Culture shock - : a sense of confusion and uncertainty
sometimes with feelings of anxiety that may affect people exposed to an alien
culture or environment without adequate preparation.
Is it just me, or do travelers more so than often have
difficulty in accepting that culture shock is a perfectly normal thing? I know
myself, that as an ex-student of Modern Foreign Languages, and one who loves
nothing more than getting on plane to an unknown destination, that there are
often times where we are too keen or perhaps overly enthusiastic on
understanding a foreign culture that we find ourselves convincing one another that ‘we don’t suffer from culture shock.’ No…we
blame all our anger, frustration and confusion on anything and everything but
ourselves. We are somewhat, ashamed to admit we are suffering from culture
shock. Instead, we like to give off the vibe that we are completely cool with
the ‘foreign’ way of doing things.
This is something that has become more evident to me during
my time in Colombia than anywhere else I have been. Being a lover of the
Spanish language and pretty much anything Iberian, living abroad in a Spanish
speaking country, particularly in Latin America has been something I have wanted
to do for a long, long time. Nevertheless, the culture shock, as I am no longer
afraid to call it, was something that I never expected to affect me so much.
I mean, before coming to Colombia, I had been lucky to have
had many opportunities to travel abroad in the past. Pretty much after having
lived for one year in Beijing, China…I told myself that I could live anywhere
in the world. Perhaps…just perhaps this was slightly overconfident and bearing
on the edge of sheer ignorance. Days before I left for the noisy, dirty but
somewhat ‘charming’ streets of Bogotá, I reminded myself that yes, whilst this
would be a challenge and difficult in its own right, that I had survived a year
in China. Beijing was sprawling, Beijing was noisy, and more than anything
Beijing was both massively over-populated and overly-polluted. In my mind, I had convinced myself that I was
not going to be affected by culture shock on arrival in Colombia…at least not
in the same way as I had been during my year abroad in China. How different
could it be? - I ‘speak’ Spanish. I had studied enough about Latin America at
university to understand the various economic, political and social
instabilities that the country suffers from and had a real thirst to get to
know on a personal level Colombia!
Two months down the line and Ryan hits a big brick wall…
For me, the first time I realise that I am suffering from
culture shock is when I am considering moving house. Cutting a long, long story
short, I had been previously living in Teusaquillo (scarily close to
Santafe-not a barrio you want to find yourself in late at night…..or at any
time of the day really for that matter) living with an eclectic mix of
housemates from all over the world, literally. There were in total ten of us: A
Colombian, an Australian, an Italian, a French girl, an American, a Scotsman, a
half Iraqi-English guy, two English girls and myself (from Larne, Northern
Ireland…just to make the house even more ‘exotic’!)
Don’t get me wrong, I still love very much so my housemates,
but I realised that I was living in a house and speaking more English and
French than Spanish. I began to question my motives on coming to Colombia and
where on earth had this hesitation to really throw myself in to the deep end
come from. I had come to Colombia, to learn about the country, the people and
the culture…and whilst living in a multi-cultural party house in Teusaquillo
was fun and a cultural experience in itself, I wasn’t learning that much about
Colombia, outside the hours I was putting in at work and from what I saw on the
streets. I remember talking to a friend about possibilities of moving out. His
advice was to throw myself head-first in to the culture, as difficult as it was
and to forget about the ‘them and us’ view of the British citizen in Colombia.
This is some of the best advice that I have received in Colombia. I don’t blame
myself at all for taking the first two to three months easy and living with
people that spoke my own language and understood my culture but I am glad that
I realised that I needed to step out of my comfort zone and really soak up what
it really means to be living in Colombia…and that means with Colombians (and 1
Bolivian guy from la Paz!) Currently, my house looks like this...Caterine from
Cali, Tatiana from Manizales, Juan Manuel from Huila, Marcelo from la Paz and
wee Ryan from Larne…I guess you could say we were quite the exotic bunch of
folk!
I have found that this idea of ‘them and us’ is partially
the source of most of the culture shock that we suffer on moving abroad. No
matter how much we might look Colombian or no matter if we speak Spanish in a
Colombian accent using all the local vocabulary…WE ARE NOT COLOMBIAN! It is ok
to feel alienated at times from their culture. It is ok to feel frustrated with
local culture and it is certainly ok to miss home and ‘our’ way of doing
things. This is something that as a linguist, and a traveler that I have tried
not to do. I have always tried to embrace the culture and that is not always so
easy. You need to have friends around you. You need to have contact with your
family and friends back home and you need to remain sane and remember why you
chose to leave the comforts of your little room in Larne and move to the other
side of the world.
In my next blog…I will go into these ‘differences’ a little
more in detail. Yes, there are enough of them to merit their own blog entry!
So, in conclusion, I guess what I am trying to get at in this blog is that it
is ok to suffer from culture shock. When our friends and family ask us how we
are on Skype or Facebook chat, we don’t always have to lie and say we’re having
the most amazing time of our lives. It’s ok to rant and it’s ok to express what
we find difficult about living abroad. What is important however is that we
keep a positive mental attitude about our experience.
I myself, have to
often stop and tell myself that I am, to some extent living just a normal life
here in Colombia. This is an experience…NOT a holiday. Therefore, there will be
bad times and good times, just as there are and would be if I were working and
living in the UK. Secondly, we must try (as hard as it can be) to knock down
the barriers, that we put up ourselves of the ‘them and us’ idea. Living in a
house where I only speak Spanish has been tough. It’s done wonders to my
language skills, and opened my eyes to so many new cultural experiences…but I
know I need to continue embracing the Colombian culture and lifestyle and
difficult as that is. And finally, we need to try and appreciate the
differences that exist between countries and people. I read recently that it is
‘our differences that unite us’. I personally believe that it would be boring
if we were all the same race, spoke the same language, were the same religion and
shared the same values. Difference is something we need to respect but also to
accept. I don’t expect to ever stop suffering culture shock, but I’m no longer
afraid to admit or recognise that I experience it…I think we’d all be crazy to
do that!
