#culture shock

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The tickets have been purchased and I am finally going home. I have been waiting for this day for a while now. I have even been dreaming about this day but now that it has come.. I am nervous . I’m nervous the world was spinning too fast while I was gone. I’m nervous people won’t be as excited to see them as I am to see them. I’m nervous I changed to much. In nervous I didn’t change at all. I’m nervous that nothing will feel like home. I’m nervous I won’t be able to answer people’s questions about my experience

Reverse culture shock sucks. I honestly think it is worse than plain old culture shock because it turns the place, that you used to know as home, into this uncomfortable place you now have to get used to. It hits you in the weirdest places. When I returned from my study abroad experience in college I had a moment where I was just casually having a glass of wine with some friends and I started crying! I have no idea what will affect me the most when I get home. Finally having a plethora of people I can communicate with? Being able to read a menu? Will it be hard for me to get used to what I once considered normal?

I can tell you this, I will miss people calling me beautiful every day and students saying hi to me all day every day. And of course I’ll miss my new friends. I am a grateful that for all that Hegang has taught me and given me. I will never forget this place and hope that it has only made me a stronger person.

I was taught by my parents at a young age how important manners were, as I know many others were in USA. As an American temporarily living in China it wasn’t hard to notice that the thing my parents told me was so important was missing here. In my first few weeks here I couldn’t tell how to pinpoint this cultural element that I could tell was different every where I looked.

First I thought it was just that the people in China couldn’t be aware of their body. For example, when I went to the grocery store it was always complicated because people would stand in the middle of the isle with their cart blocking the way or cut in front of me in a line or stop right in front of me as I was walking. I decided this was easy to solve and I just had to learn how to say excuse me. But many times as I was (what I thought) politely waiting for the person to notice my eagerness to get past them someone would usually just push past me and the person I was waiting on and even though it looked like to me they both had to collide for one to get past another… the collision didn’t faze either of them. No one said excuse me or sorry or looked for an apology. When I asked an english teacher how to say sorry and excuse me she told me then paused and said, “but no one really says that here”.

Something else I have noticed is that I have yet to have one random person to hold a door for me or see anyone hold a door for anyone else. I’m not saying when I am home a “Prince Charming” always holds a door open for me when I bat my eyelashes. I know it doesn’t happen often that people hold the doors in The States ..but it happens. Like if you are walking into a store and someone is walking right behind you, you will hold the door an extra second so that it doesn’t cause the door to slam in their face… A door has been slammed in my face multiple times here.

Now before you start thinking that the Chinese are some horrible barbaric people you have to understand the country and history of China. It wasn’t that long ago that a LARGE amount of the country was starving and impoverished and people had to make sure they got what was theirs to feed their family.

Now it is country with over 1.3 billion people!

I am currently reading a book about China called : Age of Ambition. Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China. By Evan Osnos. And if you are curious about China I really suggest you to read it. It explains it all!! It has been extremely helpful to me in explaining different parts of China’s past that helps me understand China’s culture now.

The book commented on how the people of China tend to drive, which I would also put in the category of “missing chivalry”. I’m sure you are thinking “I have driven in [insert American city name] I know all about rude drivers. Sure, you can think whatever you want but you have to believe me when I tell you that I wouldn’t mind driving in any and every city in the U.S. but never want to get behind the wheel in China. And this has nothing to do with the signs being in a different language but is solely because every one behind the wheel here, scares me. Pedestrians never have the right away, even when the light says walk. A honk here means "I’m going through wether you move or not”. I have also seen that for some people they have no problem being in the far right lane and then turning left when the light goes green. I’m just trying to explain that when People here get behind a car they don’t stop for anyone or anything.

All of these things really troubled me and confused me until I read a part of Osnos’ book that said that Chinese drivers think “I can’t pause. otherwise, I’ll never get anywhere”. It was funny, that sentence helped put everything into perspective for me.

This is a country of over a billion people with that many people and some of them knowing what it’s like not to have food, so why would they pause to hold a door or say excuse me or let someone go ahead of them? If they they did that they would never get where they are trying to go or what they are trying to get. China is CROWDED and as an American you can’t understand this many people in one place until you get here. I bet if a Chinese person said excuse me to everyone they bump into every day, they would loose their voice. Almost everywhere is crowded and you have to push to get places. It’s not that people are being rude, it’s just how you got from A to B. And if you let one car pass how do you know that the hundreds of other cars wouldn’t take advantage of that.
So even though people laugh at me for saying thank you so much and people push their way in front of me everyday. I just have to understand that’s how it works here. No one is trying to be rude, they are just living their life and get what is theirs, in an a way that is acceptable in their culture. And as an outsider, I have no reason to judge because if I lived here my whole life, I am sure I would act the exact same.

Depression in Third Culture Kids: You become a performer, watching the people around you, mimicking their words and actions so you’ll be accepted. It’s what you know. As a result, you lose your identity. #amblogging #thirdculturekid

Born into one culture, brought onto a boat at a young age, raised on-the-go… it can feel like your brain is a blender. Taking in all this information, culture, and experience at once, mixing it together, forming a ‘you’ that nobody else reallygets.

Even when you return to the country where you were born, you might look like everyone else, but something’s different. You don’t relate to these…

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