Culture Shock and Adaptation in a
Multiethnic City
By Diana Petkova, PhD
Culture Shock and Adaptation in a Multiethnic City
Abstract
This paper presents the results of an
intercultural study done at the
On the basis of the collected data the paper
will discuss the nature of culture shock and the pattern in which most of the
interviewed people cope with it. It will also seek an answer to the question
whether the intercultural context in multiethnic cities in the
Culture shock revisited
The
concept of ‘culture shock’ was first introduced by Oberg (1958) who indicated
with it the distress experienced by the sojourner as a result of loosing all
familiar cues, signs and symbols from his physical and social environment.
According to the researcher the psychological consequences can be a sense of
loss and feelings of deprivation, confusion, anxiety, disgust and indignation.
A considerable literature has already been compiled on the questions of culture
shock and adaptation of immigrants, sojourners, tourists and travelers.
However, there is an agreement that the constant demand of coping with
differences in climate, housing, transportation, food, and social norms leads
to frustration and sometimes to a sense of worthlessness (Brislin 1981: 138).
Using
some empirical data Furnham & Bochner (1982) prove the relationship between
culture distance and social difficulty in the host country. The more distant
the sojourner’s native culture from the host culture is, the more difficult his
or her adaptation becomes. The scholars view culture shock not as a deficiency
in the personality or cultural socialization of sojourner but rather as a lack
of given social skills with which to negotiate social situations in the host
country (see also Furnham 1988). Comparing the data of different Canadian
studies
Gudykunst
& Hammer (1988: 132) discover that intercultural adaptation is a function
of uncertainty reduction. Most often culture shock appears out of uncertainty.
The latter is understood as individuals’ inability to predict their own and
others’ beliefs and attitudes (cognitive uncertainty) as well as their own and
others’ behavior in a given situation (behavioral uncertainty) (Gudykunst
1989). The reduction of uncertainty means for sojourners to overcome their
culture shock.
Although
many scholars underline the negative experiences related to culture shock,
there are some positive interpretations of it too. For instance, Adler
(1979:30) defines culture shock as a cross-cultural learning experience. As a
result of it individuals become aware of their own growth, learning and change.
It is in this direction that the positive outcomes of culture shock should be
sought. Among the best strategies to cope with culture shock is the increasing
of individuals’ communication competence, expressed in their knowledge of the
host country as well as in their empathy (Rothwell 2000). Empathy is the
ability of the individual to see the world through the eyes of the others and
thus to better understand their thoughts and feelings.
Ting-Toomy
and Chung (2005) state that adaptation in the host country inevitably involves
the reentry shock too or the shock that sojourners experience when they return
back home. Moreover, it is often harder than the entry shock. The sojourners
understand that the newly acquired values, emotional patterns and behaviors are
either unfamiliar or unaccepted in their own culture. Thus they may turn into
alienated returnees but on the other hand there is the more positive option for
them to apply the knowledge gained in the host country to their own culture.
The
existing literature on intercultural contacts dwells on the development of
culture shock through different phases: 1). fascination with the new culture,
2). hostility and frustration; and 3). acceptance and adaptation (Hall 1959;
Smalley 1963; Adler 1987; Furnham & Bochner 1982; Ting-Toomey & Chung
2005). However, almost no attention has been paid so far to the perception of
culture shock itself by sojourners and to the different stages that individuals
pass until they fully realize they have experienced culture shock. On the basis
of the existent data from the interviews I will try to outline the main phases
in the perception of culture shock.
Culture shock perceived
The
main thesis of this paper is that the perception of culture shock develops
through three different phases. Initially most of the sojourners are not aware
of their culture shock. The latter is also not based on some basic cultural
differences. Rather, all of the interviewees reported that they were surprised
or even shocked by ‘small things’ or specific details of the material culture
they encountered. These were, for example, ‘food’, ‘quality of food’ or
‘freshness of food’, ‘cars’, ‘traffic’ and ‘public transportation’, ‘clothes’,
‘fashion’ and ‘hairstyles’, ‘technology’, ‘mobiles’, ‘climate’, ‘geographical
distances’, ‘buildings’ and ‘architecture’, ‘locks of windows and doors’, etc.
These are mainly elements of the material culture in the host country.
Many of the sojourners interviewed emphasize
also on the ‘big size’, ‘quantity’ or ‘abundance’ of goods in
The greatest shock was
to see how people cook excessively here and that they throw the left-over food.
