As the world grows smaller, as ever-increasing numbers of people travel,
work or study abroad, more attention is being focused on a kind of silent
sickness that often afflicts the inexperienced traveler or the unwary
expatriate. It's the loss of emotional equilibrium that a person suffers
when he moves from a familiar environment where he has learned to function
easily and successfully to one where he has not. The term used to describe
this malady is "culture shock."
The effects of culture shock may range from mild
uneasiness or temporary homesickness to acute unhappiness or even, in
extreme cases; psychological panic, irritability, hypersensitivity and loss
of perspective are common symptoms. Often the victim doesn't know what's the
matter with him. He just knows that something's wrong - and he feels
miserable.
Not long ago a New York corporation sent a young employee
to a Latin American country on a two-year assignment. Six weeks after his
arrival he wrote an emotional letter asking permission to come home. The
natives, he said, were anti-American. Their food was odd. Their restaurants
were unsanitary. Their business methods were inefficient. No one was ever on
time. He added-that he had acquired a rash that
he feared might mark the onset of some dire disease. His superior in New
York, who remembered his own experience under similar circumstances years
before, sent him a laconic cable: "Stick it out and be promoted or come
home and be fired." The
young man stayed.
In a typical year over eight million Americans leave the borders of their
own country and immerse themselves, temporarily at least, in alien cultures.
Not all, to be sure, suffer significant emotional disorientation. But a
great many do, especially those who have never before been away from home.
Nor are Americans the only victims. Anyone is vulnerable who finds himself,
as the Bible puts it, “a stranger in a strange land."
Symptoms are the same regardless of nationality. Not long
ago in a mid-western college town an American family asked a Sudanese
student to dinner. During the meal one of the children of the household kept
dawdling over his food. His father urged him to clean his plate, adding the
well-meant but not-very-well-chosen remark that no doubt in the far-off
Sudan many children would be glad to have such a meal.
Infuriated by what he considered an insult to his country, the guest
flung down his napkin and stormed out of the house, leaving everyone
bewildered and upset.
In Atlanta last year a native of Calcutta, an engineering
student at Georgia Tech, came to his faculty advisor in despair. His wife,
he said, had become so alarmed from reading reports of crime in the streets
that she would not venture out of their apartment.
She sat there all day weeping and wishing herself back in India.
Various people tried, but no one could console the young woman. The
transition to another culture (crime in the streets was only the tip of the
iceberg) was too much for her. In
the end, her husband gave up and took her home.
Most experts in intercultural
communication agree that the basic cause of culture shock is the abrupt loss
of the familiar, which in turn causes a sense of isolation and diminished
self-importance. "Culture shock," says anthropologist Kalvero
Oberg, "is brought on by the anxiety that results from losing all our
familiar signs and symbols of
social intercourse.
These signs or cues include the thousand and
one ways in which we orient ourselves to the situations of daily life: when
to shake hands and what to say when we meet people; when and how to give
tips; how to give orders to servants; how to make purchases; wh4n to accept
and when to refuse invitations; when to take statements seriously and when
not."
According to Dr. Oberg, these cues, which may be words,
gestures, facial expressions or customs, are acquired by all of us in the
course of growing up and are as much a part of our culture as the language
we speak or the beliefs we accept. All of us depend for our peace of mind on
hundreds of these cues, even though we may not be consciously aware of them.
"When an individual enters a strange culture," Dr. Oberg says,
"all or most of these familiar cues are removed. He or she is like a
fish out of water. No matter how broad-minded or full of good will he may
be, a series of props has been knocked out from under him."
Sometimes the transition to an alien culture has an
immediate impact. A short term American visitor to certain Eastern European
countries may find himself dismayed or depressed by living conditions that
seem perfectly normal and acceptable to the people of that country - toilets
with no seats, for example, or even more primitive bathroom facilities. It
may come as a real shock to a teen-ager from Texas to find that hamburgers
are non-existent, or that local hairdressers never heard of plastic curlers.
More insidious is what might be termed delayed culture
shock. Often when a person
takes up residence in a foreign country there's a period of excitement and
exhilaration when everything seems new and challenging and fascinating.
If one has friends or business connections one may be asked to
dinner, taken sight-seeing, made much of - at first. Also, in the beginning
similarities between cultures are more apparent than differences. Almost
everywhere people live in houses, go to work, relax on weekends, do the
shopping, eat three meals a day and so on. All this seems reassuring.
It's not until this honeymoon period ends that the
newcomer begins to realize that there are endless subtle differences that
leave him facing a host of perplexing problems. Many of these problems never
bothered him at home, because they solved themselves almost automatically.
