Culture shock is a painful experience we go through when we encounter many new things in
another country and we tend to react to is very oddly. Culture shock has five phases,
including(1)_____ overload, helplessness, isolation, depression and frustration when we come into
more(2)_______ abroad.
Culture shock may arise from certain areas of life. One of the contributors in is the(3)_________
itself. Stepping onto the new soil, we see so many strange new things, which will shock us. The
greetings can be shocking too because we are so accustomed to certain greetings in our
culture.(4)_______ contact can also cause culture chock. We may be shocked to find that in the
new country men and women hug and kiss much more in public than we are accustomed to.
What’s more,(5) _____space between people when talking may be different. We may feel puzzled
as to why a person backs away from us or why a person moves even(6)______ to us in the
interaction. This, too, can be a shock to the system.
(7)______ is another factor. We always try hard to understand what people are saying. We may
have a hard time in the classroom when we struggle to fo9llow the instructor and to get
the(8)_____ needed for the exam.
Finally, the area of food can lead to culture shock as it is a very(9)______ Part of our life. In a
new land, our favorite food may be unavailable or prepared quite differently. However, when
getting over the culture shock, we will have the(10)_______ to feel at home wherever we are.
1.sensory 2.obstacles 3.arrival 4.physical 5.personal
8.information 9.emotional 10.flexibility
6.closer
7.Language
Culture Shock
Culture shock is that experience, often a somewhat painful experience that we have when we go
from our home country to another country, particularly for the first time that we’ve gone overseas.
We grow up in our home culture, accustomed to many, many things around us that we take for
granted. We are very, very familiar with them. Now suddenly as we get ready to go off to another
country, we are going to encounter many new things. And we’ll react in some very strange ways.
This is what we call culture shock.
Let’s talk about some phases or stages of culture shock. I’m going talk about five stages. The first
one is sensory overload. When we first arrive in the new country, we are going to see many new
things, new and different from what we are accustomed to . The landscape may look different, the
building may look different, the people may look different, the behavior of people may look
different, the vehicles that we see many be different, so many new and exciting things, and we just
take in a lot of new stimuli until we are just saturated with it after a couple of days. That’s what
we call sensory overload.
Another phase is one of helplessness. Before long, we are going to find that there are more and
more things that we cannot do very easily, whether it’s in shopping , or, are going to be areas
where we’re going to feel helpless much like a child that’s learning about life, new things back in
the home country, but need an adult to help him through it.
We’re going to feel isolated, thirdly, at times when we can’t communicate effective, we’re just not
getting through to people, or maybe people aren’t caring enough about us or, we nay think they
aren’t caring enough about us , and we will feel isolated.
Fourthly, we may become depressed at times, particularly at the time of holidays. That’s always a
time that we want to feel good. We think about our family. We think about our friends, think
about the good times. And here we are in a strange land. We don’t have our family and friends,
and get depressed.
And fifthly, one of the things that happens is that as we run into more and more obstacles, more
and more frustrations in the new country, we start thinking about the old country where we came
from and how good things were there, how smoothly every thing went. I never had this problem,
that problem, just didn’t have them. OK, those are five of the phases, them, of culture shock.
Now we’ll turn our attention to some areas of life that can cause culture shock. One of them is the
arrival itself . When we arrive in the new country, we see so many new things. And that’s
shocking to us. We’re not accustomed to it.
Secondly, the greetings. We’re accustomed to certain greetings in our homeland. For example, we
may have the expression that says something like How much money do you make? very
common expression. But suddenly of you use the same expression for a greeting in the new
country, we may get a very negative response, because a person may think we are paring into their
personal business. And we’re shocked by that. We don’t expect, don’t understand it.
Thirdly, we notice that physical contact in the new land may be quite different. We may be
shocked to find that in the new country, women and men have much more physical contact with
each other in public than we accustomed to, and were shocked by it. This adds more to our culture
shock.
Fourthly, we may find that people require more or less personal space between them than were
accustomed to. We may find that as we e talking with somebody that person will be backing away
from us as we e talking. Or, a person may be moving in on you, towards you, and you don’t
understand why. That can be a shock to the system as well.
Fifthly, the area of language. It’s going to be a difficult one, if you are in a country that speaks a
different language. You are struggling, struggling and struggling to learn more words to
understand, particularly in the classroom, you e trying hard to get the information so you can pass
the test and you have an instructor that just keeps, uh, speaking in a very rapid rate, and he may
not enunciate very well, so you have a particularly hard time, very frustrating, which adds again to
the culture shock.
Finally, the area of life that can cause culture shock is the area of food. Food is a very emotional
part of our life. We are familiar with certain goods that are our favorites and now we are in a new
land, where our foods may be not available, or they e prepared differently. Again, very shocking
to us.
Now when we’ve gone through all of this in our new land and we have come to the end of our tour,
it time to go back home, guess what? We’ve in for another shock, because now that we e been in a
new land, we’ve learned new things, we’ve gotten familiar with new things, we’ve changed our
opinions about things. We’re kind of a different person and now we go back home. And we feel
alienated and we have to go through the same process, we find that we cannot be at home any
more the way we were before we left home, because of the changes that have taken place. But , on
the other hand, because of what we have learned, the flexibility we’ve , uh, achieved, we can now
be at home anywhere in the world.