Before we left for Kyiv, Darryl went to a KPMG orientation of sorts for expats. He came home with several books that were supposed to help prepare us. Since we didn’t get the books until about a week before we left, I didn’t read them until on the flight here and shortly after we arrived.
One had some general information about each country in Europe, so it only had a few pages on Ukraine. Fine. One was ridiculous. Another was ridiculous. But the last one was very interesting. Its called “Survival Kit for Overseas Living” and is written by L. Robert Kohls. I want to share some of the things that made me think.
He lists common stereotypes of Americans as perceived in other countries. Here are a few:
- Outgoing, friendly
- Loud, rude
- Naive
- Optimistic
- Hardworking
- Extravagant
- Confident
- Wealthy
- Generous
Most of those seem negative to me. Anyway, he also says something we may think as positive, such as outgoing or friendly, could be perceived negatively in another culture. It is just very interesting to think about.
Every culture (generally) thinks that their own way of doing things is the “right” or logical one. Therefore, when a person who has been enculturated into one culture is suddenly dropped into another one, he/she experiences ”culture shock”. I liked a couple examples of cultural differences. “An Orthodox Hindo from India considers it dirty to eat with knives, forks, and spoons instead of with his own clean fingers.” Or, “Is it dirtier to spit and blow your nose on the street or to carry it around with you in a little piece of cloth which you keep in your pocket and reuse regularly?”
He says a good way to see what a culture’s underlying values are is to know some of their proverbs. Here are some he lists as American proverbs, and the underlying value:
- Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise – Diligence; work ethic
- A man’s home is his castle – Privacy; Value of personal property
- You’ve made your bed, now lie in it – Responsibility
- The squeaky wheel gets the grease – Aggressiveness
- There’s more than one way to skin a cat – Originality; Determination
He also has some examples of impressions of visitors to America from other countries:
- From Turkey – “Once we were out in a rural area in the middle of nowhere and saw an American come to a stop sign. Though he could see in both directions for miles and no traffic was coming, he still stopped!” I think this is funny because most of us really would do that. I think it shows how important it is in our country to obey the law.
- From Colombia – “I was surprised in the United States to find so many young people who were not married living with their parents, although they were not yet married. Also, I was surprised to see so many single people of all ages living alone, eating alone, and walking the streets alone. The United States must be the loneliest country in the world.” I thought this was so interesting! I always thought it was a positive thing to live “on your own” and be independent. In our culture it seems that we look down on someone who is still living with their parents as an adult.
Anyway, those are kind of random but quite interesting to me. Back to culture shock. I kind of thought I wouldn’t really have to deal with it since I have lived abroad before, and especially because I had lived in what I thought was a similar culture. But this experience is completely different from serving a mission (subject of a future post). And after reading the list of culture shock symptoms in the book, I realized I was experiencing culture shock! Symptoms such as boredom (I didn’t really know what to do), fatigue (I was so extremely tired until just a couple weeks ago), confusion (self-explanatory), helplessness (can’t even buy ground beef), self-doubt (what have I gotten myself into?!), and unexplained fits of weeping (I can’t exactly claim being pregnant or having a newborn anymore). The book says culture shock can last up to four months. Well, we have been here just over 2 months and I am feeling great! So I think I’ve beat it.
I asked Darryl about his culture shock. His experience has been quite different from mine because right away he was doing some things at work and traveling and getting integrated. I’m not saying that was easy, but different. He has had a frustrating experience with the bank and trying to transfer money, that he will have to write about.
The moral of the story is summed up in some very wise words of one of my MTC teachers. A couple days before we left the MTC for Romania, she told us to remember this: You will see different things and people doing things in different ways. But remember that they are just different. It doesn’t mean they are better or worse than the way we are used to, just different.
I have always remembered that and believe it to be true.
Note: The first ridiculous book (maybe just different, not ridiculous:) had very basic things about traveling to a foreign country and just didn’t seem helpful. It was common sense. The second ridiculous book was about communication and was very in depth, psychological, and historical. It would be interesting, I think, but was not helpful for this experience and I didn’t have time to try and read it when I was plunging into culture shock.
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