This is the assignment form Understanding international communication class.My teacher ask us to choose a topic from chap 5:Culture shock.Please help me correct this essay .Thanks all.
Topic: Some people believe that culture shock is a big problem preventing people from accommodating to a new life.Others disagree,arguing that it is a good chance for people boost their self-confdence plus to enhance their potential abilities.Discuss this.
In some people's eye culture shock is merely a challenging barrier that inhibits their accommondating to a new life in an unfamiliar culture. There are, however,many people who see the underlyingly possitive impacts of culture shock. In this essay I will attempt to analyse both sides of culture shock and then give a real life example in my experience as well as draw some lessons I gained from it.
First and foremost, what is the term "culture shock"? "Culture shock is a stressful transitional period when individuals move from a familiar cultural environment to an unfamiliar one" (Understanding intercultural communication,Stella Ting-Toomey and Leeva C.Chung,second edition). People tend to view their own way of life as natural, which means they often find themselves feeling difficult as they enter an unfamliar culture. Everyone has experienced culture shock at least one time in everyday life, not to mention those who used to go overseas,it could be a long trip to another city or sitting next to a new international classmate.Culture shock,however, is most intense when people travel abroad.Those,who experienced culture shock,are often left with tremendous stress an pressure on the well-being of an individual.According to Ward et al 's discussion ABC's of culture shock, sojourners have to undergo three stages which are affective stage, behavior stage and cognitive stage.when facing culture shock.
There is no doubt that culture shock brings a buch of negative implications to sojourners and immigrants in terms of physical,cognitve and behavioral.Those,who experience prolonged stress from culture shock may get digestion problems,loss of appetite, sleep disorder or even high blood pressure,etc.Besides,the problems in terms of cognitive also play a significant role in contributing to the negative impacts of culture shock.The difficulty in making accurate attributions and coping with the new situation may lead to the feeling of isolation, loneliness and homesickness plus a decrease in self-confidence and self pity.Furthermore,the depression and exhaustion from inability to tackle the problems in an unfamliar situation is likely to generate some inappropriate behaviors like higher alcohol consumption and insulting statement about the host society and its members.
It can not be denied that culture shock leaves those who experience it tremendous troubles,but it is a completely normal process and physical plus psychological reactions mentioned above are totally understanable. As long as people learn to manage it effectively,it will help them to experiment new ideas,boost their sense of well-being,cognitive openness,self-confidence, equipting them with necessary skills,bringing enormous potentiial benefits. When the newcomers step by step learn to get used to the unfamiliar situation, they will gradually build their knowledge of different cultures. More importantly,when it comes to misunderstanding cultures or some health problems,they will have chance to learn to take care of physical and mental health by themselves and learn to solve problems on their own.The key is that people experiencing culture shock should try to turn to barriers into a big opportunity to take advantages of it.
From my experience, I once went through a hard time,which can be considered a culture shock. It was in the 2005,when my uncle living in Australia asked me to come to Australia to study and he would take care of me.My parents obviously let me choose but th ey prefered me to stay at home bacause I was too young at that time.I had always dreamt of living abroad,which led me to chose to live in Australia with my uncle. First days at secondary school in Australia were extremely horrible, I was freak out with everything,everything was different from my country,which made my worried and anxious and I found hard to cope with.I could not eat anything and lost 3 weight within 5 days. After about one week, I gradually got used to the new life and found out that it was actually not that bad but then I became depressed and burst into tears because I really missed my parents,my relatives and my friends. Due to some problems I had to study there 2 months before coming home with my parents.I was regretful for not listening to my parent's advice that I was too small to get ready for a new life in a forein coultry without parents nearby. Now I think that if I have another chance to live in a forein country,I will not be hesitant to go because I am not small any more an I can do everything on my own without the help from parents and I will not completely too freak out to come to get to know the new country.
After the experience underwent, I find out some useful tips to conquer "culture shock" barriers that could be applied to many situations like that.Before coming to an unfamiliar culture, it is essential that people increase their motivations to learn the new culture,making a good preparation of knowledge of its cultural customs,norms and language.The most important tip that need to keep in mind is to calm down when encounter culture shock because culture shock is unavoidable,there is no point in freaking out,which just deteriorates the situation.It takes time to recover from culture shock,not immediately.It is worth remembering that everyone who has to go through culture shock need to get to know the revised W-shape adjustment model consisting 7 stages and at the 7th stage,which is resocialization stage,everything will back to normal.
The topic of pros and cons of culture shock plays a significant role in making people aware of the negative effects of it so that they can avoid some problematic consequences deriving from culture shock and take advantage of its impacts to help themselves.Adding to that,this topic can be considered as a foundation on giving fundamental knowledge of adapting to a different environment.Keeping in touch with family and friends also help decreasing effects of culture shock.