Now, to his increasing dismay, he finds that he has language troubles,
housing troubles, money troubles, transportation troubles, food troubles,
recreation troubles, perhaps even health troubles. All of these things drain
away his reservoir of good-humor and equanimity. Having his laundry done may
become a major struggle. Making a telephone call may be a small crisis. It
may seem to him that people say yes when they mean no and promise to do
things which they never do. Time
may be regarded quite differently by the people among whom he finds himself.
So may space; in some countries people like to stand very close together
when they converse, in others this violates a deep-rooted sense of privacy.
Underlying all these difficulties is the uncomfortable
feeling of not really belonging, of being an outsider. In changing cultures,
the newcomer has inevitably changed his own status. At home he was
"somebody," or at least his place in society was established and
recognized; here he is a relative "nobody." As a foreigner, he is
a member of a minority whose voice counts for little or nothing. He may find
that his homeland, so important to him, is regarded with suspicion or
dismissed as unimportant. In short, as one observer put it, he finds himself
in "circumstances of beleaguered self-esteem."
A
mature, confident person may be able to shrug off these circumstances. But
if the newc6mer is insecure or sensitive or shy, they may seem overwhelming.
Furthermore, as troubles pile up and he begins to look around for help, he
may conclude that the natives of the country in which he finds himself are
either incapable of understanding his plight or are indifferent to it. This
in turn triggers the emotion that is one of the surest signs of culture
shock: hostility to the new environment. The victim says to himself,
"These people don't seem to know or care what I'm going through.
Therefore they must be selfish, insensitive people. Therefore I don't like
them."
Inevitably this reaction tends to increase the isolation
of the unhappy visitor because people sense his antagonism and begin to
avoid him. When this happens, he may seek out other disgruntled souls,
usually expatriates like himself, and find melancholy relief in criticizing
all aspects of the host country.
These discussions almost never lead to any honest evaluation of the
situation or awareness that the difficulty may lie in the attitude of the
critics themselves, They are simply gripe-sessions in which the virtues of
the home country are exaggerated almost as much as the alleged failing of
the country being visited. As Dr. Oberg says, "When Americans or other
foreigners get together to grouse about the host country and its people, you
can be sure they are suffering from culture shock."
Sometimes
the victims of culture shock may go to the other extreme, surrendering his
own identity and trying to imitate all the customs and attitudes of the
alien culture. Or he may try to solve the problem by withdrawing into
himself, refusing to learn the native language, making no effort to find
friends among the local people, taking no interest in their history, art,
architecture, or any other aspects of their culture. While in this state of
mind he may display a variety of unattractive symptoms. One is a tendency to
over-react to minor frustrations or delays or inconveniences with irritation
or anger out of all proportion to the cause. Another is to be unduly
suspicious, to think that people are out to cheat or swindle him because he
is a foreigner. Yet another is over-concern about cleanliness, an
unwarranted conviction that water, food or dishes are unsanitary when in
fact they are not. Often the person is unaware of the extent to which he is
displaying these symptoms. As anthropologist George M. Foster says,
"Culture shock is a mental illness, and as is true of much mental
illness, the victim usually does not know that he is afflicted."
He does know, however, that he is miserable and that the casual remedies
recommended to him - patience, hard work, mastery of the language and so on
- don't seem to do much good. Sometimes he will develop a marked degree of
over-dependence on people from his own country who have passed through their
own period of culture shock and are residing successfully and happily in the
host country. If they in turn can display wisdom, patience and understanding
of his symptoms, they often are able to shorten the span of his misery.
One reason the unhappy expatriate gravitates toward his own countrymen is
that in their company he can at least feel sure of being understood.
Underlying much of his confusion is the fact that even if he speaks the
language of the country there remain endless opportunities for
misunderstanding. All experts in communication emphasize the fact that
language and voice are by no means our only form of communication; they are
supported by hundreds of gestures and facial expressions that are easily
misinterpreted.
Professor Larry M. Barna of Portland State University in Oregon tells of an
American girl in an intercultural communication class who asked an Arab
student how he would signify non-verbally that he liked her. His response
was to smooth back his hair, which to her was a common nervous gesture
signifying nothing.
She repeated her question three times. The Arab smoothed his hair
three times. Finally, realizing that she was not getting the message, he
ducked his head and stuck out his tongue slightly, his automatic response to
embarrassment.
This behavior was noticed by the girl and she happily interpreted it
as the answer to her question.
