 10y ago
  I have that experience going to a store less than 30 minutes from my house. In my local stores there are feet of cereal aisle that all seems largely overkill. When I go to a suburban grocery store there are yards of it. I'm always baffled.
- CalChris 10y ago
  But when I lived in Geneva, it was the opposite. They had an entire freaking shopping aisle for bricks of chocolate. I'd never seen a brick of chocolate before let alone an entire aisle of it. Trader Joe's has these bricks now.
  - bandrami 10y ago
    Fair, and in Scandinavia you'll find a similarly huge selection of fish pastes, or in Sri Lanka of tea. But having been to many countries in the world, I don't think even the largest grocery store I've been to outside of the US is the size of even a normal suburban Giant.
- icefox 10y ago
  A very unexpected reversal of that was upon returning I quickly realized that the various candy and snack food I had come to enjoy while living abroad in Norway just flat out don't exists in the U.S. While there I would pick up random stuff now and then and over time found favorites. While there is 100 feet of cereal it is only a few big companies and each individual choice is even given sometimes 3 feet of space. So I realized to my sadness (except brown cheese which I found in the little "international cheese" case) that while the American grocery stores give the impression of choice that is not as true as it seems.
  - jschwartzi 10y ago
    I've noticed that the more skilled I've gotten at cooking, the less useful the 90% of the store that isn't raw vegetables, meat, and grain is.
  - pm90 10y ago
    If you look around enough, you may find many "international stores" that stock on foods sourced....Internationally. Of course, the Indian/Chinese stores are a class in themselves, but you can also find the odd store that stocks products imported from Turkey or Germany etc. This is MUCH easier in a big city of course. Houston is surprisingly good in this regard: not only can you find all kinds of groceries, but the restaurants serving different cuisines are absolutely terrific.
    - vegardx 10y ago
      Scandinavians living abroad are known to visit IKEA to get a taste of home. It's almost impossible to get any of the products abroad. Which makes sense, there's not that many of us.
cjcenizal 10y ago
Perhaps not culture shock per se, but when I fly back to LA, I am always shocked at how gray and brown everything is from the air.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  I just moved to LA from Beijing. I'm shocked at how clean the air is, there are never bad AQI days (at least nothing over 200), and...I can smell flowers. I visited often enough, so it shouldn't have been a surprise, but I realized I wasn't really smelling anything but dust and air pollution for 9 years.
  - inimino 10y ago
    Beijing air is horrific. I can't imagine putting up with it for nine years.
rosser 10y ago
This is absolutely a thing. I've spent months in another country before, and took a ~4 month round-the-world trip a couple years ago. It takes some adjustment to re-enter your home country. I can't imagine what it must be like for people who've lived abroad for years. But what's nice about it, if you can engage with it this way, is the fresh perspective on your (formerly) habituated world this state can offer.
lokedhs 10y ago
I have lived overseas for over a decade, and while I have no current plans to move back to my country of origin, I think I know what moving back would feel like, and it matches what other people have told me. The article talks about things having changed when you get back. I'm not so sure that's the big issue. I think the biggest problem is that you yourself have changed so much, and your views are greatly expanded. While when you come back, nothing had really changed. That local grocery store is still there, and things are pretty much exactly where they were all those years ago. I feel some of this every time I go back to visit my family, and at the end of the trip it feels very relieving to go back. I think if my home country looked very different, as they suggest would be a problem in the article, going back would be a much more exciting experience.
- renegadesensei 10y ago
  Completely agree with this. I too have lived abroad for a while and it amazes me how much things remain the same back in the United States. The culture shock is always more about how much I have changed, not America.
- charlesism 10y ago
  > things having changed when you get back. > I'm not so sure that's the big issue. If you spend enough time abroad, it will always change your personality. As for handling changes to your home country upon your return, it really depends on the situation. A San Francisco native who leaves in 1972 and returns in 1979 wouldn't have much trouble, compared to one who who leaves in 1962 and returns in 1969. It would be pretty disorienting to find your hometown now has a radically different culture. That said, I have no opinion on which is a bigger issue.
jflowers45 10y ago
Is this a new addition to their website?
- pizza 10y ago
  Not particularly, according to the earliest cached version on the Wayback Machine https://web.archive.org/web/20160801000000*/https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56075.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20160801000000*/https://www.stat...
noonespecial 10y ago
I left the US when I was 11 and lived in Europe until I was 18, returning to the US for University. So to mine was added the fuzzy memories of childhood. Wal-Mart absolutely blew my mind. Also, America is huge.
unsignedint 10y ago
Even just visiting Japan (I'm originally from Japan) causes this for me. Short stay is fine, but I feel really foreign, maybe more so than "foreigners" as people in there can detect disconnect of my appearance and mindset by my subtle deviation from expectations of how I act in there.
- verisimilidude 10y ago
  I can sympathize. Whenever I come back to the US from Japan, I find myself bowing at the supermarket and persisting lots of little Japanese mannerisms. Sometimes for days. Japanese culture seems to demand more...commitment...than some of the other places I've visited and lived. Perhaps Japan is a stronger source of reverse culture shock.
  - bane 10y ago
    Japan also is the source of a strange culture bound syndrome sometimes called "Paris syndrome" -- which is somewhat related to the lack of the kind of micro-ceremonies that are encoded in Japanese manners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome
  - greggman 10y ago
    Bowing st the supermarket ? I've been in Toyko for over 10 years I've never seen customer bow at a supermarket. Is that a thing in some other part of Japan? What I notice going back to the USA is how it often feels like the 3rd world countries my dad would tell me about as a kid indirectly trying to tell me how great the USA is. Now I just see crime, corrupt police, etc. Came back for 6 months got my car broken into twice. Once in LA, once in SF. Try to hang out at a coffee shop to work but have to pack up my stuff and give up my seat to use the restroom because otherwise my computer will be stolen. I never feel safe riding public transportation in SF where as I never not feel safe riding in Japan. Another is convenience. After 9:30 in Venice Beach, if I haven't eaten by 9:30 nothing is open except 24 supermarkets in have to drive miles to. Compare to Tokyo where there's almost always a conveniece store within 5 minutes and they actually have reasonably good options. Food is bland and large. Americans seem to prioritize quantity over quality in general. At least in the suburbs. I could rant about Japan too but the topic is reverse culture shock.
chiph 10y ago
Did a military long tour in Germany in the 80's. Returning was jarring. There were TV series that I had missed entirely or major parts of, ("V", "Miami Vice", etc) that had become part of the culture. Public trash cans freaked me out -- all the ones on military bases and in major German cities had been removed because of the Red Army Faction terrorist threat. Walmart went from "Who?" to "OMG this place has everything!" Finally got to eat Pop Tarts again.
kawsper 10y ago
I lived 3 years in the UK, and now I am back in Denmark for a while, I hope to return, but lets see what Theresa May & co figures out. I always thought I wanted to go for the dual-citizenship, but not anymore. It is difficult to live in a new place, you don't really feel integrated even though you have friends, speak the language, go to events, pay your taxes, and get the jokes, you will always be the dane and a foreigner. A thing I noticed when I was away is how stupid and mundane Danish everyday local politics look, and the same with the news cycle. I think it is refreshing and healthy perspective, and I would encourage everyone to go to another country just to get out of their bubble. And also to get some ammunition against people that keep spouting "If I moved to another country, I would assimilate". When I returned I had adjusted to British service levels, and how fast it is. I was used to get a coffee within minutes of ordering, and when I went to a store and looked a little out of place, I would instantly get help. I got to observe my fellow Danes as a tourist, and oh boy, I now understand why they all seem to think we are rude, and don't really care at all! But the most odd thing about being back home is that I don't really feel at home, my thoughts and language is some sort of strange danish/british amalgamation, and I feel like a foreigner, even though I bike the streets of my childhood, say hi to people I went to school with, and walk the forests and beaches I was going on adventures in as a child.
- vocatus_gate 10y ago
  When I came back from my first tour to Iraq in 2004 (was 19 at the time) it took me almost a full year to feel mostly "home" again. But it definitely changed something about me, ever since that year I've never felt 100% "home" for some reason.
