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Overcoming culture shocks
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Survive culture shock by being open minded about other cultures.
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CROSS CULTURE expert Robert Kohl defines culture shock as, "The psychological disorientation most people experience when they move into a culture markedly different from their own. It comes from the experience of encountering ways of doing, organising, perceiving or valuing things which are different from yours, and which threatens your basic, unconscious belief that your culture's customs, assumptions, values and behaviours are `right'."
In other words, everything that is part of your day-to-day habits and thought process is being challenged, leaving your head reeling. There are four stages to culture shock.
The first stage is the "Honeymoon Stage" where everything is new and you are fascinated and excited. There could even be a reversal of attitude where one is putting down one's own country, culture, infrastructure, etc., in relation to the new experiences.
Next, you go into the "Unsettling stage." This is where your predominant feeling is one of frustration in trying to adapt; you feel impatient, incompetent, filled with self-doubt and angry. More and more, your mind starts making comparisons with "home" and you are generally dissatisfied with everything.
Third stage is the "Turning point". This is a dynamic stage where you are finally adjusted because you have gained understanding and adapting well. If this doesn't happen, this is also the stage where people throw in the towel and return to `home sweet home'.
The fourth stage is "integration" where you not only appreciate what the new culture has to offer, but also have adjusted and made it a large part of yourself.
If after this point you come back home, you are hit with what is called the reverse culture shock.
The best ways to deal with culture shock, so that you can be productive, creative and happy at the earliest, are:
* Prepare yourself before you go: understand how and what makes the new culture think and tick the way they do and where, when and why they are different. After all, forewarned is forearmed.
* Socialise, get to know people - both your own kind and the natives.
* Get local language instructions. Small things like being able to read the labels in a grocery store can give small comforts.
* Get a local map and understand the lay of the land. Explore and make the immediate effort to find out what is where.
* Take as many walking trips around the neighbourhood as possible. Get comfortable.
* Identify social and expatriate organisations that you can join to make new friends which helps in the assimilation process.
Finally, go with a complete open mind and expect everything you believe in, or have lived as, to be challenged. Only then you survive the culture shock!
CHITRA DANGER
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