Culture shock. I’ve always been fascinated with this term. Before I experienced it, the phrase always struck me as seriously clichéd.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, I spent some time in La Mosquitia in Honduras a few years ago. It’s remote, and requires major effort to explore. Before this trip, I had traveled a lot, but never in the developing world.
The villages in La Mosquitia are varying in scope in terms of education, language, and ethnicity. They are all poor, but as mini societies they react differently to their individual set of circumstances. One village banned alcohol, which seemingly improved the quality of life for everyone involved. They embrace their culture, are very welcoming of travelers, and from the outside appear to be a vibrant, healthy community.
Another village we visited had western paraphernalia everywhere and seemed to idealize the United States. Kids with protruded bellies walked around drinking grape soda at seven in the morning, and mothers and fathers seemed severely depressed. They questioned us: “Why would you want to come here?”
Observing the filth and overall malaise in the second village was my first real culture shock. I felt sad, guilty, and helpless. But at the same time I was weirdly grateful for the experience. The world just seemed different to me after that.
Since then, I’ve traveled extensively throughout the developing world. I don’t react as intensely to the poverty as I did the first time, but I’m always left wondering what I should be doing differently in my life back home.
When was the first time you experienced culture shock? Have you?
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Most definitely! My favorite experiences of culture shock are not while I'm traveling, but after I return home. After my first trip to India, which lasted a month, it took me more than a week to take my environment (i.e., my native culture) for granted as I had my entire life. I was surprised to find cleanliness where I'd learned not to expect it, I had a terrible time ramping back up to speed in order to flow with the hectic pace of life in america (both in the work place and in “leisure time”). There many such customs that I noticed in my culture for the first time.
Another memorable experience of culture shock occurred when I landed in Germany after returning from Israel-Palestine. I had quickly become accustomed to the intense sense of fear and distrust that is endemic to the region. The sense of relief I felt when I walked through the airport without the violent tension of fear permeating all human interactions was experienced as a literal lifting of a heavy weight from my shoulders. I smiled a deeply for a moment, and then reflected for a long time how quickly I had acclimated to the culture of fear and loathing and what a horrible impact it could have were I to live there for any period of time.
Interestingly after crossing cultural borders for many years now, I feel that I have fewer and fewer of these moments, a shame I think…
Steven-
Thank you very much for your thoughtful comment. Yes, what you are describing is typically called “reverse culture shock” — an intense experience for sure.
Cheers.
Okay then,
How about watching people go poop on the beach at sunrise in Varanasi? That was pretty shocking for me, but totally normal for the locals. Follow that with burning dead bodies on the shores of the Ganges with people hanging out drinking chai completely uninterested in what was making my jaw drop to the ground, that was shocking. Then there was the time we were at a family picnic, about 100 extended relatives and friends there, a group of women were sitting on the porch eating lunch when one of the little ones stood up and took a leak right in their midst and nobody made a move. I don't mean nobody made a move to stop the act, I mean nobody made a move to clean it up. Everyone just kept on eating and moving about and the urine was left to evaporate, that was shocking. I could go on.
I'm taking a risk here as I'm not going to Wikipedia to get the technical definition of culture shock despite having missed the mark on my first attempt. But it seems to me that it shouldn't refer just to encountering circumstances that are shocking, we wouldn't need the “culture” modifier for that purpose. We need a term for the experience of being in a situation in which humans are doing something that seems crazy to oneself but is considered completely “normal” by the locals. Normal is in quotes because it could be something quite special to the locals but still “normal” in terms of it being something to be expected – like watching the sadhu's roll their penis up around a stick and then twist it 180 degrees – I'm still feeling shocked by that site but the locals didn't even bat an eye :)