Culture Shock Essay

A sudden change in one’s surroundings can result in culture shock. Culture shock refers to the anxiety and surprise a person feels when he or she is discontented with an unfamiliar setting. The majority of practices or customs are different from what a person is used to. One may experience withdrawal, homesickness, or a desire for old friends. For example, when a person goes to live in a different place with unfamiliar surroundings, they may experience culture shock. Sometimes it is the result of losing their identity. In the article “The Phases of Culture Shock”, Pamela J. Brink and Judith Saunders describe four phases of culture shock. They are: Honeymoon Phase, Disenchantment Phase, Beginning Resolution Phase, and Effective

Cultural shock is a common feeling a person experiences when transitioning into a completely different environment and living situation. Throughout the world, immigrants experience many difficulties when assimilating into a new culture.

Anthropologists have always had their discrepancies with the word culture and its background significance. There have been numerous definitions that have filtered through the field, yet not one that everyone can accept or agree with. Franz Boas, an anthropologist in the early 20th Century, and his students, had a difficult time figuring out the objective of what culture is. Culture is about learning and shared ideas about behaviour. Although Boas and his students had a slightly different idea in mind. They ultimately reached a conclusion, a definition of culture in their view that is a contradiction in terms. Boas sates that, “ culture was expressed through the medium of language but was not reducible to it;

Culture shock is the feelings of alienation, hostility, heightened ethnocentrism, sense of loss, depression and/or self doubt that may result from immersion in a new culture.

Pederson (7) explains that there are stages of culture shock, which he identifies as the honeymoon, negotiation, adjustment, and adaptation. In the honeymoon phase, a person is likely to get excited about being in a new place, meeting new people, tasting new foods, and acquiring new habits. However, as time passes by, they get into a phase of negotiation, where the differences between the culture one is used to and the one they find themselves in start to become apparent. Feelings of anxiety, anger, and frustrations start to take shape as unfavorable events perceived as strange come in the way of the person 's life, especially if a person does not feel accepted in the new culture (Mukherjee 273). Loneliness may set in, and the urge to go back to the familiar culture strongly comes into play. However, as time goes by, adjustment sets in, usually within six to twelve months, and one gets accustomed to the culture and also comes up with a routine. By this phase, one knows what is expected of them, and life once again becomes ‘normal.’

Culture shock: a sense of confusion and uncertainty sometimes with feelings of anxiety that may affect people exposed to an alien culture or environment without adequate preparation. In “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell and “The Management of Grief” by Bharati and Mukherjee, you see two unique examples of people coming into an unknown world to them and trying to figure it out. In Russell’s short story she tells us a story of a girl raised by wolves who is introduced to the human world along with her family. Mukherjee’s story tells us a story of a traditional Indian woman, who just lost her family to a tragic plane accident, and tries to find her new identity. Although Russell’s story is a fantasy unlike Mukhejee’s,

Cultural Shock: Bruno who is only 8 years old is shifted with the whole family from Barlin to country side as his father was a General in the Nazi military. He was assigned as a command of a Jewish concentration camp in the country side. In Barlin Bruno was used to go to school & play with his friends. He was very happy there. He likes to explore places. He wants to explore the world. He used to play with his friends in his home also. But after shifting from Barlin to country side, he became alone. He didn’t like to read books but after coming to country side he missed his school as well. He also missed his friends. So in Barlin there was a culture but in country side there was another culture. So we can say that this is the concept of cultural

. A well-designed cultural awareness training program seeks to foster an appreciation of the host country's culture so that expatriates can behave accordingly, or at least develop appropriate coping patterns. A preliminary trip to the host country provides a preview to assess their