  - kerbalspacepro 10y ago
    You're 32 now, right? Have you had some kids and a wife and stuff? Elders in my life seem to imply that the feeling of home will come back when you make it come back. A big part of losing "home" is aging out of it.
    - vocatus_gate 10y ago
bane 10y ago
I've lived in other countries a handful of times for fairly brief periods (no longer than 6 months), and it is really true. I've know some people who've spent years abroad, come back to the U.S. and nope right back out as fast as they can find employment back where they came from. It's not a statement about the quality of a place, but really having to go through an adjustment to get used to your new home and then having to readjust back to where you came from (only you keep telling yourself you shouldn't have to since it's your home) and then constant comparisons between places, which you already did as part of your learning of a new place, but now you start to see all the bad stuff about where you're from, but you were used to doing the reverse instead. It takes a while for all the differences to average out in your mind. I don't think I've ever had to too bad, but I've definitely spent a few weeks angry at how terrible Americans drive after coming back from Germany, or how bad service is when coming back from Korea. But I've also had kind of the opposite feeling. After one long stay in Germany, and feeling very foreign, I remember coming home and it not really registering that it happened until I got in the taxi and the driver was playing some R&B. I'm not even an R&B fan but the Americaness of it, after hearing weeks of Europop, hit me like a stick and I suddenly felt very very home.
- 55555 10y ago
  I lived abroad 6 years and coming home always feels weird. Comparatively, I always feel more relieved when returning to my second home, so I guess I still haven't ever recovered from the change that living abroad had on me.
- donw 10y ago
  Have lived in Japan for about eight years now, with a year-and-a-half somewhere in the middle spent bouncing around Germany. Originally, it felt... very odd, every time I came back Stateside, especially when visiting the podunk suburb where my parents live (and incidentally, where I grew up). Going from a city of 13 million that has quite possibly the best civic infrastructure in the world, to an aging and slowly dying town that barely breaks the 80k mark in terms of population is quite a transition. I think the best way to explain it is... divergence? As in, my path, and the path of that place have diverged. Everything from before that point feels "natural", and everything afterwards feels strange. Now that I've been an expat for awhile, and have bounced around quite a bit, that feeling of oddness seems to have vanished for pretty much everywhere I visit. Sure, things are different in different places, but everything seems to fall into a slot of "this feels right" or "this doesn't suit my tastes", and there really isn't anywhere that has a perfect mix of everything. Although I'll admit, the urge to return stateside has gotten quite a bit stronger over the years. I'm very comfortable in Japan, speak the language, and have a solid social network, but at the same time, I find myself missing a lot of the daily aspects of American life (especially the grocery stores!) There's a really good article on the subject as well; On Being A Triangle (And Other Tips For Repatriation): http://naomihattaway.com/2013/09/i-am-a-triangle-and-other-thoughts-on-repatriation/ http://naomihattaway.com/2013/09/i-am-a-triangle-and-other-t...
cylinder 10y ago
I've experienced it after only three months away from the US.
holdenc 10y ago
Why call it reverse culture shock? It's simply a realization that the United States not the best country in every regard. And in many regards it's failing badly. Personally, I call it the I-can't-get-healthcare shock, or the I-can-only-find-chain-restaurants-in-flyover-country shock, or the NYC-subway-is-not-as-nice-as-the-Asian-country-train-system-I-just-left shock.
- hueving 10y ago
  Did you even read the article? It has nothing to do with the US infrastructure or healthcare system. It happens between cultures, even when neither of them are American. It can even happen if both are American if the source and destination are different enough (e.g. moving from a farm town of 500 in Wyoming to Manhattan).
- yladiz 10y ago
  If you think of culture shock as visiting a new culture and being "shocked" by something different, reverse culture shock is returning to your original culture and being shocked by it. It has nothing to do with the US.
- wtbob 10y ago
  > Why call it reverse culture shock? It's simply a realization that the United States not the best country in every regard. That's completely not it at all. Culture shock is what happens when one visits another country and realises that certain things one takes for granted aren't, and other things one thinks are negotiable aren't. It's the same phenomenon which young historians have when they first read of a technologically advanced, trading culture which also casts every firstborn child into a furnace (e.g.). Reverse culture shock is the same phenomenon, when one returns back home. It's caused by the fact that one has assimilated to one's guest culture to some extent, and upon returning home … one finds that certain things one had grown accustomed to taking for granted are not, and other things one had grown accustomed to thinking negotiable are not. An example is the wide variety of cereals in American groceries, or the limited variety of organ meats. If one has grown accustomed to just buying 'müsli,' and one suddenly has a dozen different varieties, one claiming to be good for keto diets, one claiming to be vegan, another gluten-free, another paleo — that's a culture shock. If one has grown accustomed to making kidney pie, then returns to America and must make a conscious effort to source kidneys — that's culture shock. If one has grown accustomed to horse or whale, and returns to find that they are illegal — well, that's culture shock too. It's not about better/worse; it's about different.
mrdrozdov 10y ago
This would fit so well into George Carlin's Euphemisms bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc
SomeCallMeTim 10y ago
Heck, I grew up in the Bay Area, and I get reverse culture shock when return to visit for more than a few days. So. Much. Traffic. People packed into trains. Everyone so...not exactly rude, but not nearly as friendly as I've grown accustomed (I live near Boulder, Colorado). I feel like my blood pressure is higher the entire time I'm there. Of course the air pressure is higher, so that may have something to do with it, but I think it goes beyond that. On the other hand, I've never been in great shape, and the first day down at sea level and I feel like I could run a marathon...
- bkjelden 10y ago
  The bay area is unlike any other place I've ever visited or lived in America. Every aspect of life is more crowded.
  - closeparen 10y ago
    Manhattan, though objectively denser, is less claustrophobic to me: though the crowd is thick, it walks fast, you can navigate the area quickly (via the subway), and big open space (Central Park) is never that far away.
    - musha68k 10y ago
      New York is awesome (I prefer it over SF, really) unfortunately Trump happened so I'm not planning to move to the US anymore.
- colmvp 10y ago
  I always hated driving in SF. I can deal with traffic. I can deal with the pedestrians and cyclists. I can deal with the slew of drivers who thought signaling was optional. I can deal with paying for parking. But holy shit the lack of paid off-street parking lots in numerous parts of the city bugged me, alongside the absurdly inexpensive on-street parking. I never understood why the city didn't raise the price of on-street parking spots given the demand. The city which I currently live in has 4x the population of SF yet it's significantly easier to find parking spots in most parts of the city as the parking rates properly reflect the true cost of parking.
komali2 10y ago
I disagree that the jarring bit about home is that it's changed. For me, it was that so little had changed. At the supermarket I worked at when I was 16 were some of the same people, working the same cashier job. Friends were still talking about "getting back into college," doing the same thing they had done every weekend for years. It depressed me.
- brewdad 10y ago
  This. I grew up in a medium sized town in Michigan. Haven't lived in MI for 20 years and haven't visited my hometown much since then since my parents now spend most of the year elsewhere. I spent almost a week there this Xmas and came to see how a community with strong union labor ties could vote for a candidate like Trump. Almost nothing had changed there in 20 years and what little had changed was almost exclusively for the worse.
- ido 10y ago
  I disagree that the jarring bit about home is that it's changed. For me, it was that so little had changed. Try this experiment in a big city.
nickbauman 10y ago
A German-born American with 11 years total living in Germany. Almost all of it with the iron curtain in place. A white guy, I now live in a neighborhood that's 3/4 black, 10% Hmong for 16 years, I feel very normal being permanently out-of-place. In Germany I am the "Amerikanischer". Here it's "he's German". But I'm permanently alone in a crowd, too. Always on the outside looking in. Suspicious of the herd. Skeptical of consensus. Circumspect. Cantankerous at times. I am, simply, permanently, "the other". It's all not bad. You notice things other people don't wherever you go. You're the first person to seek out the people who don't fit in and hold out your hand in friendship. Because you know, deep down, that with all the divisiveness we're experiencing right now, that we will never get through it any stronger without the greatest concern for each other.
- e40 10y ago
