Reverse Culture Shock! By Greg Beck This May I took a long overdue vacation home to America. Having lived in Japan for five of the last six years, I expected some level of reverse culture shock. I knew this meant feeling like a foreigner in your own country, but I had no idea just what that meant or how it would feel. Before moving to Japan, I had studied Japanese language and culture. I knew about the major differences in customs and most things that would surprise a firsttime visitor had already been explained to me by others who had been there before. It was like reading a book that I had already seen the movie version of, because there is much more detail and content, but the main characters and twists were the same. Thanks to my studies, and my host family, the Ogawas, I never experienced normal culture shock, or for that matter, homesickness. I have always felt comfortable in Japan. Going home to America I had several cultural expectations. The clothes people wear, the way people speak to each other, and – of course – Mexican food, were major and valid reasons I looked forward to going home. I was not disappointed either. I had a great time and enjoyed every day. I love America, and for the most part, I felt relaxed and at home. But something was wrong. I was not relaxed, and I did not feel quite at home. I could go hours without noticing it sometimes, but I always felt slightly unsettled. I spent two weeks in my hometown, Tucson, Arizona, and during that time I studied my country and my own reactions. My feelings and reactions always came first, but afterward I reflected on them like an observing scientist. I have broken down reverse culture shock into these categories: The first and most obvious category is “geography”. When I say geography, I quite
literally mean mountains. My friend Elijah picked me up from the Tucson Airport. He had a big new truck, but other than that, hadn’t changed a bit. He drove me to the other side of town to see his new house in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains. We stopped at a red light and I looked out the window at a crystal clear, blue sky and orange-brown mountains that seemed to cut the sky like a razor. These are the same mountains I had always driven by without a thought, but now they stuck out like a 3D movie. I kept telling my friends “It’s just so…stark!” but they couldn’t relate. They’d say, “Yeah, I know, its very beautiful.” and go back to whatever they were doing. Later my mom took me hiking through Romero Canyon, and I spent so much time trying to take a good picture of a quail. Later we walked back to the parking lot and a whole family
of
quail
remembered:
in
ran
by
Tucson,
and
then
quail
I
are
everywhere. The streets and buildings are another example. Most everything was exactly the same, but still some things that I felt were permanent parts of my image of Tucson, had changed or disappeared completely! Circuit City, the electronic store, was gone. The transition from 4th Avenue to downtown was completely remodeled - and actually much
nicer - but after walking through the underpass and coming to Club Congress, where I used to watch live bands play when I was a student, I completely lost my sense of direction and felt like someone had picked up an entire section of the city and dropped it somewhere else. This felt very disconcerting. The next category is “people”. Most of my friends and family had not changed in appearance or attitude, and after five minutes talking to them, it was like I had never left. But another thing that hit me, just as suddenly as when I noticed the mountains, was seeing my little brother. The last time I went home, almost two years ago, he had grown a lot and suddenly he was taller than me! But I was only there a week, and he was still my kid bother. This time, he looked like an adult (a very young adult, but still, adult-ish). Just like the mountains, he seemed to stand out visually. I sensed him like only he had a different filter over the lens of my eye. The closest way I can describe the sensation when looking at him, would be to compare looking at all the words on this page and this . For the first
whole
day
my
younger
brother looked like he was bold and italicized. Then there was the matter of strangers – specifically, people working. Unlike the geography and my little brother, this is something I didn’t notice at first, but slowly noticed more and more throughout my trip. Everyone seemed like child versions of the people who were supposed to be doing their jobs. They would not concentrate on their work, and laugh when they made mistakes, or say rude or bizarre things to customers. I tried pointing this out to my friends and family but there reaction was similarly uninterested. I would say “Doesn’t that seem unprofessional?” or “Can you believe she called me by saying ‘Hey!’ instead of ‘excuse me’?” But now when I think back to before I moved to Japan, I can’t remember if it used to be different, or if people had always
behaved that way at work. Everyone – fast food worker, police men, and airport security, spent as much time talking to each other as possible and looked at me as an interruption. I did not like that. The last category is “internal”. Ultimately, all forms of reverse culture shock come from within. The mountains didn’t change, but my appreciation of them did. My younger brother did change, but I thought I was prepared for that, and clearly I was not. The unprofessional workers were probably not as bad as I make them sound, but they seemed that way in comparison to what I am used to in Japan. I feel the need for this third category to describe reverse culture shock that comes because I have changed. The Greg that graduated from the University of Arizona four years ago has grown and (hopefully) matured into the Greg typing this article now. My political opinions and values are different. So one example of internal reverse culture shock was when I saw a new tower of police cameras recording everything that happened at an intersection. I was truly disturbed both on moral principal and how out of place it seemed. Before I moved to Japan, America had started putting displays on the highway that showed you the speed limit, and how fast you were driving, and they would photograph your license plate and mail you a speeding ticket, but this was not a display, it was just a tall metal pole with tons of cameras hanging off like metal fruit, and it was not on the highway, but in the middle of the city! I decided the feeling I had seeing this thing came from internal reverse culture shock. I would not have liked the cameras being there even if I never moved away, but I think I wouldn’t have felt as irked by them if I had been there while it was discussed, decided, built, and turned on. (By the way, the city has decided to take them down.) Nothing stays the same, and that is perfectly natural. By researching a place you have never been before, I believe you can go there without feeling culture shock, like I did when I moved to Japan. But stay away for too long from somewhere you have lived before, and there will be no escaping reverse culture shock. Of course, my real home is not Japan or America. My home is my bond to my family and friends, and that will
always be worth a little shock.