Culture Shock?

It made me smile when my mom said in her thick southern drawl, “you seem to be real comfortable.” Well, I’m glad it seems so. We are working to make this home. This kind of move can make loved ones ‘back home’ feel as though we dropped off the face of the earth. Be assured we’re in a real-life place where we live and work and have our being just the same as you (relatively speaking).

Of course, there are things that aren’t quite so comfortable…but why dwell on those?

Well, I will share one perspective: the one mantra I keep telling Jared is, “ALL THAT GLITTERS ISN’T GOLD.” Here where there is a new rush to 'modernize,' some things can get a little lost in the shuffle. For example, We have a “Semsong” CD player someone left for us. It is a cheaply made knock-off from Asia. While the volume knob won’t work and it won’t take any kind of programming, the display flashes wildely with dancing figures, expanding hearts and sparkling stars. For now it’s at least somewhat amusing to find the “pretty” elements of life that perhaps don’t function optimally. Facades are called ‘facades’ for a reason.

You anthropologists may guess we’re still in the “honeymoon” stage of culture shock. I don’t know; it’s kind of hard to tell. Honestly, I wondered if we’d have any honeymoon at all, considering some of the varied and interesting travel experiences we’ve had. But I see now that every place holds its own adventures and discoveries. I do think, maybe naively so, that our culture shock journey is more tempered by our experience and study. I can certainly see more dramatic mood-swings in the other new teachers we came in with. Four out of the six of us newbies won’t stay to finish their contracts, and one has already resigned (we only got here at the end of January!).

Yes, the turnover rate is very high, I’m discovering. Of the approximate 40 expats on staff, around 20 are leaving at the end of this year. Culture stress is one factor; and other is the “starting a new school from scratch stress” – and in a foreign culture.

In truth, at this point it seems that our adaptation to the international school arena has been more stressful than local cultural issues. When such a small community works together, lives together and socializes together….well, you can guess the kind of dynamics that can produce.

So, I’m sure there’s far more culture stress ahead of us. For now, we’re happy to be together, enjoying this new culture, muttering choice words under our breath at times, and taking discomforts with a grain of salt.