  Hi. I feel the same way. When I was a kid, once a week my family would drive to the other side of town (the 99.99% black side) to visit my grandparents and uncle (they were the .01% white folk). I would spend all day Sunday hanging out in this area of town full of dirt poor people (just like my family there). I've never felt at ease and at home as I felt there. The people were friendlier than I could imagine. There were very, very few black people on my side of town, and it seemed weird and wrong. When I was in my 20's at college, I would sometimes find the bad part of town and just ride around on my motorcycle. I'd do this when I was lonely and needing that "belonging" feeling. So, from that early age on the other side of town, I've embraced otherness, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
  - paulddraper 10y ago
    10,000 to 1. Very different indeed.
  - ianai 10y ago
    Were you ever 'eyed down'? I got that recently at my childhood home.
    - e40 10y ago
renaudg 10y ago
As an EU citizen living in the UK for 7 years, worried as we all are about my Brexit bargaining chip status, the part about "involuntary/unexpected reentry" is sad and terrifying to read.
JacobAldridge 10y ago
The old adage is that a man can never step into the same stream twice; for it is not the same stream, and he is not the same man. Stepping back home (in our case, moving back to Australia after 2+ years living in London) is much the same - you have changed, and home has changed, but you don't expect either to be different. I think a big part is expectations. When we left, we were expecting something different, unusual, full of surprises (how bad is London coffee?) and annoyances. But returning 'home' you have no such expectations - you just 'expect' to slot back in. But you've travelled the world, learned a different culture (although I don't profess that in our case it was enormously different), moved on with your life in some way ... and so too have all those people who stayed behind, and indeed the city/town/country itself. So you're surprised, and you were expecting it to be effortless. Shock! (And it is the weird little things. For the first year I was always one block off with my directions. But thankfully the coffee was as good as I remembered it.)
- vacri 10y ago
  A Greek friend of mine said of the Greek diaspora here in Melbourne that when they came out post-war, they became 'hyper-Greek' as a coping mechanism, embracing their culture more fully. They then travel back to Greece for whatever reason, and complain about how decadent it's become. Of course, he says, Greece hasn't really changed, it's just that now the ex-pats are seeing it through the lens of being 'hyper-Greek' now.
  - distances 10y ago
    I've heard this is indeed often the case, emigrants embracing their home culture in a more fundamental way. Maybe the imagined state of one's culture is often that of the grandparents' time, always a bit behind of the reality.
    - masklinn 10y ago
      > Maybe the imagined state of one's culture is often that of the grandparents' time, always a bit behind of the reality. Not just that of the grandparents' time, but an idealised/extremised version of it, blurry and pastel, filtered through the lenses and expectations of those who actually lived it.
rebootthesystem 10y ago
Interesting article. I feel very much at home in places like the UK, Netherlands and Spain. Not so much other European cultures. Coming back to the US, no real problems adjusting. Maybe I didn't stay in Europe long enough or popped between cultures with enough frequency to not have anything "imprint". > the psychological, emotional and cultural aspects of reentry I thought "reentry" was an odd word choice here. I immediately thought "mission to Mars".
trustfundbaby 10y ago
I've lived in the US for almost half my life. I went back to visit my home country in West Africa for less than a week just a few years back ... I was so stressed out by everything there that I fell sick for almost two days. Then I moved my departure date up by a day just to get out early. No credit card machines, nothing resembling customer service (I'm talking actively rude or disinterested store attendants), Nightmarish traffic since traffic signals and lanes are just a suggestion and not enforced by police, Hyper religiosity, rampant and casual homophobia (they're all convinced America is going directly to hell because of gay sex), truly shit roads, with cars that shouldn't be on the road EVERYWHERE, right beside Lamborghinis and Mercedes, barely-there running water, internet and most importantly, unpredictable electricity supply and the ever present drone of diesel generators that supply power to individual houses because the electricity supply is so useless. It was too much. I've never been so happy to see a starbucks in my life.
- peteretep 10y ago
  This sounds more like what we used to call "This Be Africa" when I lived there, rather than reverse culture shock per-se.
  - trustfundbaby 10y ago
    dunno about that. I grew up there, so at one point, all this was completely normal to me. It wasn't till I went back that I realized how INSANE it all was. My family ask me every week, when I'm moving back. lol
    - ido 10y ago
      This may have also been exasperated by such a short visit? When I visited India for a couple months in 2004, it took me a couple of tries to even be able to go out to the street (in Delhi). But after a couple days I started getting used to it and a week or 2 later it was "fine" and not really that shocking (albeit still annoying at times).
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Rapzid 10y ago
I'm a NZ permanent resident and moved back after nearly 5 years living there. My shock is mostly politically related; I'm hyper aware of the polarized nature of the country now as well as the lack of understanding of UHC. The inability of our government to streamline and adopt modern technologies into the governance process(downsize), hyperbole and rhetoric on both sides, etc.
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poguez 10y ago
Is this the science behind smooth deportations?
plasticchris 10y ago
I get this when returning to the Midwest from California...
dcw303 10y ago
I'm six years in Japan. I think staying in touch with your home country makes a big difference. I'm yet to move back for good, but I find that two things have made my readjustment when visiting home much easier: 1. Keeping up with family via Facebook 2. Getting an AFL streaming subscription If you're not Australian it's hard to understand, but once you've experienced the greatest sport in the world it's hard to give it up.
- mfringel 10y ago
  As someone who is not an Australian (i.e. born/raised in the USA), I will agree with you that Australian Rules Football is one of the greatest sports in the world. :)
- Markoff 10y ago
  good for you, you are not in China, where government try their best to sever any tes you have with your mother country, god forbid trying to videochat with your family without forcing them to install Chinese spyware... same goes for rest of the internet...
205guy 10y ago
> Your commute to work might be more time consuming. > You may need to spend more time in the car for > shopping, picking up kids at school or playdates, > or running errands. These are not necessarily bad > things; you simply have to adjust to a new routine. Sad they had to call out these specifically. When I moved back to the US and landed in San Jose (South Bay Area), I thought I was smart and would live "downtown." I only lasted 3 years before meeting a European woman and moving to a very culturally different part of the US.
feelix 10y ago
To someone who has not tried living overseas this may sound like a classic 'first world problem', and I suppose it is. But what I can't stress enough is how severe it can be. I went and lived in various places around the world for a decade, from about 23 to 33. The place I settled down most was in Ecuador, where I learnt the language, met my long term partner, and made some close friends and integrated with the culture. But I spent years in Europe, the USA, and Asia too. All of the above was achieved just by coding software and selling it off some wordpress websites I put together. And now I've been back in New Zealand for exactly 3 years, and it's awful. Life is so repetitious and small and boring. I've never been more miserable. And it's for the same reasons in this article, and that other people are mentioning in this thread. The funny thing is that before I left I had no particular desire to go (I just did it because it was easy and my friend wanted to), and I was happy. But now, because I have had those life changing experiences, I'm not.
- iamcreasy 10y ago
  Can you give us an example about the difference in your life between Ecuador and New Zealand?
emchamp 10y ago
Long time lurker here, first time poster. I am an American living in Japan and enjoying all the trials and struggles of living somewhere utterly different from where you grew up. In Japan I'm American, however back home I am Asian-American. Among Asian Americans I'm further subdivided into another category. I have very few close friends of my own ethnicity and those that I have I would consider as just Americans anyways. The thing is that even with people of my own ethnic group, I don't have much to relate to since I don't speak the language and I grew up somewhere completely different. I discovered after coming to Japan that the thing I relate to the most is being American. However it's funny that in the US I knew I was American but I always felt I had to put an asterisk on that or a hyphen since I wasn't part of the majority. My point is that I've always felt as somewhat of an outsider no matter where I've gone, but still I have a concept of home and that is the US. I think it took going to somewhere completely different to REALLY cement my own self-identity and self-image. Coming here I had no idea what I would come out identifying as culturally, but I think it should have been obvious that it's the place that I grew up in and spent most of my time despite feeling like an outsider at times. I'm likely going to go back home soon for many reasons (culture differences, language barrier, heavily reduced respect/pay for programmers over here, missing friends/family) and I'm curious how I will handle the reverse culture shock. From this experience though I'll gained have a stronger identity and how important being an American is to that.