Friction may also arise between two persons of different cultures when one
or both have little knowledge of the other's background. In his booklet
Global Village Conversation, Dr. Reginald Smart, Director of International
Studies at State University College in Buffalo, New York tells of such a
dialogue between a Kenyan visiting the USA and an American. The American,
impressed by the visitor's impeccable accent, asked him, "How is it
that your English is so good?" He meant the question as a compliment,
an acknowledgement that the Kenyan's diction was superior to his own, and he
was also expressing a genuine desire to know why this was so. The Kenyan
decoded the message as meaning, "I can't under- stand how someone from
such a primitive, backward country could be so well-educated." He
answered, very shortly, "Did anyone ever ask you that question?"
meaning that he had been brought up in an English-speaking environment and
thought such a question not only insulting but stupid. Dr. Smart adds dryly
that perhaps it was just as well that the questioner didn't know how to
decode the reply.
Yet another stumbling block that compounds the problems of culture shock is
the tendency of many people to think of members of other cultures in terms
of stereotypes. The excitable Arabs.
The amorous French. The touchy Italians.
The lazy Latins. The volatile Hungarians. The materialistic
Americans. Some psychologists think that anxiety-prone people cling to
stereotypes because it lessens the threat of the unknown by making the world
predictable ... and what the victim of culture shock needs desperately is a
familiar, predictable world. The trouble with such blanket-labeling is that
it blocks any realistic or fair-minded appraisal of the person's
surroundings and delays his emergence from his state of culture shock.
Almost always, fortunately, symptoms of culture shock subside with the
passage of time. The first sign of recovery may well be the reappearance of
the victim's sense of humor; he begins to smile or even laugh at some of the
things that irritated him so much at first. As familiarity with local
language and customs increases, his self-confidence and self-esteem begin to
return. He comes out of his shell and makes tentative overtures to the
people around him - and as soon as he starts being friendly, they stop
seeming hostile. Slowly he progresses from a grudging acceptance of his
surroundings to a genuine fondness for them and becomes proud of his growing
ability to function in them. in the end, he wonders what he was so unhappy
about in the beginning.
Is it possible to shorten the duration of culture shock or minimize its
impact? The experts think so. Here are three suggestions they offer to
anyone planning a stay in a foreign land.
First,
be aware that such a thing as culture shock exists, that it will probably
affect you one way or another, but that it doesn't last forever.
Next,
try .to remember, if and when you become thoroughly disenchanted with your
surroundings, that the problem probably isn't so much in them as it is in
you.
Third,
accept the idea that while it may be somewhat painful, culture shock can be
a very valuable experience, a mind-stretching process that will leave you
with broader perspectives, deeper insight into yourself and wider tolerance
for other people. A close student of the subject, Peter S. Adler, calls it
"a very powerful and personal form of learning." The whole
experience, he says, "is that rare set of situations which forces the
individual into experimenting with new forms of attitude and behavior."
In
addition to these main points, the experts offer a handful of common sense
do's and don'ts to anyone who may find himself exposed to culture shock:
If
it happens to you, don't think that you're strange or abnormal. If you had a
happy life back home, why shouldn't you miss some aspects of it or feel a
sense of loss? You'd be abnormal if you didn't.
If
it happens to you, don't sit around being negative and critical; this just
prolongs and deepens your gloom. Try to keep busy. Arrange something
pleasant to look forward to. Set goals for yourself - learning ten new
foreign phrases each day, for example - and stick to them. Observers in the
USA have noticed that when foreign students bring their wives with them, the
women are more susceptible to culture shock because they have fewer specific
goals and less to do.
If
it happens to you, try not to be judgmental. Everyone has an ethnocentric
tendency to think that his own culture is superior to all others. Actually,
any culture is a good culture, if it provides an environment that meets
basic human needs.
If
it happens to you, force yourself to look for the best, not the worst, in
your situation. People who go around looking for trouble usually manage to
find it. Train yourself to enjoy the diversity of people and cultures, not
fear it or shy away from it. Recently in Russia two members of an American
tour-group at different times during the day bought a candy bar from a booth
in a railroad station. Each was given his change in the form of chocolate
wafers. One American, disturbed by this departure from the familiar, felt
that he was being victimized and protested vehemently. The other, charmed by
what seemed to him a quaint and delightful custom, regarded it as a novel
and refreshing experience and even bragged about it to his fellow tourists.
The first American, it seems reasonable to say, was far more a prisoner of
his own culture, than the second.
In
sum, before he leaves home the visitor to a foreign land should make up his
mind neither to resist the culture in which he finds himself nor surrender
to it. What he needs to do is fight or grope or inch his way toward a new
and flexible personality, a personality that retains its own cultural
identity but recognizes the right of members of other cultures to retain
theirs.
If
that new personality can help him toward a better understanding of himself
and of others, if it can enable him to communicate easily and convey warmth
and under- standing and good will across the culture barricades, then the
pain of culture shock will have served its purpose, and the recovered victim
will truly have the best of two worlds