I became used to regularly and only speaking English, and imitating the attitudes of the people I worked and went to school with. Although I remained culturally connected, I also took on the American culture that I was learning to become a part of. This included food, etiquette, and how I spoke and dressed. This experience, as well as what I am learning in sociology, revealed a lot about the importance of culture, and the obvious ways we feel different when put into a culture we don’t recognize. When defining culture shock in class, as feeling disoriented or out place when being placed in an unfamiliar culture, I finally found the exact term to define the odd feeling I had when being scared of the culture I was facing for the first time. While culture is made up of “socially transmitted” customs, knowledge, and traditions (as well as behavior and ethics/moral ideals), it can quite literally define who you are. It makes up your entire identity, and that is why being in situations where people around you do not share the same traditions and values, it feels out of place and sometimes borderline

Upon arrival at a faraway country, jetlag clouds over while unfamiliar faces bustle by. Unique smells and bouncy music that you’ve never experienced before pulse through your ecstatic brain as you search for a bite to eat. Everything is new and exciting. Even the spoken language sounds like birds singing, not people conversing! The first peak at your new home – a quaint apartment overlooking the outskirt streets of Rome, makes your heart dance. Your new roommates are fabulous, tasting bizarre foods is amusing, and navigating to school on the unreliable bus system is an exhilarating challenge. Your trip here won’t be a smidge below awesome!

The world has millions of people of diverse cultural backgrounds. They have their own beliefs, food habits, art forms, and dressing styles. Since ancient times, these people are coming across each other and are exchanging their ideas. However, sometimes people turn hostile because of their cultural prejudices. This tendency to judge the other people based on the standards of his or her own culture is cultural bias. It is a major hindrance in performing a cross-cultural research. A person who is culturally biased ignores the differences that exist between his own culture and other cultures. Cultural bias can stereotype a culture. When a person says his cultures superior to others, he is undoubtedly culturally biased. Such a person never appreciates

For the purposes of this piece, culture is defined as “the full range of human patterned experience” as described by Cole (1996) cited in Gla ̆veanu & Jovchelovitch (2017, p.113). This chapter also provides a description of the importance culture plays in psychological research.

When one first moves to a completely new and unfamiliar cultural environment, assuredly he or she will experience cultural shock and disorientation. Cultural shock can be from many different aspects, for examples, climate, foods, language, custom, social etiquette, environment and etc. Cultural shock might cause depression, homesick, confusion, sadness, frustration, in which one have to overcome when arrived to a new country. Personally, I had experienced cultural shock when I first arrived in America from FuZhou, China; I felt lost and confused. Similarly, Tanaya, who is from Kharkiv, Ukraine had experienced cultural shock and had felt unsuitable because of foods, school, living habits when she came to America one and a half years ago.

In 2010, as my sisters-in-law and their families prepared to immigrate to the United States (U.S.), my husband and I did all we can to advise and assist them in getting ready for their long journey from Nigeria to the U.S. To our surprise, contrary to every advice we gave them, in preparation for life in the US, they started out with trying American fast foods of different kinds. Culture shock is expected for anyone who immigrates to the US, regardless of where they come from. The type(s) of help the person(s) gets on how to overcome it and their adherence, most often, determines the future outcome of life in their new country of residence.

Culture Shock has played a tremendous role in the growth of cultural ecology because it is an issue that is constantly growing all over the world. In the United States, it may not seem like things are changing involving culture shock, but it is not any different then the changes in places like Africa and China for example. It is developing equally across the world because there are now more ways to travel. So, what exactly is culture shock anyways? Well, it is known as going to a foreign or unfamiliar territory that one is not used to, so they may feel symptoms of anxiety such as nervousness or shock because the customs, actions, beliefs, etc of those people may not seem familiar to them, so one may feel ill-prepared for the changing environment. Also, for example, if one was to go to school in the U.S. but came from China, they would feel culture shock because the rules in China are not the same as rules in the U.S. and so it may make one feel uneasy about the situation because they are not use to change and maybe the move was to quick for them to adjust properly. The United States is very different from foreign areas because the culture is very different. Where have people of Africa seen movie productions, music, sports, universities, iPhones, computers, etc? The answer is not where they live but in the United States if they traveled there before. This is exactly the issue with culture shock in ecology. Culture is what people behave like, feel, and do. Shock is a symptom