Abroad View

It was a hot day in Illinois. People sat inside by their open windows, watching the children brave the heat. Suddenly their eyes opened wide. A naked man was walking casually past their apartments.

To John, our unfeathered friend, his behavior was as normal as singing is for a bird.  He is not from our country or our culture.  John left his apartment for the laundry room with a basket under his arm.  As he put his clothes into the washing machine, he realized that what he was wearing needed washing too.  Without a thought, he undressed and put his clothes into the machine.  Satisfied, he left for his apartment. 

John was not aware of the effects of his behavior.  He experienced no culture shock.  But the other residents of his apartment building did.  For whenever the values, beliefs and behaviors of a person from one culture unsettle or upset a person from another culture, that is culture shock.

If you are thinking of taking a short-term missions appointment, or studying abroad, or if you’ve seen some international students around on campus, think about the causes of and cures for culture shock.

Colliding Cultures

We can face a new culture with either of two basic attitudes.  The first consists of understanding, empathy, acceptance and identification.  The second is rejection and culture shock.

Because of our ethnocentrism, culture shock is the most common reaction.  Doesn’t our culture have the best and the only way of doing things?  It seems so, because our culture is our only frame of reference.  In fact, very few people do not go through a period of rejection and culture shock when they enter another culture.

Cultures are products of historical development.  You can’t understand them by looking at the physical or psychological characteristics of their people.  You have to understand them by studying where they’ve been as well as where they are now.

All the beliefs and behaviors resulting from this historical development represent values.  Dr. Milton Rokteach calls to our attention the complexity of those values because they continue to develop and because “the average person holds dozens of values, thousands of attitudes and tens of thousands of beliefs.”

Values are standards that guide our actions, attitudes, comparisons, evaluations and the ways we justify ourselves to others.  Those values also influence our life goals.  It is at the point where values collide that culture shock hits the hardest.  This is called the rejection stage, because nothing in the new culture seems to fit our familiar values.

Yearn to Learn

To move beyond rejection requires a learning process – learning to stand differently, talk, shop and wash differently.  You may have to learn to go to the bathroom differently, if indeed there is a bathroom to go to.  Or you may have to change your “personal space” of twenty-two inches to the Latin American-style two inches.  Picture a North American being backed around a room by a Latin trying to have a normal conversation!

Culture covers everything in human life and is its center.  An individual is not born with a culture but only with the capacity to learn it and use it.  Saying this opens the way for a change, a learning process.  We must learn to appreciate the new culture where we live and accept it.  This does not mean that we lose our first culture, but that we become individuals with two cultures.

Foreign Tongues

Unfamiliar language and communication patterns also precipitate culture shock.  Not knowing the idioms and figures of speech of a new language can easily get us into trouble.

An American missionary went to a coal-mining area in northern France.  One day he preached on Christ as the water of life and said that everyone needed this water of life.  Some people laughed.  Others smiled and nodded.  The missionary could not understand their reaction.  He didn’t know that in French “water of life” referred to the brandy these miners drank in their coffee.

When we relate to another culture, we need to understand the people and their language.  If we don’t have a command of the language, we mature adults become like dependent children.  Someone has to show us what to do and where to get things, and has to do the talking for us.  We lose our independence.  We are frustrated.

When I came to the United States, I was not prepared for culture shock.  I had enough English to converse, but did not know the culture.  In France it is not polite to cut into a conversation between two people.  If you want to enter into the conversation, you wait for the appropriate moment.  In the United States, it is difficult, almost impossible to finish a conversation.  You are cut off any time, and usually the person who last entered the dialogue changes the subject.

A communication problem developed because of cultural barriers.  This represented a threat to me and to my culture.  My culture was my security, my identity, my dignity.  How could I relate without these?

Know the Symptoms

The degree of emotional culture shock depends upon the individual.  It is like a stress reaction that could happen in the United States when you transfer from one school to another or your family moves to another town.

In a lecture on culture shock, Dr. K. Oberg listed some symptoms to help you recognize culture shock – excessive concern for cleanliness, feeling that which is new and strange is dirty; fear of physical contact; feeling helpless or dependent on long-term residents from your own nationality; irritation at delays and other minor frustrations growing out of proportion to their causes; excessive fear of being cheated, robbed or injured; terrible longing to be back home.

Everyone won’t have the same symptoms.  Some will go to pieces or withdraw into their own worlds.  Others will have guilt feelings.

The stresses of culture shock can bring physical problems – lack of sleep, exhaustion, anxiety, nervousness, irritability.  Some people are not able to concentrate on their work.  They may go through a mild psychological depression.  Intestinal problems and ulcers are also possible.

Shock Treatment

You can avoid some frustration and humiliation by studying the culture where you are planning to go.  But you need to remember that there are cultural differences and that shock will occur sooner or later.

Your best help comes from your friends and your doctor.  Here is a helpful equation:  Dave Linton of Wycliffe Bible Translators says that culture shock is a function of involvement + value differences + unknown factors divided by communication + language + acceptance + emotional security + spiritual resources.

Recognizing the problem is your best asset.  Understanding the situation is the key for you to enjoy the other culture and be able to find fulfillment during your stay.  Not only that, but you will also be able to understand what students from other countries are going through when they spend a year or more on your campus.

JEAN-MARC LEPILLEX, a native of France, experienced culture shock firsthand as a graduate student in communications at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.

Copyright Information:
Reprinted from HIS magazine, October 1982 issue.