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Anna Posyniak-Dutka How Bumpy Culture Shock Is?

Cultures differ from one another in terms of language, traditions, lifestyles and mindsetsmindsets [mindset]mindsets of people being their members. When people who grew up in radically dissimilardissimilardissimilar environments come into contact with each other, they often experience discomfortexperience discomfortexperience discomfort resulting from those differences. Major clashesclashes [clash]clashes are often referred to as culture shock. The smaller ones are dubbed culture bumpsculture bumps [culture bump]culture bumps. Read four accounts ofaccounts of somebody [account of somebody]accounts of people who experienced culture shock or bumps.

A)   Being a Vietnamese exchange student in Germany, I had to get used to quite a few things which appeared really weird to me at first. Germans are much more direct than people where I come from. Unless you are absolutely sure that the person you are talking to is younger than you, addressing anyone with their first name is considered to be extremely disrespectfuldisrespectfuldisrespectful in Vietnam. For that reason, I had a hard time accepting the fact that my host parents proposed to be on first name termsbe on first name terms withbe on first name terms with me from the very beginning. The second thing is greetings. In Vietnam, we like to keep our distance and we usually just smile and say hello. Meeting people here in Germany still confuses me a wee bita wee bita wee bit as I never know if I should restrict myself to a handshake or maybe give someone a hug. And if it’s a hug, should it be a tight one or rather unimposingunimposingunimposing and awkward. I still don’t know…

B)   I come from Denmark and I’ve been living in Manchester for almost 2 years now. The first thing that hit me when I arrived here is that there is no such thing as too much tea. Drinking tea is more than a sacred ritual here. What’s more, never ever admit that you prefer coffee to tea as you risk being labelled as a misfit. I also had to learn that if you want your tea black, that is without milk, you have to specify it in advance, as the tea with milk is the default versiondefault versiondefault version around here. Also, people will keep asking you how you are, but don’t be lured intobe lured intobe lured into believing that they really want to find out about all your problems. I made this mistake many times before I realised that all you’re expected to say is “I’m alright”.

C)   American and Japanese cultures are really far away from each other, so no wonder my process of adaptation was quite long and bumpybumpybumpy. Now, after almost 9 years of living here, I feel more at ease withfeel more at ease withfeel more at ease with local customs. But let’s start from the beginning. The thing which I still find hard to embraceembrace (verb)embrace is the sheer number of people. Japan is a small and very densely populateddensely populateddensely populated country. The rush hour commutecommute (noun)commute by underground or bus is back to back with a crowd of people. Especially for a person who grew up in a boundlessboundlessboundless place, giving up your personal spacepersonal spacepersonal space might be a challenge.

D)   I came to Poland from Zimbabwe to study fashion. Although I tried to acquire some knowledgeacquire some knowledgeacquire some knowledge about this country before moving here, it didn’t occur to me to check the circadian rhythm of life in Poland. I was quite taken abacktaken abacktaken aback by discrepanciesdiscrepancies [discrepancy]discrepancies resulting from the geographical location of our countries. I arrived in Poland in winter and I was shocked to see how early the sun sets at that time of the year. We associate the sunset with the end of the day where I come from, so it took me a while to get my head aroundget my head around [get one’s head around] (idiom)get my head around the fact that although it seems like the middle of the night, I can still get lots of things done, such as go to the bank or to the doctor’s.

1 Źródło: Anna Posyniak-Dutka, dostępny w internecie: My culture shock in Germany as a Vietnamese, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKDrkq4br8g [dostęp 20.03.2022], My UK Culture Shock Experience, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcY1isvGnbU [dostęp 20.03.2022], Japan Culture Shock: My Top 5 Shocks Living in Japan, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPu_h0l4MZo [dostęp 20.03.2022], 10 Things That Shocked Me In Poland | Culture shock in Poland | Living In Lublin Poland, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jCZubL1gsQ [dostęp 20.03.2022], Five Stages of Acculturation, https://deltadiscovery.com/five-stages-of-acculturation/ [dostęp 20.03.2022], licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.