- erikb 10y ago
  I also had this feeling of only learning about my own national/cultural identity by being the foreigner in another country. Suddenly you even realize there are things you're proud of, although you've never thought of yourself as being proud about your country before. And I'm jealous that you know about the reverse culture shock. Gives you some time to prep for it. I'd be really curious if it helps. For me and probably many others the reverse shock was actually much worse. Took me about a year to get any kind of life back. And it was really disappointing that all the new things you've learned you couldn't just not really share with old friends and family, they don't really care. Otherwise they would've taken the trip with you, right? So for them you are not the smart, cool guy who managed to do something extraordinary, you're the idiot who did lots of crazy things and now pesters them with all of the experience they could have told him before would be troublesome and weird. What helped a little was having contact with expats in the other direction who I could communicate with after returning face to face, and keeping all my friends from the foreign country at least digitally close by. Good luck with returning! Hope it works better for you.
aytekin 10y ago
I spend 1/3 of the year in San Francisco and 2/3 in Turkey. Educated and lived in US for a long time previously. I feel home at some aspects of each country: Respect for pedestrians (US), friendly warm helpful people (TR), diversity in food and people (US), a hometown where I'd love to live my last days on earth (TR), rich language (US), humble people (TR), startup and business culture and experienced people (US), paradise like vacations (TR), optimism and good luck surface area (US), family (TR).
andy_ppp 10y ago
It's takes 3 months in India to show me how weird, grey, twee, pompous and reserved England is.
piceas 10y ago
I love it. "Home has changed. You have changed. You have adapted to another culture and now you must readapt." Don't be bitter about it. Get on with it. The advice that "People at home aren’t as interested in hearing about your foreign experience as you are in telling them about it" also resonates with me and can be a tough pill to swallow. In some ways it's similar to oversharing upon returning from a holiday. It shouldn't hurt too much when most people don't care how amazing or difficult it was. When your foreign experience is part of your identity it can be easy to take that disinterest personally. If you look/sound/act at first impression as the other culture it can feel like every introduction starts with satisfying the person's curiosity. When that curiosity is immediately followed by disinterest the incongruity can be jarring. For my partner's reentry I suggested that we have a short one sentence answer explaining where we were so that the conversation could move on quickly and save the rest for those who are genuinely interested. I think wtbob's comment that "It's not about better/worse; it's about different." is very helpful. There is a time to compare and denounce the absolute and relative merit of an aspect of a culture but it can be unhelpful if those criticisms are just an outlet for frustration. For the cross-culturally mobile parents in the crowd please please please consider that your children's experience might be very different than your own. The Reverse Culture Shock - Managing Reverse Culture Shock page [1] has lots of practical advice. I also highly recommend reading Third Culture Kids : Growing Up Among Worlds [2]. I would also recommend it to those who are reflecting upon their own childhood intercultural experience. [1] https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56076.htm https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56076.htm [2] http://www.crossculturalkid.org/third-culture-kids-excerpts/ http://www.crossculturalkid.org/third-culture-kids-excerpts/
vasundhar 10y ago
This was called repatriation shock, surprised to see its placed here on state.gov
ragle 10y ago
Another phenomena that can creep up on well-traveled folks is "the curse of the traveller" (obviously not a technical term, but I've not heard another name for it). Essentially, you subconciously collect "likes" about each place where you spend a sufficient amount of time. The food in this place, the coffee shops somewhere else, a street market culture here, the women/men there. A language, the climate, pace of life and attitudes from other places. With time, the mind constructs its own personal Shangri-la (which contains _all_of these things) and you, explicitly and/or implicitly, spend the rest of your life dissatisfied with the delta on your actual experience. In practice, for me this has been more of an "ah... that's happening, heh" thing that I observe going on in the mind rather than a difficult-to-live-with curse. I'm curious, however, what the effects will look like another 10 or 20 years in. I suspect it could grow worse with age as we are able to travel and do less? That's hopefully just a matter of managing perspective, though.
- tim333 10y ago
  It can be a positive when people bring back the stuff they found better when abroad.
madradavid 10y ago
What a coincidence, I just got my `Carte De Sejour` (Residence Card) today. I am a Ugandan living in Paris. Uganda was colonized by the British so the official language is English, I grew in the capital city (a different tribe from mine with a different culture and different language ) so back home when I visit my relatives who live far from the city (my ancestral home) I feel like a foreigner (they used to call us `city borns`). Here in France, the French expect most black people to speak French and know about French culture (they colonized a number of West African countries ) but again in our country we speak English so you feel awkward and out of place. To make things even more complicated my fellow East Africans (Kenyans, Tanzanians) speak Swahili so when they meet you they have this Swahili vibe but again Ugandan's don't speak Swahili we speak English... So a foreigner at home and a foreigner abroad, HN is home :-).
- kerbalspacepro 10y ago
  Sounds like you need to get to the U.S, bud.
Markoff 10y ago
lived better half of decade in China, returning back to EU was pretty much smooth: - sky here is always blue - drivers in EU are kinda annoying stopping and letting me pass when just standing next to crossing even when I dont really intend to cross yet - streets are completely empty - sidewalks are empty, not full of trash and people occupying them with their illegal stuff - cashiers are kinda lazy, you have to take stuff out of your basket and put it on moving belt, already used that in China cashier was doing everything - shops are closed half of the time, very ealy in evening, almost all weekend, not open 7 days a week like in China - almost nobody stares or pay attention to my nonwhite wife despite currently staying in very small town, I was being stared at all the time even in cosmpolitan Beijing - people here in EU in general are very soft and weak caring too much about others instead of being selfish, more agressivity would be sort of welcome, though it is to my advantage - cars have to wait for dumb green light when turning right (always green in China) - I can go straight from my apartment to train or subway without single check, unlike like 7 checkpoints in Chinese train station - cash is still very common when buying things like ice cream though Visa paywave is very convenient in bigger shops, just touch terminal and you are done, in China you can live with Wechat payments in your phone but very inconvenient with scanning QR codes instead of just touching card to terminal in Europe - even in very small town you can find people speaking English or at least some basics, you would have trouble even in cosmopolitan Beijing, dont dare in some smaller place Overal I am glad I moved back, though life in China was more easy going and less serious, because it was considered more like videogame than real life, because we all know as foreigners there is no future there and you have to go back sooner or later.
- Markoff 10y ago
  Oh yeah and i forgot - I FUCKING HATE eurocoins, always need to be aware of that crap and trying to get rid off it, since you cant use card everywhere. These eurocoins seem like some third world country which cant afford plastic banknotes. Good old eastern Asia where I could live just with banknotes and online payments.
erikb 10y ago
All this culture and reverse culture shocking taught me to get sensitive about all the adaptions we have to make often and don't think about. E.g. when moving from New York to LA people talk about being "homesick" but people don't talk about culture shock. But it's the same, just more small scale since people still speak your language and have a somewhat similar culture compared to different countries on different ends of the world. Right now I'm in the process of moving to another city and can appreciate a lot all the things I learned about culture shock and can handle it quite well, e.g., the overpowered feeling of loneliness that sometimes hits you really hard, or that you must be careful about sharing experiences since others don't consider the same things weird as you.
jankedeen 10y ago
It's time and space. Northern Virginia in 1978 and now. That's a mindf*ck.
known 10y ago
Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/ http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...

