Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Culture Shock v. Reverse Culture Shock

Culture shock: not knowing how to say or buy cereal in a foreign country.
Reverse culture shock: walking down the monstrous cereal aisle in my home country.

Culture shock: riding in traffic with "flexible" rules without cussing out another car.
Reverse culture shock: being cussed out for slowing to let someone in during rush hour.

Culture shock: trying to commisserate with the broken, lonely, and hurting of the host country.
Reverse culture shock: realizing all the broken, lonely, and hurting in my native country.

Culture shock: comparing everything in Indonesia to "how good it is in America."
Reverse culture shock: comparing everything in America to "how simple it is in Indonesia."

Culture shock: paying for things in denominations of multiples of thousands.
Reverse culture shock: paying multiples of thousands for everything.

Culture shock: avoiding street riots over $1.25 gas in a third-world country.
Reverse culture shock: nearly causing a parking-lot-riot over $3.93 gas in this country.

Culture shock: passing time by playing computer games while waiting for Internet pages to load.
Reverse culture shock: playing computer games as a pasttime.