We usually don’t do this while here in restaurants as well as in people’s homes
they use plastic cups, plates, forks and then they throw away all these things.
This lavishness is very unusual for us.
(Informant 1, from
The greatest surprise…
well, everything was so big! I was really shocked by the sizes. Everything was
so big, really big! Hamburgers, pizzas, meals, plates... And even the people were so tall, big and fat!
(Informant 7, from
When I came for the
first time in the
(Informant 12, from
The sizes of cars and
houses, the distances were different here. In
(Informant 18, from
It
seems that geographical distance, material forms and their ‘bigness’ or
‘smallness’ determine the first impressions of the host country. They are
important elements of the country image and often become the reason for
surprise, wonder or shock of the new culture.
One
discovery of this study is that culture shock may develop not only due to the
language spoken but even because of the physical and racial traits of the
people living in the new country:
When I came here it was a real shock. I traveled
outside
(Informant 16, from
Here I didn’t have any
big shock. My real culture shock was in
(Informant 18, from
The
sojourners’ physical environment has changed and they face a totally new
setting. This involves adjusting to new situations including race, ethnicity
and even physical traits of people. What has been ‘different’ and ‘alien’ in
the home-country, now becomes ‘ordinary’ and ‘normal’. And it is the sojourner
who is different, alien and stranger. This change in the environment engenders
a shift in the self-perceptions and triggers culture shock and crisis of
identity. The two sojourners from
So, in the first phase of the perception of
culture shock the sojourners usually observe and register different facts
mainly from the physical environment and material culture of the host country.
These can be houses and shops but also physical and racial traits of the people
living in the new country as well as the languages spoken by them.
In
the second phase the sojourners become aware of the values and the way of life
of the host people. They begin to actively compare the values in their native
countries with these in the host country. As it was shown already even material
elements of the host culture are perceived by the prism of the home culture. But
in the second phase this process becomes more evident. The sojourners have put
a highly selective screen between them and the host culture and see the new
culture only through it. This screen is composed of the values, attitudes and
meanings of the home culture and it is only through them that sojourners perceive,
judge and interpret signs, symbols and behaviors in the host culture. From this
disjuncture between real meanings and wrong interpretations a real culture
clash can occur. This becomes obvious when the observations of the different
informants are compared to each other. Actually two major groups of reported characteristics
of the host culture can be outlined. The first one consists of ‘differences’
that are mentioned by all the interviewees, independently from what countries
or regions they come. And the second group of characteristics consists of
perceptions of the host country that are dependent on the cultural zone of the
interviewees. I will dwell consequently on the two groups of characteristics.
Firstly,
three main traits of the American culture were pointed out by all the
informants, independently from the country they come from. On the first place
the interviewees underlined the working habits of the Americans:
Life in
(Informant 1, from
I think they start to
work here at a very early age. When they go to college they also work. I had to
apply for a job too and it was pretty difficult for me to get used to the
situation.
(Informant 4, from
There are no clear
differences here between the week-end and the week. You may go shopping in
Sunday but in
(Informant 19, from
The
second characteristic of the American culture, mentioned by practically all the
informants, is the American individualism. The interviewees perceive the
American society as highly individualistic, especially in comparison with the
society in their home country. However, the informants coming from Eastern
countries put a stronger emphasis on this characteristic. They also give
different interpretations to it, varying from positive and neutral to negative:
I think here people have a strong sense of
individuality. They respect themselves but they respect the others as well. In
(Informant 2, from
In
(Informant 7, from
In
(Informant 8, from
And
the third characteristic underlined by all the interviewees is the Americans’
lack of knowledge often associated with an ethnocentric worldview. In the most
of the cases this characteristic is given negative interpretation, although
some exceptions are present too:
They even don’t know where
(Informant 20, from
I think that the
Americans have a very non-historic perspective of the world. For them
(Informant 5, from
The most shocking thing
here for me was that people think if I am Iranian, I belong to the Arab
culture. They don’t know the difference between
(Informant 13, from
I remember very well my
first day in the high school two years ago. I was introducing myself in English
and most of the people were very surprised that I spoke English very well. They
told me: ‘Oh, we didn’t know that you could speak English in
(Informant 9, from
I know many Europeans
who complain how limited the Americans are because they don’t know anything
about the world. But I found out that they are curious, they want to learn.
Sometimes they are like children. They don’t know anything but they are excited
to learn about you and your country.