257 points by jscholes 10y ago

Living in Switzerland for a year, and then returning to San Francisco, I had a feeling of disaffection and disappointment for about a year afterward. It took me all of the that time to again be able to enjoy the things around me -- SF restaurants, the weather, &c -- in the way that I did before I left.

SparkyMcUnicorn 10y ago

Just to comment on minor reverse culture shock I had... A few years ago I spent a fair amount of time in some Slavic countries, and I couldn't believe how clean the streets of NYC were when I got back.

jclem 10y ago
That's how I felt coming back to NYC from San Francisco.
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bandrami 10y ago

Yup. I'm a "trailing spouse" for an American diplomat, and this is so true. One thing that always, always, always happens to Americans when we repatriate is the "grocery store freakout". At some point, you will go to a grocery store, and freeze. "Man..." you'll keep saying, "Americans really love breakfast cereal..."

NegativeLatency 10y ago
I experienced a bit of this when I moved from SF to a less populated place. I imagine it would be more shocking moving from another country.
rhizome 10y ago
"Man..." you'll keep saying, "Americans really love breakfast cereal..." Though it's true to some degree, I wouldn't go that far. My sense is that the higher the margin on a product or product-line, the more money the manufacturer and distributors have to purchase shelf space. Cereal, Chips, Crackers, Ice Cream, Mayonnaise. The last time I was at the store I counted 21 separate varieties of Triscuit, 10-12 flavors over three sizes. Don't freak out, it actually is weird.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  That explains too much... why aren't high-margin products in other developed nations' grocery stores treated the same way? Or, if they are, why isn't breakfast cereal one of them? Perhaps because Americans really love breakfast cereal?
  - Rapzid 10y ago
    It's possible the margins are not as high, or they are not as high vs other more popular products. It could be a combination of multiple factors at play. Certainly if nobody was buying cereals in the US the high margins would not be enough to sustain shelf-space spending, so that's a valid point.
  - golergka 10y ago
    I suspect that US producers have higher margins on sugary products because of corn subsidies.
    - hawkice 10y ago
      I'd say you're correct, but in a slightly more indirect way than many might assume (they might read it as, gov. gives money to company, therefore company has more money -- but they still compete with each other on price, so that doesn't totally make sense). But because corn is subsidized, the food is cheap on a $/calorie basis, which means customers can be less price sensitive, because it's all easier and cheaper than eating a non-corn-based meal. We see this reflected in the fact that cereal (a very generic term for a certain type of staple) is emphatically _not_ a commodity. People have types they like more -- so they can compete on something other than price, which lets profits go up. A good line of research to verify is to compare cereal demand elasticity to e.g. meat, where there are variations people like more than others, and it's semi-interchangeable, but because of price people treat it largely as a commodity.
xapata 10y ago
Sometimes it's a big smile, "Man, there are so many options!" Well, that's how it is when I'm just wandering around the store for fun. If I want to pick a toothpaste, it's frustrating that I need to make a tough choice for something so trivial.
- stevesearer 10y ago
  Reminds me of when Boris Yeltsin visited a Texan grocery store: http://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/04/when-boris-yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-clear-lake/ http://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/04/when-boris-yeltsin-...
gloverkcn 10y ago
Coming back from India and going to Walmart. so much space with nobody in it. Everything you need to live under one giant roof. There's 4 people at 4 registers and no line for any of them.
- wavefunction 10y ago
  I enjoy visiting India (I'm an anglo American) but I always know I'm back in the US when I arrive into Houston and there's a fifteen-foot-tall banner advertising donut ice cream in the food court inside the airport.
  - bandrami 10y ago
    I dunno... India is no slouch when it comes to absurdly sweet desserts. I used to get fresh custard apple covered in condensed milk as a "snack" in Mumbai.
    - pm90 10y ago
      Hehe, no question about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_sweets_and_desserts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_sweets_and_dess...
- ethbro 10y ago
  > There's 4 people at 4 registers and no line for any of them. We are definitely not going to the same Walmart. EDIT: To clarify, I know this is one of Walmart's strengths, but it doesn't improve my experience.
  - ourmandave 10y ago
    At my nearest Walmart, the 12-items-or-less "fast" lane is also the exclusive tobacco products lane which totally defeats the purpose. Buying cigarettes is also a recursive game of 20 Questions about brand, size, filter, we-don't-have-that-do-you-want-this-instead? Okay, brand, size, filter... (And I see you'll be paying in pennies.) </rant>
hbosch 10y ago
A relevant scene from The Hurt Locker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PgbNQU3cYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PgbNQU3cYo In this scene, the character has just returned from a tour in Iraq defusing IEDs. The movie portrays him as a total pro in the battlefield, but stunned and anxious as he returns to civilian life. Great movie not just about war, but about the psychology of war and purpose. Edit: here's a better dissection – http://www.cinemablography.org/supermarket-scene.html http://www.cinemablography.org/supermarket-scene.html
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
I just recently returned to the USA from living in China for 9 years, and damn, I think I have PTSD. One night while I was asleep, there was a clap-clap-clap next to my window at 3 AM in the morning. I just assumed it was some old guy exercising early in the morning by clapping and walking backwards...not a weird thing in Beijing. I ran outside ready to confront whoever it was, and it was just...water drops hitting a leaf.
55555 10y ago
Very true! In the same vein though, the selection at places like Whole Foods is one of the best parts of coming home (from the third world). One of the hardest things for me to adapt to is how "liberal" America has become. It's not an objectively bad thing, but I feel like I went into a coma and woke up 20 years later in a world I can barely relate to. As an example, I'm thinking about stuff like Miley Cyrus' performance. And a lot of the social justice stuff -- I really just missed a whole lot of it and I've literally had to learn tons of new words and concepts to catch up and not appear bigoted. Living abroad in a more "conservative" culture and then coming back and adapting with a snap of the fingers is tough. The weird thing is that I was considered "very liberal" when I first left the US. The hardest thing of all is perhaps how violent and aggressive and loud and rude Americans can be (in public, to strangers). It can be downright frightening, coming from Asia. Edit: Also, I can't stop bowing to people. Asian Americans probably sometimes suspect I'm racist.
- wtbob 10y ago
  > One of the hardest things for me to adapt to is how "liberal" America has become. It's not an objectively bad thing One wonders, if the rest of the world is more cautious about this sort of thing, if maybe it's America that's in the wrong. Maybe other cultures deal with these things more sensitively or more rationally or just better. My experience travelling abroad is that people seem more comfortable in their skins, which is sad given that America is supposed to be the place where anyone can make it.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - astrodust 10y ago
    > My experience travelling abroad... Try doing that with a disability, being a visible minority, being a woman, etc. America is far from perfect, but it's at least accommodating. In other countries they don't hesitate to throw people to the curb. It's the little things: The wheelchair accessible stores and streets, the effort made to deal with vision impairments, institutions that are fighting for women's rights and so on. There are some places in the world where people with disabilities do not seem to exist, they're always hidden away.
kasey_junk 10y ago
I have that experience going to a store less than 30 minutes from my house. In my local stores there are feet of cereal aisle that all seems largely overkill. When I go to a suburban grocery store there are yards of it. I'm always baffled.
CalChris 10y ago
But when I lived in Geneva, it was the opposite. They had an entire freaking shopping aisle for bricks of chocolate. I'd never seen a brick of chocolate before let alone an entire aisle of it. Trader Joe's has these bricks now.
- bandrami 10y ago
  Fair, and in Scandinavia you'll find a similarly huge selection of fish pastes, or in Sri Lanka of tea. But having been to many countries in the world, I don't think even the largest grocery store I've been to outside of the US is the size of even a normal suburban Giant.
icefox 10y ago
A very unexpected reversal of that was upon returning I quickly realized that the various candy and snack food I had come to enjoy while living abroad in Norway just flat out don't exists in the U.S. While there I would pick up random stuff now and then and over time found favorites. While there is 100 feet of cereal it is only a few big companies and each individual choice is even given sometimes 3 feet of space. So I realized to my sadness (except brown cheese which I found in the little "international cheese" case) that while the American grocery stores give the impression of choice that is not as true as it seems.
- jschwartzi 10y ago
  I've noticed that the more skilled I've gotten at cooking, the less useful the 90% of the store that isn't raw vegetables, meat, and grain is.
- pm90 10y ago
  If you look around enough, you may find many "international stores" that stock on foods sourced....Internationally. Of course, the Indian/Chinese stores are a class in themselves, but you can also find the odd store that stocks products imported from Turkey or Germany etc. This is MUCH easier in a big city of course. Houston is surprisingly good in this regard: not only can you find all kinds of groceries, but the restaurants serving different cuisines are absolutely terrific.
  - vegardx 10y ago
    Scandinavians living abroad are known to visit IKEA to get a taste of home. It's almost impossible to get any of the products abroad. Which makes sense, there's not that many of us.

cjcenizal 10y ago

Perhaps not culture shock per se, but when I fly back to LA, I am always shocked at how gray and brown everything is from the air.

seanmcdirmid 10y ago
I just moved to LA from Beijing. I'm shocked at how clean the air is, there are never bad AQI days (at least nothing over 200), and...I can smell flowers. I visited often enough, so it shouldn't have been a surprise, but I realized I wasn't really smelling anything but dust and air pollution for 9 years.
- inimino 10y ago
  Beijing air is horrific. I can't imagine putting up with it for nine years.

rosser 10y ago

This is absolutely a thing. I've spent months in another country before, and took a ~4 month round-the-world trip a couple years ago. It takes some adjustment to re-enter your home country. I can't imagine what it must be like for people who've lived abroad for years. But what's nice about it, if you can engage with it this way, is the fresh perspective on your (formerly) habituated world this state can offer.

lokedhs 10y ago

I have lived overseas for over a decade, and while I have no current plans to move back to my country of origin, I think I know what moving back would feel like, and it matches what other people have told me. The article talks about things having changed when you get back. I'm not so sure that's the big issue. I think the biggest problem is that you yourself have changed so much, and your views are greatly expanded. While when you come back, nothing had really changed. That local grocery store is still there, and things are pretty much exactly where they were all those years ago. I feel some of this every time I go back to visit my family, and at the end of the trip it feels very relieving to go back. I think if my home country looked very different, as they suggest would be a problem in the article, going back would be a much more exciting experience.

renegadesensei 10y ago
Completely agree with this. I too have lived abroad for a while and it amazes me how much things remain the same back in the United States. The culture shock is always more about how much I have changed, not America.
charlesism 10y ago
> things having changed when you get back. > I'm not so sure that's the big issue. If you spend enough time abroad, it will always change your personality. As for handling changes to your home country upon your return, it really depends on the situation. A San Francisco native who leaves in 1972 and returns in 1979 wouldn't have much trouble, compared to one who who leaves in 1962 and returns in 1969. It would be pretty disorienting to find your hometown now has a radically different culture. That said, I have no opinion on which is a bigger issue.

jflowers45 10y ago

Is this a new addition to their website?

pizza 10y ago
Not particularly, according to the earliest cached version on the Wayback Machine https://web.archive.org/web/20160801000000*/https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56075.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20160801000000*/https://www.stat...

noonespecial 10y ago

I left the US when I was 11 and lived in Europe until I was 18, returning to the US for University. So to mine was added the fuzzy memories of childhood. Wal-Mart absolutely blew my mind. Also, America is huge.

unsignedint 10y ago

Even just visiting Japan (I'm originally from Japan) causes this for me. Short stay is fine, but I feel really foreign, maybe more so than "foreigners" as people in there can detect disconnect of my appearance and mindset by my subtle deviation from expectations of how I act in there.

