(I apologize in advance for this rant. Perhaps I actually am in stage 2! Oh the irony...)
The first one being Euphoria, or unending love with the country around you. This is basically the stage of touristic wonder. Then there's the second stage, which is when you start to notice all the quirky things that bug and annoy you. Soon you're gathering in dark, dank pubs, bitching about all the little things that have just been building up and up and up. Then there's the third stage: depression. This is when you start thinking that life in your new country is hopeless and you might as well give up and hop on a plane home 'cause it ain't gonna get any better. Finally, there's acceptance of your situation. That's when you basically say, "you know what, nothing's perfect and I'm just gonna make the best of what I've got."
Matador has a really good article describing the four stages.
The thing is, everyone says that it's impossible to avoid culture shock. It's just one of those things that's a given about any traveling experience. And the way everyone talks about it, it's something terrible, a horrible sensation that WILL come to you and WILL depress you. I don't agree with that.
Maybe I'm just weird, but when I came to Japan, I was not struck with a sense of how awesome the place was. If anything, I was a little disappointed with it. Since then, my sense of wonder has only continued to grow with every passing day. Yes, there are little things that bug me. Like my heater that refuses to stay on for more than five or ten minutes, or the lack of any good, flavorful wine or beer. But every time I read the news, I'm reminded of how much life sucks back in North America, too.
Between Occupy Wallstreet, a shitty economy, politicians that seem to have lost all connection with that actual population, a vast well of ignorance and prejudice that spans the country, and a winter that is almost certainly going to be colder than whatever I experience here, I really feel like I have nothing to complain about. Life here is good. It's interesting. I learn things, I meet people, I feel like I can actually accomplish things while I'm here.
So there's one of three options. One: my honeymoon stage is abnormal in its bitchy tendencies and is longer than normal and I'm going to soon be hit by a ton of bricks. Two: for some reason I simply skipped the first three stages and jumped straight to the last one. Three: it's not true that everyone always succumbs to culture shock.
In all fairness, I think I did get hit pretty hard by culture shock when I lived in Scotland. But there are lots of reasons for that, mainly the prevalent British attitude of "this is our isle and why would we care about anything from outside it?" Yes, I lived in Scotland, but more specifically I lived in Edinburgh, which is filled to the brim with British people. And I've spoken with lots of other foreigners who have lived in England - many of them have the same opinion. Nearly every Scottish person I met, though, was quite a bit more welcoming. Even when I couldn't understand half of what they were saying. I can only think of maybe two exceptions.
This is of course not to say that all English people are like that. In fact, many of them were initially warm and welcoming. And some English men and women were extremely friendly the entire time and I'm glad I could count them as among my friends. But alas, they were in the minority. And unlike many other foreigners there, mostly due to my living circumstances, I was only rarely not hanging out English or Scottish people, so I didn't have a foreigner group to vent with.
By the time I left Scotland, I was almost certainly in stage 3. I loved the land more and more and wanted to explore the rest of the British Isles and Europe, but I was really not keen on the population at large. In fact, after that year, I just wanted a break from Europe. That may be part of the reason I've ended up here.
At any rate, I wanted to suggest a different model for Japan. Something other than that normal culture shock model. I call it the model of Increasing Awareness. (Just came up with that now... it's a work in progress.) Maybe it could apply to other countries, too. I wouldn't be surprised.
Anyway, I don't think this focus on the positive and negative feelings about a country is accurate. What's more accurate, I think, it a focus on the gradually increasing awareness of what's happening around you. When you first arrive, you can only notice a few things here and there. You notice what aligns with your preconceptions and what runs against them. Then you start to notice a few more things that you didn't expect at all. Like when your colleague takes you out one night to eat live squid. Or when you finally learn your bike route to school and realize what the main roads are in your town. Then you notice some details, because you see some of the blank spots in your knowledge and start to investigate them. Then you notice more and more bits and bobs in increasingly fine detail. Eventually, you reach a point where all those bits and bobs, the good and the bad, become normal (i.e. you become desensitized).
The way you react to the increasing awareness of your surroundings, whether it's positive or negative, is a reflection of yourself, in my opinion. There are, of course, extenuating circumstances. Someone who has never lived away from home before is going to be feeling homesick, which may likely paint in a negative light all those bits and bobs they are increasingly noticing. Where you're living could actually be a hell hole and your coworkers could actually be utterly incompetent. But on the whole, the experience is not necessarily going to go through the negativity implied by culture shock. Whether or not that happens depends on your own mindset, not some unavoidable psychological process.
Just today, on the train, I noticed the gaijin bubble. To explain, the gaijin bubble is what happens when a foreigner enters a crowded area. All the Japanese people nearby will arrange themselves so that there is a little bubble of empty space around the foreigner. It doesn't really matter how crowded the train is, they will always attempt to form the bubble. Occasionally there is the Japanese person who pretends to not see the foreigner and simply stand there, as if they could simply wish your existence away. At any rate, I could either get upset at this apparent discrimination or not get upset at it. In fact, I'm somewhat thankful for it. Back in North America, I always found it annoying when people would stand unnecessarily close on the subway, or when there would be plenty of unoccupied seats on a bus and the passenger would come and sit right next to me. So now they give me my space and, you know, I'm cool with that.
People often ask me if I miss North America and if I want to go back. Honestly, I don't. I may have to go back due to extenuating circumstances, but I'm not particularly looking forward to it. This country is amazing. And there's so much more of Asia to see. I'm far from depressed about being so far from "home." Quite the opposite; it's depressing to think that I have to go back. Really, I just wanna explore.
~Jeffles
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