(Informant 17, from
To
resume, there are three main characteristics of the American culture emphasized
to one or another extent by all the 23 informants in the study: the hard
working of the Americans, their individualism and their lack of knowledge about
‘other’ countries and people, often associated with ethnocentrism. This means
that these characteristics are perceived by the informants as ‘differentia
specific’ of the American country in comparison with all the other countries.
Together
with this there are some sets of characteristics that are observed and analyzed
only by a group of people coming from a particular culture zone. For instance,
all the Asian informants underline certain traits of the American culture that
are not considered so important or surprising by the Europeans, while the
Europeans in turn emphasize on other characteristics that are not paid any
significant attention by the Asians. This is an indication that sojourners see
the host culture through the selective screen established by their own culture.
For example, all the Asian informants, both male and female, dwell upon the
personal relationships and sexual practices in the
Well, one of my greatest surprises here was
the idea of sexuality. In
(Informant 2, female, from
I was shocked by the
girls here and especially by the fact that they have so many sexual relations
before their marriage. When we have parties, they get drunk and they look for a
boy to go to his bed. This was really shocking.
(Informant 10, male, from
In
(Informant 11, female, from
What I dislike here?
Well, I think the way people relate to each other. And especially the fact that
they can easily switch from one partner to another. They are not loyal. This
creates difficulties for the relationship and they become more vulnerable. In
(Informant 13, male, from
If
the theme of sexuality appears in the speeches of all the Asian interviewees
without any exception, no one of the European informants finds it a surprising
or interesting topic to talk. At the same time the three Eastern European
interviewees underline two traits of the American character that are not given
priority by the other informants and even by the Western Europeans interviewed.
The first trait emphasized is the American materialism often related by them to
aggressiveness and intolerance in attaining one’s goals.
One thing that I saw is
the aggressiveness with which the Americans pursue their goals. They are
aggressive in their jobs, they are aggressive in their ambitions, they are
aggressive when they compete. They want to make and they make a lot of money.
(Informant 3, from
If I have to draw a
portrait of the typical American, it would be let’s say a guy who has a good
job and who is interested in making a lot of money, who has a big house, a big
car or several cars, whose hobbies are football and golf or baseball, who likes
pizza and beer and who is not interested in traveling outside the US. The
portrait turns out to be of a very narrow minded person who cares only about
his comfort and money.
(Informant 12, from
It is interesting how
hierarchy works here. You can be accepted as long as you make money. In
(Informant 17, from
The
second trait emphasized by the three Eastern European informants turns out to
be the ‘superficial’ or ‘false’ friendliness of the Americans.
In
(Informant 3, from
Some things here really
shocked me. I don’t know about others but Russians can mistakenly take the
Americans’ appearance of friendliness for something more than it is. It’s just
a way for them to behave well in public places. But it doesn’t mean a deep
friendship.
(Informant 12, from
I was really very, very
easily accepted here. The Americans are very polite to the foreigners. But this
is not a real friendship.
(Informant 17, from
In fact the characteristics underlined by the
informants as ‘typical of the Americans’ are reflections of their own cultural
values and standards of judging and do not necessarily present the American
culture in its true light. Donal Carbaugh (2005) analyses the European
perception of the Americans’ superficiality and lack of depth. He presents a
particular case in
Thus
all characteristics pointed out by the informants as ‘typical of the
In search of one’s own identity
In
the second phase of the perception of culture shock individuals actively
compare the host culture with their home culture and try to understand the
values, behaviors and meanings in the new country. In the third phase the
sojourners are already fully conscious of having experienced culture shock. In
the process of coping with it two main factors become important. Firstly, the
results of the interviews show that there is a correlation between the
sojourners’ expectations before they enter the country and their real life in
it. Those who had predominantly negative expectations were surprised by
‘positive things’ but were overwhelmed by their distrust in the new situation,
and vice versa, those, who had unrealistically high expectations suffered from
disappointment and disillusionment.
Among
the sources of knowledge and impressions of the future host country the
interviewees mention ‘TV’, ‘books’, ‘Internet’, ‘history textbooks’, ‘school
lessons’, ‘encyclopedias’, ‘conversations with ex-sojourners in the US’ and
‘personal meetings and talks with Americans’. For most of them also the
I have an American
friend in
(Informant 2, from
I watched so many
(Informant 10, from
I remember the first
day when I and my wife came here. The whole day we stayed locked at home
because we were afraid to go out. There were no bars on the windows and in the
night we couldn’t sleep at all. We were listening to every noise and every creak
in the house. Because of the movies we thought that in
(Informant 20, from
Because I had lived in
a communist country, for me
(Informant 3, from
One
perspective of country image is stereotyping based on media information (Bentele
1995; Lehtonen 2005, 2006; Petkova & Lehtonen 2005). From the examples
above it seems that even when the informants have some knowledge of the host
country it is difficult to form realistic expectations based only on the
information from the media. Many of the feelings of satisfaction/ dissatisfaction
of the new country are related to the extent to which both good and bad
expectations are discrepant to the real experiences in the host culture. Thus
the expectations that sojourners have before they enter the country
predetermine, at least to some extent, the intensity of their culture shock and
the difficulties that they encounter.