verisimilidude 10y ago
I can sympathize. Whenever I come back to the US from Japan, I find myself bowing at the supermarket and persisting lots of little Japanese mannerisms. Sometimes for days. Japanese culture seems to demand more...commitment...than some of the other places I've visited and lived. Perhaps Japan is a stronger source of reverse culture shock.
- bane 10y ago
  Japan also is the source of a strange culture bound syndrome sometimes called "Paris syndrome" -- which is somewhat related to the lack of the kind of micro-ceremonies that are encoded in Japanese manners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome
- greggman 10y ago
  Bowing st the supermarket ? I've been in Toyko for over 10 years I've never seen customer bow at a supermarket. Is that a thing in some other part of Japan? What I notice going back to the USA is how it often feels like the 3rd world countries my dad would tell me about as a kid indirectly trying to tell me how great the USA is. Now I just see crime, corrupt police, etc. Came back for 6 months got my car broken into twice. Once in LA, once in SF. Try to hang out at a coffee shop to work but have to pack up my stuff and give up my seat to use the restroom because otherwise my computer will be stolen. I never feel safe riding public transportation in SF where as I never not feel safe riding in Japan. Another is convenience. After 9:30 in Venice Beach, if I haven't eaten by 9:30 nothing is open except 24 supermarkets in have to drive miles to. Compare to Tokyo where there's almost always a conveniece store within 5 minutes and they actually have reasonably good options. Food is bland and large. Americans seem to prioritize quantity over quality in general. At least in the suburbs. I could rant about Japan too but the topic is reverse culture shock.

chiph 10y ago

Did a military long tour in Germany in the 80's. Returning was jarring. There were TV series that I had missed entirely or major parts of, ("V", "Miami Vice", etc) that had become part of the culture. Public trash cans freaked me out -- all the ones on military bases and in major German cities had been removed because of the Red Army Faction terrorist threat. Walmart went from "Who?" to "OMG this place has everything!" Finally got to eat Pop Tarts again.

kawsper 10y ago

I lived 3 years in the UK, and now I am back in Denmark for a while, I hope to return, but lets see what Theresa May & co figures out. I always thought I wanted to go for the dual-citizenship, but not anymore. It is difficult to live in a new place, you don't really feel integrated even though you have friends, speak the language, go to events, pay your taxes, and get the jokes, you will always be the dane and a foreigner. A thing I noticed when I was away is how stupid and mundane Danish everyday local politics look, and the same with the news cycle. I think it is refreshing and healthy perspective, and I would encourage everyone to go to another country just to get out of their bubble. And also to get some ammunition against people that keep spouting "If I moved to another country, I would assimilate". When I returned I had adjusted to British service levels, and how fast it is. I was used to get a coffee within minutes of ordering, and when I went to a store and looked a little out of place, I would instantly get help. I got to observe my fellow Danes as a tourist, and oh boy, I now understand why they all seem to think we are rude, and don't really care at all! But the most odd thing about being back home is that I don't really feel at home, my thoughts and language is some sort of strange danish/british amalgamation, and I feel like a foreigner, even though I bike the streets of my childhood, say hi to people I went to school with, and walk the forests and beaches I was going on adventures in as a child.

vocatus_gate 10y ago
When I came back from my first tour to Iraq in 2004 (was 19 at the time) it took me almost a full year to feel mostly "home" again. But it definitely changed something about me, ever since that year I've never felt 100% "home" for some reason.
- kerbalspacepro 10y ago
  You're 32 now, right? Have you had some kids and a wife and stuff? Elders in my life seem to imply that the feeling of home will come back when you make it come back. A big part of losing "home" is aging out of it.
  - vocatus_gate 10y ago

bane 10y ago

I've lived in other countries a handful of times for fairly brief periods (no longer than 6 months), and it is really true. I've know some people who've spent years abroad, come back to the U.S. and nope right back out as fast as they can find employment back where they came from. It's not a statement about the quality of a place, but really having to go through an adjustment to get used to your new home and then having to readjust back to where you came from (only you keep telling yourself you shouldn't have to since it's your home) and then constant comparisons between places, which you already did as part of your learning of a new place, but now you start to see all the bad stuff about where you're from, but you were used to doing the reverse instead. It takes a while for all the differences to average out in your mind. I don't think I've ever had to too bad, but I've definitely spent a few weeks angry at how terrible Americans drive after coming back from Germany, or how bad service is when coming back from Korea. But I've also had kind of the opposite feeling. After one long stay in Germany, and feeling very foreign, I remember coming home and it not really registering that it happened until I got in the taxi and the driver was playing some R&B. I'm not even an R&B fan but the Americaness of it, after hearing weeks of Europop, hit me like a stick and I suddenly felt very very home.

55555 10y ago
I lived abroad 6 years and coming home always feels weird. Comparatively, I always feel more relieved when returning to my second home, so I guess I still haven't ever recovered from the change that living abroad had on me.
donw 10y ago
Have lived in Japan for about eight years now, with a year-and-a-half somewhere in the middle spent bouncing around Germany. Originally, it felt... very odd, every time I came back Stateside, especially when visiting the podunk suburb where my parents live (and incidentally, where I grew up). Going from a city of 13 million that has quite possibly the best civic infrastructure in the world, to an aging and slowly dying town that barely breaks the 80k mark in terms of population is quite a transition. I think the best way to explain it is... divergence? As in, my path, and the path of that place have diverged. Everything from before that point feels "natural", and everything afterwards feels strange. Now that I've been an expat for awhile, and have bounced around quite a bit, that feeling of oddness seems to have vanished for pretty much everywhere I visit. Sure, things are different in different places, but everything seems to fall into a slot of "this feels right" or "this doesn't suit my tastes", and there really isn't anywhere that has a perfect mix of everything. Although I'll admit, the urge to return stateside has gotten quite a bit stronger over the years. I'm very comfortable in Japan, speak the language, and have a solid social network, but at the same time, I find myself missing a lot of the daily aspects of American life (especially the grocery stores!) There's a really good article on the subject as well; On Being A Triangle (And Other Tips For Repatriation): http://naomihattaway.com/2013/09/i-am-a-triangle-and-other-thoughts-on-repatriation/ http://naomihattaway.com/2013/09/i-am-a-triangle-and-other-t...

cylinder 10y ago

I've experienced it after only three months away from the US.

holdenc 10y ago

Why call it reverse culture shock? It's simply a realization that the United States not the best country in every regard. And in many regards it's failing badly. Personally, I call it the I-can't-get-healthcare shock, or the I-can-only-find-chain-restaurants-in-flyover-country shock, or the NYC-subway-is-not-as-nice-as-the-Asian-country-train-system-I-just-left shock.

hueving 10y ago
Did you even read the article? It has nothing to do with the US infrastructure or healthcare system. It happens between cultures, even when neither of them are American. It can even happen if both are American if the source and destination are different enough (e.g. moving from a farm town of 500 in Wyoming to Manhattan).
yladiz 10y ago
If you think of culture shock as visiting a new culture and being "shocked" by something different, reverse culture shock is returning to your original culture and being shocked by it. It has nothing to do with the US.
wtbob 10y ago
> Why call it reverse culture shock? It's simply a realization that the United States not the best country in every regard. That's completely not it at all. Culture shock is what happens when one visits another country and realises that certain things one takes for granted aren't, and other things one thinks are negotiable aren't. It's the same phenomenon which young historians have when they first read of a technologically advanced, trading culture which also casts every firstborn child into a furnace (e.g.). Reverse culture shock is the same phenomenon, when one returns back home. It's caused by the fact that one has assimilated to one's guest culture to some extent, and upon returning home … one finds that certain things one had grown accustomed to taking for granted are not, and other things one had grown accustomed to thinking negotiable are not. An example is the wide variety of cereals in American groceries, or the limited variety of organ meats. If one has grown accustomed to just buying 'müsli,' and one suddenly has a dozen different varieties, one claiming to be good for keto diets, one claiming to be vegan, another gluten-free, another paleo — that's a culture shock. If one has grown accustomed to making kidney pie, then returns to America and must make a conscious effort to source kidneys — that's culture shock. If one has grown accustomed to horse or whale, and returns to find that they are illegal — well, that's culture shock too. It's not about better/worse; it's about different.

mrdrozdov 10y ago

This would fit so well into George Carlin's Euphemisms bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc

SomeCallMeTim 10y ago

Heck, I grew up in the Bay Area, and I get reverse culture shock when return to visit for more than a few days. So. Much. Traffic. People packed into trains. Everyone so...not exactly rude, but not nearly as friendly as I've grown accustomed (I live near Boulder, Colorado). I feel like my blood pressure is higher the entire time I'm there. Of course the air pressure is higher, so that may have something to do with it, but I think it goes beyond that. On the other hand, I've never been in great shape, and the first day down at sea level and I feel like I could run a marathon...

