Culture Shock

 Culture Shock

“Why don’t you go back to your own country?” 

She yelled at me through the hostel hall within the first 5 minutes we met again. I had just arrived after a 4 hour-bus trip to visit my best local friend in Colombia.

We had met more than a year earlier, during the Danzas de la Luna in Colombia, a mystical women-gathering for a 5-day ancient dance ritual. On our way back home we found out that we both, as new-comers in Medellin, lived in the same area. Excited with this new possible friendship in this enormous city, we exchanged phone numbers. 

Soon after we decided to move in together. We got very close and we learned a lot from one another. How happy we were with this deep connection, how difficult it could get as well. I experienced my first samples of latina drama, and she got a taste of European distance as a reaction. Yet we always got through it, as we learned to love each other as sisters. 

Triggers

The day of our conflict, we hadn’t seen each other for nearly a year as I had taken my time to travel through Central-America. In the meantime, she had moved, therefore I traveled to meet up with her. I looked very much towards our reunion again.

After this sweaty noisy bus ride I was a bit grumpy and overwhelmed. My mood didn’t improve when I realized I had left my only -and thus favorite and good quality- sweater in the bus. I went back to find out that someone had taken it. This was a huge trigger for me, and reminded me of all the other times I felt mistreated by locals in Colombia during all the months I had lived there before. 

Being triggered can trigger others

Directly after a long hug, I told my friend about this incident, I did not hide my anger and astonishment. Why should I? She is my friend, of course she will feel with me as my only sweater got stolen, being in such a cold mountain-village. She had been there for me before as it was certainly not the first time that she listened to an incident where I felt badly treated in her country. Going over to solutions I mentioned that I even doubted if they would have such a sweater like the one that got stolen. 

“Why don’t you go back to your country, if you think we are stupid and if you only can complain about us?”, was her reaction. I stood perplexed.

Underlying wounds

One of the things that I realized is that it’s not always appropriate to vent to a local about ‘them’, not even to your best friend. She took it very personally, even though I was not talking about her. It brought her to a level of feeling used and judged by ‘the gringos’, leaving with their good stuff and going back with only bad stories about them. Yes, this went deep… This got to a collective level, the history of abuse and colonization for ages by ‘my’ people, the Spanish conquistadores. 

Anyway, after a few days and the needed reflection-time, we talked it through, one of the toughest conversations of my life. It touched her in a deep wound, and underneath my complaining, I had to admit that I felt invaded and not respected, over and over again. This was a conversation about values, trauma… on a personal and even collective level. 

Signs of culture shock

I could not get across to my friend that my repetitive behavior of complaining is also quite typical for a culture shock, and that that was just where I was at. And I can imagine that it might seem very strange for someone who has never traveled, or who did not stay somewhere long enough after the honeymoon-phase, to get to that point of daily recurring interactions, misunderstandings and consequent frustrations. 

Yes, frustration is very common for culture shock. It’s tempting to stay in it, as you can sometimes feel very alone, not seen and misunderstood in another culture with different values, behavior and rules. 

Do you recognize as an expat or long-term traveler repetitive frustration in your interactions with locals? Or maybe judgments, making yourself smarter than ‘them’? Do you catch yourself with duality-thinking as in ‘them versus we’. These can all be signs of culture shock. 

How to deal with culture shock

Don’t let anybody tell you that your culture shock ‘should be over by now’, as it’s a process with ups and downs. As long as you stay in a foreign country, you might be confronted with it. It can get better, but suddenly something can trigger this again. Don’t think you are overreacting, don’t blame yourself. Being an expat definitely has its challenges.

If this happens to you, make sure that you talk to someone about what is bothering you, without having to censure your speech. To someone who understands you, maybe who has been there as well. Expressing yourself freely about what you are experiencing is the first step of dealing with it.

Culture shock is totally normal, as a foreigner in another culture. Continue looking at the aspects that this new culture has to offer you, without nihilating the things that do trigger you. You will develop your strategies to cope with it over time.

If you have nobody to talk to, and living in a foreign country is really getting to you in the sense that it’s making you doubt yourself, lose trust in others, triggers anxiety or stress and brings you into an isolation, please reach out to a professional. 

Living in another culture or country is often romanticized and people underestimate that culture shock can reveal deeper wounds, can damage relationships and turn you upside down, be it progressively or suddenly. Nevertheless, it’s something that you can learn to cope with.

After 8 years living in Latin-America it still can hit me from time to time, but to a lesser degree. In the meantime, I have learned to recognize it faster, deal with it, communicate about it and accept it. It’s not that I feel more than the local culture. Sometimes it’s just overwhelming and unsettling, especially when there are several triggers in one day. Repair the damage if there is, forgive yourself and know that if people love you, they will do the same.