A Culture Shock is universally defined as the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration or a visit to a new country, or to a move between social environments, also a simple travel to another type of life. However, we sometimes experience a different kind of feeling. This is quite similar to standing alone in a crowded room.
You are among people with the same hair colour, the same accent, the same clothing sense and the same race. Going by the books, you belong with them and you are more similar to them than anybody else in the world. However, the technical aspect isn’t convincing. You want to go back to where you came from and spend the evening with your group, consisting of Asians, Hispanics, Red Indians and Caucasians.
As they say, home is where the heart is. And even as your feet were making physical contact with the soil where you were probably born, you didn’t belong there. It just didn’t feel right. This place could simply not be called home.
This emotional state of mind is called a reverse cultural shock; something that people living outside their home countries experience frequently. A reverse culture shock is the phenomenon that takes place when returning back to one’s home culture after growing accustomed to a new one. It the feeling of being a foreigner in the country whose traditions and values mark the origin of the blood flowing through your veins.
This article focuses on the two main bearings of returning home: the social and the psychological, both of which will be explained with two examples. It is in shared knowledge that culture is nothing but the mere reflection of the standings of a society on various social issues, traditions and theories. The social effects of something are very closely linked to its psychological counterpart. It comes across as no surprise that our environment plays a crucial role in the way we think, act and react to particular situations. It is also a point of paramount significance that the effects of reverse cultural shock can be tremendously hard on the emotional state of mind of an individual.
According to Stefan Ivanov, who migrated to the Gulf when he was just five years old, returning to his home country was a disastrous experience. Ivanov had to return to Russia as a part of a community service development trip. As a part of the trip’s objectives, he was obligated to help women and children in a little village on the outskirts of Moscow. This was something Ivanov was overjoyed about. He felt happiness returning to his home country and helping his people out. Every night, Ivanov would fetch bananas, peel them and hand them to the working women of the village. For a few days, he received smiles and blushes. Later, however, the delight turned to rage as the women jointly refused to accept any fruit from him.
Perplexed by this odd experience, Ivanov narrated it to his father, who was born and brought up in Moscow. To his utter embarrassment, Ivanov was informed that in Russia, peeling a banana and handing it to women meant the man was indirectly expressing romantic sentiments.
“It was bizarre!” Ivanov recalls. “It was like I was a stranger and I was ignorant about the customs of my own land. I was thoroughly ashamed. There is no other way to express my emotions.” Soon enough, Ivanov declared that his home was the Gulf. And nothing could change that.
Neha Rajesh, a young teenager from the Indian community in Qatar, recalled an uncomfortable experience she encountered while going back to India for her summer vacation after a long hiatus of 10 years.
“I was an alien in my ancestral house. I was standing in the exact same house where I spent my infant years and there was absolutely no sense of belonging.”
Neha was flabbergasted, especially at the joint family system in her motherland. Living in the luxury of her own room in Doha, she felt it extremely uncomfortable to sleep on the floor in India along with her cousins and relatives.
“I had no privacy at all. It was almost like the concept of space and alone time was non-existent. I couldn’t read a book or make my music, because things like that require a silent environment where you connect with your mind and soul. It was pure torture.”
Apart from all of this, Neha also had a tough time adjusting with eating six-course meals thrice a day and her grandmother’s aversion to the ‘Western noise of the guitar’. In both cases, the psychological impacts of cultural difference were pretty momentous. The first phase of impact is referred to as The Honeymoon Phase where the subject is ecstatic experiencing new norms, food, habits and way of life. This can be connected to Ivanov.
The second phase is called The Negotiation Phase. In this phase, the differences of the old and new cultures become obvious and begin to affect lifestyle at a major level.
People at this stage start to become homesick and lonely. The rising strain of leading a new way of life, even for a short while eventually turns to stress and impacts the human mind in an undesirable form. This in turn leads to difficulty in establishing fresh relationships or socialising, which may affect the human body mentally and physically. This can be linked to Neha’s lack of privacy and her grandmother’s repugnance to the instrument of her choice.
However, on a lighter note, Carl Johnson reminiscences about how he met the love of his life because of their vast cultural variances. “It was a Friday night,” he narrated. “I just got out of the airport in London when I noticed an American woman trying to tell the taxi driver the directions to her mother’s house. I went up to her, checked out the place on Google maps and informed her that it was on Highway 80. I even gave her my phone number for her to contact me once she reached, just out of courtesy.” He pauses to let out a small chuckle. “Mind you, I was British. I pronounce 80 as ‘ate-ee’ unlike the American way of saying it, which is ‘Ai-Dee’. I later learnt that Cindy went on to search for an imaginary road named Highway AT.” Carl then informed us that when Cindy figured out what had happened she called him and scolded him for over an hour. They bonded over their differences and five years later, they were married.
Just like everything else, these differences can distress you only as long as you want them to. Occasionally, change is inevitable. There are several ways to snap out of the daunting phenomenon called reverse culture shock. Staying connected with the news from your apparent home country and getting in touch with your roots will definitely help you adjust to the new lifestyle. This phase is called The Adjustment Phase. Yes, there is a silver lining hidden somewhere in the array of black clouds. You’ll just have to work hard to find it. In the words of Libba Bray, “And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.” Take it slow, for the best is yet to come.