bkjelden 10y ago
The bay area is unlike any other place I've ever visited or lived in America. Every aspect of life is more crowded.
- closeparen 10y ago
  Manhattan, though objectively denser, is less claustrophobic to me: though the crowd is thick, it walks fast, you can navigate the area quickly (via the subway), and big open space (Central Park) is never that far away.
  - musha68k 10y ago
    New York is awesome (I prefer it over SF, really) unfortunately Trump happened so I'm not planning to move to the US anymore.
colmvp 10y ago
I always hated driving in SF. I can deal with traffic. I can deal with the pedestrians and cyclists. I can deal with the slew of drivers who thought signaling was optional. I can deal with paying for parking. But holy shit the lack of paid off-street parking lots in numerous parts of the city bugged me, alongside the absurdly inexpensive on-street parking. I never understood why the city didn't raise the price of on-street parking spots given the demand. The city which I currently live in has 4x the population of SF yet it's significantly easier to find parking spots in most parts of the city as the parking rates properly reflect the true cost of parking.

komali2 10y ago

I disagree that the jarring bit about home is that it's changed. For me, it was that so little had changed. At the supermarket I worked at when I was 16 were some of the same people, working the same cashier job. Friends were still talking about "getting back into college," doing the same thing they had done every weekend for years. It depressed me.

brewdad 10y ago
This. I grew up in a medium sized town in Michigan. Haven't lived in MI for 20 years and haven't visited my hometown much since then since my parents now spend most of the year elsewhere. I spent almost a week there this Xmas and came to see how a community with strong union labor ties could vote for a candidate like Trump. Almost nothing had changed there in 20 years and what little had changed was almost exclusively for the worse.
ido 10y ago
I disagree that the jarring bit about home is that it's changed. For me, it was that so little had changed. Try this experiment in a big city.

nickbauman 10y ago

A German-born American with 11 years total living in Germany. Almost all of it with the iron curtain in place. A white guy, I now live in a neighborhood that's 3/4 black, 10% Hmong for 16 years, I feel very normal being permanently out-of-place. In Germany I am the "Amerikanischer". Here it's "he's German". But I'm permanently alone in a crowd, too. Always on the outside looking in. Suspicious of the herd. Skeptical of consensus. Circumspect. Cantankerous at times. I am, simply, permanently, "the other". It's all not bad. You notice things other people don't wherever you go. You're the first person to seek out the people who don't fit in and hold out your hand in friendship. Because you know, deep down, that with all the divisiveness we're experiencing right now, that we will never get through it any stronger without the greatest concern for each other.

e40 10y ago
Hi. I feel the same way. When I was a kid, once a week my family would drive to the other side of town (the 99.99% black side) to visit my grandparents and uncle (they were the .01% white folk). I would spend all day Sunday hanging out in this area of town full of dirt poor people (just like my family there). I've never felt at ease and at home as I felt there. The people were friendlier than I could imagine. There were very, very few black people on my side of town, and it seemed weird and wrong. When I was in my 20's at college, I would sometimes find the bad part of town and just ride around on my motorcycle. I'd do this when I was lonely and needing that "belonging" feeling. So, from that early age on the other side of town, I've embraced otherness, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  10,000 to 1. Very different indeed.
- ianai 10y ago
  Were you ever 'eyed down'? I got that recently at my childhood home.
  - e40 10y ago

renaudg 10y ago

As an EU citizen living in the UK for 7 years, worried as we all are about my Brexit bargaining chip status, the part about "involuntary/unexpected reentry" is sad and terrifying to read.

JacobAldridge 10y ago

The old adage is that a man can never step into the same stream twice; for it is not the same stream, and he is not the same man. Stepping back home (in our case, moving back to Australia after 2+ years living in London) is much the same - you have changed, and home has changed, but you don't expect either to be different. I think a big part is expectations. When we left, we were expecting something different, unusual, full of surprises (how bad is London coffee?) and annoyances. But returning 'home' you have no such expectations - you just 'expect' to slot back in. But you've travelled the world, learned a different culture (although I don't profess that in our case it was enormously different), moved on with your life in some way ... and so too have all those people who stayed behind, and indeed the city/town/country itself. So you're surprised, and you were expecting it to be effortless. Shock! (And it is the weird little things. For the first year I was always one block off with my directions. But thankfully the coffee was as good as I remembered it.)

vacri 10y ago
A Greek friend of mine said of the Greek diaspora here in Melbourne that when they came out post-war, they became 'hyper-Greek' as a coping mechanism, embracing their culture more fully. They then travel back to Greece for whatever reason, and complain about how decadent it's become. Of course, he says, Greece hasn't really changed, it's just that now the ex-pats are seeing it through the lens of being 'hyper-Greek' now.
- distances 10y ago
  I've heard this is indeed often the case, emigrants embracing their home culture in a more fundamental way. Maybe the imagined state of one's culture is often that of the grandparents' time, always a bit behind of the reality.
  - masklinn 10y ago
    > Maybe the imagined state of one's culture is often that of the grandparents' time, always a bit behind of the reality. Not just that of the grandparents' time, but an idealised/extremised version of it, blurry and pastel, filtered through the lenses and expectations of those who actually lived it.

rebootthesystem 10y ago

Interesting article. I feel very much at home in places like the UK, Netherlands and Spain. Not so much other European cultures. Coming back to the US, no real problems adjusting. Maybe I didn't stay in Europe long enough or popped between cultures with enough frequency to not have anything "imprint". > the psychological, emotional and cultural aspects of reentry I thought "reentry" was an odd word choice here. I immediately thought "mission to Mars".

trustfundbaby 10y ago

I've lived in the US for almost half my life. I went back to visit my home country in West Africa for less than a week just a few years back ... I was so stressed out by everything there that I fell sick for almost two days. Then I moved my departure date up by a day just to get out early. No credit card machines, nothing resembling customer service (I'm talking actively rude or disinterested store attendants), Nightmarish traffic since traffic signals and lanes are just a suggestion and not enforced by police, Hyper religiosity, rampant and casual homophobia (they're all convinced America is going directly to hell because of gay sex), truly shit roads, with cars that shouldn't be on the road EVERYWHERE, right beside Lamborghinis and Mercedes, barely-there running water, internet and most importantly, unpredictable electricity supply and the ever present drone of diesel generators that supply power to individual houses because the electricity supply is so useless. It was too much. I've never been so happy to see a starbucks in my life.

peteretep 10y ago
This sounds more like what we used to call "This Be Africa" when I lived there, rather than reverse culture shock per-se.
- trustfundbaby 10y ago
  dunno about that. I grew up there, so at one point, all this was completely normal to me. It wasn't till I went back that I realized how INSANE it all was. My family ask me every week, when I'm moving back. lol
  - ido 10y ago
    This may have also been exasperated by such a short visit? When I visited India for a couple months in 2004, it took me a couple of tries to even be able to go out to the street (in Delhi). But after a couple days I started getting used to it and a week or 2 later it was "fine" and not really that shocking (albeit still annoying at times).

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Rapzid 10y ago

I'm a NZ permanent resident and moved back after nearly 5 years living there. My shock is mostly politically related; I'm hyper aware of the polarized nature of the country now as well as the lack of understanding of UHC. The inability of our government to streamline and adopt modern technologies into the governance process(downsize), hyperbole and rhetoric on both sides, etc.

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poguez 10y ago

Is this the science behind smooth deportations?

plasticchris 10y ago

I get this when returning to the Midwest from California...

dcw303 10y ago

I'm six years in Japan. I think staying in touch with your home country makes a big difference. I'm yet to move back for good, but I find that two things have made my readjustment when visiting home much easier: 1. Keeping up with family via Facebook 2. Getting an AFL streaming subscription If you're not Australian it's hard to understand, but once you've experienced the greatest sport in the world it's hard to give it up.

mfringel 10y ago
As someone who is not an Australian (i.e. born/raised in the USA), I will agree with you that Australian Rules Football is one of the greatest sports in the world. :)
Markoff 10y ago
good for you, you are not in China, where government try their best to sever any tes you have with your mother country, god forbid trying to videochat with your family without forcing them to install Chinese spyware... same goes for rest of the internet...

