Culture Shock

The initial experience of cultural differences while living abroad is often referred to as culture shock. Culture shock is a strong emotion of not being able to deal with the cultural differences at hand while living abroad, often linked with a strong desire to go back home. Some people do return home but many find their own ways and means of dealing with it, e.g. by questioning one’s own assumptions in looking at the host culture.

Culture shock is for instance mentioned in student exchanges, albeit to different degrees (depending mainly on cultural distance and personality characteristics). Even if these exchanges are normally not more than half a year, the cultural difference may become quite a burden. However, most students evaluate the differences and their effects as something positive. Recurring themes are ‘the confrontation with yourself’, ‘own responsibility’ and ‘not everything

can be done on automatic pilot’. In addition specific learning experiences are also mentioned; e.g. differences in the perception of work in life.

Returning Home

Important to note is that people often also experience culture shock on returning ‘home’ after a longer stay abroad. Although often unexpected, the phenomenon is a logical result of having changed by being in another country and at the same time not being fully involved in developments in one’s own country. People in the home country may for instance be involved in some major event (from disaster to a television series) that mostly escaped the attention of the expat, receiving much less attention. The path through life of an expat has deviated from the highway of the people in the home country and to join the traffic on the highway proves more difficult than expected.