My experience with culture shock is far different than what one would expect from a freshman in college. My experience does not fit the mold of what someone would normally think of as culture shock. I have never struggled with the idea of adapting to a new environment, simply because moving place to place has been a constant factor in my life. My culture shock revolved around the idea of being subjected to a set of ideas that I had never been subjected to. My culture shock was experiencing the death of my father, and my mother being diagnosed with cancer in a span of two years. These events required me to grow up faster than I imagined I would ever have to.
Everyone deals with culture shock differently. People can often have preconceived notions of a specific culture that can cause them to be pleasantly surprised or disappointed (Ting-Toomey & Chung, 2012). Some cultures are also more different than other cultures. Someone moving from the United States to Canada is not going to have as much of an adjustment as someone moving from the United States to India, especially if they do not speak the language. The adjustment also can relate to certain personality attributes, like how open minded or stubborn someone is.
There are many changes that can happen in a person’s life. Some changes are very tiny and would not affect my life very much. When I first arrived in this country, I realized that a tremendous transformation would happen in my life both physically and mentally. After spending more than eight months in the United States, I firmly believe that moving to the United States is a beneficial change for me.
As stated above, in some cases, the course of one’s life can be altered in a matter of moments. With this in mind, the United States is known as the land of an immigrant's dream because a variety of them come to the United States seeking for a better life, in the land of opportunity. In fact, the United States is made by millions of immigrants, who have helped increase the economic growth by building successful businesses. For many years, the United States opened its doors to welcome those seeking freedom, to practice their religion freely, to escape poverty or oppression, to escape conflict or violence, and to make better lives for themselves and their children. In fact, many of these immigrants who came from another country, wanted to pursue
In the last century, globalization has become a very tangible part of how business is conducted. Technological advancement allows international trade and commerce to happen rapidly and easily while the advancement in how goods are transported and how people communicate have had a drastic effect on the globalization of business. Management practices and culture also has a bearing on how international enterprise has is conducted. Managers have to adapt to different management practices, adjust to a new culture, and sometimes face ethical issues in a foreign field. Management is an important role in finance and enterprise that has far reaching consequences on the globalization of business.
Growing up in a diverse neighborhood in California laid the foundation for who I would become. It had also built my views to an extent, expanding by the events that would occur in my life. I was able to witness a number of different unique cultures and customs within. Whether these experiences came from my school to those I meet at church, my appreciation, and effort to stand out in society grew.
Culture Shock 1 Definition of Culture Culture as the most complex terms has countless different definitions ranging from complicated phrases to the simple statement describing culture as "the way we do things around here". The widely used definition of culture is that of Meads (1951), "A body of learned behaviour, a collection of beliefs, habits and traditions, shared by a group of people and successively learned by people who enter the society"(Joynt and Warner, 1996, P. 33). Hofstede(1980) created the very illustrative definition of culture as "the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another". Again to Hofstede's option, culture is learned not inherited, it is not impossible to learn new cultural traits and to unlearn old ones (Manz, 2003, online). Therefore, it must be feasible to integrate cultural differences.
Before my Grandfather petitioned my family and I to come to the U.S, I had so many assumptions about what America is all about. I illustrated that my family and I would have better lives once we relocate. What we didn 't know is
A sudden change in one’s surroundings can result in culture shock. Culture shock refers to the anxiety and surprise a person feels when he or she is discontented with an unfamiliar setting. The majority of practices or customs are different from what a person is used to. One may experience withdrawal, homesickness, or a desire for old friends. For example, when a person goes to live in a different place with unfamiliar surroundings, they may experience culture shock. Sometimes it is the result of losing their identity. In the article “The Phases of Culture Shock”, Pamela J. Brink and Judith Saunders describe four phases of culture shock. They are: Honeymoon Phase, Disenchantment Phase, Beginning Resolution Phase, and Effective Function Phase. These phases denote some of the stages that exemplify culture shock. The four phases are illustrated in the articles “New Immigrants: Portraits in Passage” by Thomas Bentz, “Immigrant America: A Portrait” by Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut, “When I Was Puerto Rican” by Esmeralda Santiago, “Today’s Immigrants, Their Stories” by Thomas Kessner and Betty Boyd Caroli, and lastly, “The New Americans: Immigrant Life in Southern California” by Ulli Steltzer, and are about the experiences of some immigrants. This essay will examine the four phases of culture shock and classify the experiences of these immigrants by the different phases of culture shock identified.
One of the major issues that American expatriates (or “expats”) confront is the issue of culture shock (Top Eight). Culture shock, in general, is the stress a person may feel experiencing an unfamiliar way of life after immigration, visiting a new country, or a move between social environments (Macionis and Gerber 54). Culture shock results from differences in culture like language or values toward personal space or cleanliness. Cultural differences that cause culture shock have been classified by Annelies E. M. Van Vianen, Irene E. De Pater, Amy L. Kristof-Brown and Erin C. Johnson in their article “Fitting In: Surface- and Deep-Level Cultural Differences and Expatriates' Adjustment" as being either “surface-level” differences or “deep-level” differences (700). Surface-level differences are those differences that are readily apparent to new expats. These would be things like food, housing conditions, climate and other easily observable aspects that a tourist would notice on vacation. Other aspects of a culture, like beliefs and values (such as openness to change and attitudes toward self-advancement), are classified as deep-level differences. An expat will only recognize de...
In conclusion, moving to another country is a culturally shocking experience for the following examples: social behavior, laws, and education. I enjoyed the experience since I love traveling. I know that this may seem like a scary experience, but I would totally recommend to everyone to move to another country at least once in their life since it is a perfect way to get to know other cultures and expand your
During my last year of college, I met the love of my life, who was profoundly intrigued by the American way of life. In less than a year we got engaged, married and moved to the United States. I was homesick before the plane left. To me the “intriguing” American way of life was just an unfamiliar, confusing, and upsetting mess. I was unable to speak the language and without friends, family and the comfort of home I felt lonely. I cried in the bathroom daily. Then, remembering how my dad successfully rebuilt his life after his stroke, I started to go out more embracing the local culture with a positive attitude. Since then I have worked very hard and I am proud of who I am and of what I have achieved. I had the privilege to work with children ...
The opportunity for education given to me by my parent's migration along with the passion for agriculture instilled by my grandparents changed my destiny and granted me and my family an opportunity to leave the cycle of poverty. My partic...
My journal is about culture shock. Culture shock is the disoriented feeling which occurs in the context of being in a new culture or when someone is suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes. For myself, culture shock came when I moved off to college and away from the life I was used to.
Oberg(1960), an anthropologist by whom the term culture shock was coined defined it as an “occupational disease...the anxiety that results from losing all of our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse” before an individual feels comfortable in a new culture (p. 177). Subsequent research found that not all sojourners experience the same level of anxiety, or experience anxiety for the same length of time (Church, 1982; Stening, 1979). This resulted in the study of cross-cultural adjustment as an individual difference criterion, which could potentially be predicted, rather than as a fixed period of anxiety that all sojourners will necessarily experience when they enter a new culture (Black,