205guy 10y ago

> Your commute to work might be more time consuming. > You may need to spend more time in the car for > shopping, picking up kids at school or playdates, > or running errands. These are not necessarily bad > things; you simply have to adjust to a new routine. Sad they had to call out these specifically. When I moved back to the US and landed in San Jose (South Bay Area), I thought I was smart and would live "downtown." I only lasted 3 years before meeting a European woman and moving to a very culturally different part of the US.

feelix 10y ago

To someone who has not tried living overseas this may sound like a classic 'first world problem', and I suppose it is. But what I can't stress enough is how severe it can be. I went and lived in various places around the world for a decade, from about 23 to 33. The place I settled down most was in Ecuador, where I learnt the language, met my long term partner, and made some close friends and integrated with the culture. But I spent years in Europe, the USA, and Asia too. All of the above was achieved just by coding software and selling it off some wordpress websites I put together. And now I've been back in New Zealand for exactly 3 years, and it's awful. Life is so repetitious and small and boring. I've never been more miserable. And it's for the same reasons in this article, and that other people are mentioning in this thread. The funny thing is that before I left I had no particular desire to go (I just did it because it was easy and my friend wanted to), and I was happy. But now, because I have had those life changing experiences, I'm not.

iamcreasy 10y ago
Can you give us an example about the difference in your life between Ecuador and New Zealand?

emchamp 10y ago

Long time lurker here, first time poster. I am an American living in Japan and enjoying all the trials and struggles of living somewhere utterly different from where you grew up. In Japan I'm American, however back home I am Asian-American. Among Asian Americans I'm further subdivided into another category. I have very few close friends of my own ethnicity and those that I have I would consider as just Americans anyways. The thing is that even with people of my own ethnic group, I don't have much to relate to since I don't speak the language and I grew up somewhere completely different. I discovered after coming to Japan that the thing I relate to the most is being American. However it's funny that in the US I knew I was American but I always felt I had to put an asterisk on that or a hyphen since I wasn't part of the majority. My point is that I've always felt as somewhat of an outsider no matter where I've gone, but still I have a concept of home and that is the US. I think it took going to somewhere completely different to REALLY cement my own self-identity and self-image. Coming here I had no idea what I would come out identifying as culturally, but I think it should have been obvious that it's the place that I grew up in and spent most of my time despite feeling like an outsider at times. I'm likely going to go back home soon for many reasons (culture differences, language barrier, heavily reduced respect/pay for programmers over here, missing friends/family) and I'm curious how I will handle the reverse culture shock. From this experience though I'll gained have a stronger identity and how important being an American is to that.

erikb 10y ago
I also had this feeling of only learning about my own national/cultural identity by being the foreigner in another country. Suddenly you even realize there are things you're proud of, although you've never thought of yourself as being proud about your country before. And I'm jealous that you know about the reverse culture shock. Gives you some time to prep for it. I'd be really curious if it helps. For me and probably many others the reverse shock was actually much worse. Took me about a year to get any kind of life back. And it was really disappointing that all the new things you've learned you couldn't just not really share with old friends and family, they don't really care. Otherwise they would've taken the trip with you, right? So for them you are not the smart, cool guy who managed to do something extraordinary, you're the idiot who did lots of crazy things and now pesters them with all of the experience they could have told him before would be troublesome and weird. What helped a little was having contact with expats in the other direction who I could communicate with after returning face to face, and keeping all my friends from the foreign country at least digitally close by. Good luck with returning! Hope it works better for you.

aytekin 10y ago

I spend 1/3 of the year in San Francisco and 2/3 in Turkey. Educated and lived in US for a long time previously. I feel home at some aspects of each country: Respect for pedestrians (US), friendly warm helpful people (TR), diversity in food and people (US), a hometown where I'd love to live my last days on earth (TR), rich language (US), humble people (TR), startup and business culture and experienced people (US), paradise like vacations (TR), optimism and good luck surface area (US), family (TR).

andy_ppp 10y ago

It's takes 3 months in India to show me how weird, grey, twee, pompous and reserved England is.

piceas 10y ago

I love it. "Home has changed. You have changed. You have adapted to another culture and now you must readapt." Don't be bitter about it. Get on with it. The advice that "People at home aren’t as interested in hearing about your foreign experience as you are in telling them about it" also resonates with me and can be a tough pill to swallow. In some ways it's similar to oversharing upon returning from a holiday. It shouldn't hurt too much when most people don't care how amazing or difficult it was. When your foreign experience is part of your identity it can be easy to take that disinterest personally. If you look/sound/act at first impression as the other culture it can feel like every introduction starts with satisfying the person's curiosity. When that curiosity is immediately followed by disinterest the incongruity can be jarring. For my partner's reentry I suggested that we have a short one sentence answer explaining where we were so that the conversation could move on quickly and save the rest for those who are genuinely interested. I think wtbob's comment that "It's not about better/worse; it's about different." is very helpful. There is a time to compare and denounce the absolute and relative merit of an aspect of a culture but it can be unhelpful if those criticisms are just an outlet for frustration. For the cross-culturally mobile parents in the crowd please please please consider that your children's experience might be very different than your own. The Reverse Culture Shock - Managing Reverse Culture Shock page [1] has lots of practical advice. I also highly recommend reading Third Culture Kids : Growing Up Among Worlds [2]. I would also recommend it to those who are reflecting upon their own childhood intercultural experience. [1] https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56076.htm https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56076.htm [2] http://www.crossculturalkid.org/third-culture-kids-excerpts/ http://www.crossculturalkid.org/third-culture-kids-excerpts/

vasundhar 10y ago

This was called repatriation shock, surprised to see its placed here on state.gov

ragle 10y ago

Another phenomena that can creep up on well-traveled folks is "the curse of the traveller" (obviously not a technical term, but I've not heard another name for it). Essentially, you subconciously collect "likes" about each place where you spend a sufficient amount of time. The food in this place, the coffee shops somewhere else, a street market culture here, the women/men there. A language, the climate, pace of life and attitudes from other places. With time, the mind constructs its own personal Shangri-la (which contains _all_of these things) and you, explicitly and/or implicitly, spend the rest of your life dissatisfied with the delta on your actual experience. In practice, for me this has been more of an "ah... that's happening, heh" thing that I observe going on in the mind rather than a difficult-to-live-with curse. I'm curious, however, what the effects will look like another 10 or 20 years in. I suspect it could grow worse with age as we are able to travel and do less? That's hopefully just a matter of managing perspective, though.

tim333 10y ago
It can be a positive when people bring back the stuff they found better when abroad.

madradavid 10y ago

What a coincidence, I just got my `Carte De Sejour` (Residence Card) today. I am a Ugandan living in Paris. Uganda was colonized by the British so the official language is English, I grew in the capital city (a different tribe from mine with a different culture and different language ) so back home when I visit my relatives who live far from the city (my ancestral home) I feel like a foreigner (they used to call us `city borns`). Here in France, the French expect most black people to speak French and know about French culture (they colonized a number of West African countries ) but again in our country we speak English so you feel awkward and out of place. To make things even more complicated my fellow East Africans (Kenyans, Tanzanians) speak Swahili so when they meet you they have this Swahili vibe but again Ugandan's don't speak Swahili we speak English... So a foreigner at home and a foreigner abroad, HN is home :-).

kerbalspacepro 10y ago
Sounds like you need to get to the U.S, bud.

Markoff 10y ago

lived better half of decade in China, returning back to EU was pretty much smooth: - sky here is always blue - drivers in EU are kinda annoying stopping and letting me pass when just standing next to crossing even when I dont really intend to cross yet - streets are completely empty - sidewalks are empty, not full of trash and people occupying them with their illegal stuff - cashiers are kinda lazy, you have to take stuff out of your basket and put it on moving belt, already used that in China cashier was doing everything - shops are closed half of the time, very ealy in evening, almost all weekend, not open 7 days a week like in China - almost nobody stares or pay attention to my nonwhite wife despite currently staying in very small town, I was being stared at all the time even in cosmpolitan Beijing - people here in EU in general are very soft and weak caring too much about others instead of being selfish, more agressivity would be sort of welcome, though it is to my advantage - cars have to wait for dumb green light when turning right (always green in China) - I can go straight from my apartment to train or subway without single check, unlike like 7 checkpoints in Chinese train station - cash is still very common when buying things like ice cream though Visa paywave is very convenient in bigger shops, just touch terminal and you are done, in China you can live with Wechat payments in your phone but very inconvenient with scanning QR codes instead of just touching card to terminal in Europe - even in very small town you can find people speaking English or at least some basics, you would have trouble even in cosmopolitan Beijing, dont dare in some smaller place Overal I am glad I moved back, though life in China was more easy going and less serious, because it was considered more like videogame than real life, because we all know as foreigners there is no future there and you have to go back sooner or later.

Markoff 10y ago
Oh yeah and i forgot - I FUCKING HATE eurocoins, always need to be aware of that crap and trying to get rid off it, since you cant use card everywhere. These eurocoins seem like some third world country which cant afford plastic banknotes. Good old eastern Asia where I could live just with banknotes and online payments.

erikb 10y ago

All this culture and reverse culture shocking taught me to get sensitive about all the adaptions we have to make often and don't think about. E.g. when moving from New York to LA people talk about being "homesick" but people don't talk about culture shock. But it's the same, just more small scale since people still speak your language and have a somewhat similar culture compared to different countries on different ends of the world. Right now I'm in the process of moving to another city and can appreciate a lot all the things I learned about culture shock and can handle it quite well, e.g., the overpowered feeling of loneliness that sometimes hits you really hard, or that you must be careful about sharing experiences since others don't consider the same things weird as you.

jankedeen 10y ago

It's time and space. Northern Virginia in 1978 and now. That's a mindf*ck.

known 10y ago

Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/ http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...