MJKIM
Jan 27, 2012
Writing Feedback / Getting used to the madness! culture shock I encountered. [2]
Q. What do you understand by culture shock? Have you ever experienced it and how did you deal with it?
From my experience, I would like to say that culture shock is an impact of travelling from a familiar culture and trying to adjust to an unfamiliar one that normally hit people with various emotions and feelings, mostly with discomfort, uncertainty, confusion or distress.
I had encountered culture shock on numerous occasions, to be honest, almost every day during 4 years of my stay in India. The major ones were the huge gap between the rich and the poor, madness in traffic with no traffic lanes or rules but only noise of honking and bumps on the road, daily power cuts for a few hours and the diversity of languages, religions, people and cultures that were beyond imagination.
Although it seemed virtually impossible for me to fit in to the new world at the beginning, I could gradually look at the nation and its distinctive culture in an entirely different light after giving my best shot to have a better understanding through invaluable experiences.
Building relationships with locals, mostly with my neighbors and church members, assisted me greatly in my adjustment to the new culture by giving me a better understanding of their environment mostly through teaching me about their customs, languages, cooking traditional meals and ways to wear traditional clothes. Interacting with them offered me with chances to assimilate myself into their culture without even recognizing it.
Also, socializing with people from ____ club(expat social club) helped ease the culture shock as it allowed to sharing my thoughts and experiences as well as discovering the real India with the people who were in the same situation through travelling, volunteering, participating in various cultural events and celebrating traditional holidays.
At the end of the day, I found myself already have learnt to accept the good and bad aspects of the host culture and incorporate them into my own life. I consider surviving in India as one of the greatest achievement of my life since it was one of the most toughest challenge that I have overcome and I proudly feel that I can live in any part of the world.
Q. What do you understand by culture shock? Have you ever experienced it and how did you deal with it?
From my experience, I would like to say that culture shock is an impact of travelling from a familiar culture and trying to adjust to an unfamiliar one that normally hit people with various emotions and feelings, mostly with discomfort, uncertainty, confusion or distress.
I had encountered culture shock on numerous occasions, to be honest, almost every day during 4 years of my stay in India. The major ones were the huge gap between the rich and the poor, madness in traffic with no traffic lanes or rules but only noise of honking and bumps on the road, daily power cuts for a few hours and the diversity of languages, religions, people and cultures that were beyond imagination.
Although it seemed virtually impossible for me to fit in to the new world at the beginning, I could gradually look at the nation and its distinctive culture in an entirely different light after giving my best shot to have a better understanding through invaluable experiences.
Building relationships with locals, mostly with my neighbors and church members, assisted me greatly in my adjustment to the new culture by giving me a better understanding of their environment mostly through teaching me about their customs, languages, cooking traditional meals and ways to wear traditional clothes. Interacting with them offered me with chances to assimilate myself into their culture without even recognizing it.
Also, socializing with people from ____ club(expat social club) helped ease the culture shock as it allowed to sharing my thoughts and experiences as well as discovering the real India with the people who were in the same situation through travelling, volunteering, participating in various cultural events and celebrating traditional holidays.
At the end of the day, I found myself already have learnt to accept the good and bad aspects of the host culture and incorporate them into my own life. I consider surviving in India as one of the greatest achievement of my life since it was one of the most toughest challenge that I have overcome and I proudly feel that I can live in any part of the world.
