Wikis for Smarties

Contents 1 Culture shock

Culture shock

Culture shock is the holistic reaction to displacement from one’s familiar environment. Suddenly, you find yourself unable to understand, communicate, and function effectively. Common symptoms of culture shock include:

1. Feelings of frustration, loneliness confusion, melancholy, irritability, insecurity, and sometimes helplessness.
2. Unstable temperament and hostility.
3. Paranoia.
4. Criticism of local people, culture, and customs.
5. Excessive concern over drinking water, food dishes, and bedding.
6. Fear of physical contact with locals.
7. Over-sensitivity and overreaction to minor difficulties.
8. Changes in eating and sleeping habits.
9. Loss of sense of humor.
10. Language Barriers.

div align="left"The first thing to realize about culture shock is that it’s perfectly natural to experience it. Despite how often culture shock occurs, though, a lot of people are resistant to talk about it, and that’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make. If you feel yourself going through culture shock, take some time to reach out to others, especially other travelers, for help in adjusting to your new culture. One of the other things you can do is force yourself to engage more in the culture that you’re immersed in. This can be difficult to do, because part of culture shock is feeling unhappy with the culture. But, as Robert Frost once said, “The best way out is always through.” Going out and interacting with the culture that surrounds you is going to help you overcome some of the difficulties you’ll be encountering.

Culture shock generally moves through four different phases: honeymoon, frustration, adjustment and acceptance. While individuals experience these stages differently and the impact and order of each stage varies widely, they do provide a guideline of how we adapt and cope with new cultures./div

At first, I had a limited understanding of what cultural shock is, as I understood it only within the confines of geographical displacement. But as I navigate through professional life, I quickly understood that movements within the same organisation can come with an experience of cultural shock

div align="left" Human is adaptable in nature, hence a person overcome culture shock and get settled in new environment. Hence there is also a concept of Reverse Culture Shock. /div