The
second significant factor in order to overcome culture shock is the previous
experience as sojourner. For example, the informants who were for the first
time abroad, like the Nigerian, Iraqi and Ecuadorian interviewees, reported
that they had met great difficulties and
suffered for weeks. In opposition the informants who had had previous
experiences as sojourners stated that it was not difficult for them to adapt to
the new culture. These were the Vietnamese, South Korean and Italian
interviewees. Although at the time of the interview the Vietnamese informant
had stayed in the
Thus
in the third phase of the perception of culture shock, however difficult or
easy the adjustment is, most of the informants state that they ‘feel good’,
although they may have been ‘sick’ at the beginning. This means that they have
adapted to the new cultural environment. Many of the sojourners have made
considerable shifts in their understanding of the social roles, attitudes and
behaviors in the host country. Most of them openly name their experience
‘culture shock’ and speak of ‘adjusting’, ‘understanding’, ‘thinking on’ the
new culture and even ‘compromising’ with it. In such a way they have obviously
accepted the basic values of the host country. This also means that their
understanding of the new culture has increased and that they have experienced
empathy. In other words now they are more willing to see the host culture
through the eyes of the hosts.
Empathy,
understanding and thinking over the new culture are the true signs of adaptation.
However, there are different levels of accommodation to the new culture: from
full acceptance and acceptance with some reserves to a limited acceptance.
(Informant 3, from
I have few American
friends here. I think it is easier to hang up with international people than
with Americans. I don’t know but it is easier to communicate with foreigners.
(Informant 1, from
Actually I have a lot
of European friends here. It is true, most of my friends are not American.
(Informant 4, from
I lived here more than
five years but it’s not my home. I don’t feel
(Informant 7, from
I wouldn’t like to
improve anything here. I am quite happy as a visitor.
(Informant 19, from
Obviously
a part of the coping strategy with culture shock for some sojourners is the
knowledge that their visit is temporary and that they will return home. This
gives them the self-confidence to manage the cultural differences in the host
country. As Furnham (1988) argues, unlike the immigrants, nobody expects from
sojourners to fully accept and adapt to the host culture, which in turn makes
the adjustment of sojourners easier than that of immigrants. So, the awareness
of the temporary stay is a fact that contributes to the quick recovery from the
culture shock experienced.
From
the interviews of the sojourners it is also evident that many of them make
friendships much easier with foreigners than with Americans. They either find
friends among their co-nationals or simply choose an international setting.
This is normal and understandable since co-nationals and even foreigners can
better understand the experiences and feelings of a sojourner. But on the other
hand this fact hinders their integration into the host culture. Thus in the third
phase of the perception of culture shock there is an acceptance of the new
culture, which may vary from a low to a high level.
In
this phase people become more aware of their cultural identity too. Paradoxically
culture shock, which is often also accompanied by confusion and crisis of
identity, highlights one’s own identity. In the process of comparison many
people begin to perceive more clearly their belongingness to a particular
culture. Some of the interviewees reported that after their adjustment they
began ‘feeling stronger who they were’. This means that they have strengthened
their ethnic or national identity as a response of potential threat to cultural
assimilation. However, knowing better who you are does not necessarily mean that
it is easy to confirm your own identity:
I am Muslim. I found
myself defending the Islam a lot, especially in conversations and in the
classes that I took. Many of them are based on the Islam, like ‘Political
Islam’ and ‘Postcolonial nationalism’. So, even my studies involve the Islam. I
did hear some horrible stories after 11.09.2001 and that’s scary. Actually when
I say ‘I am Muslim’, people look at me slightly differently and they even say
‘I don’t expect a Muslim woman to be like you’ or ‘Oh, my God, you are Muslim
and I have to stay with you?’…Actually I found it difficult to be a Muslim
here.
(Informant 5, from
I cannot say that being
an Iranian is very easy here. There are political problems that influence the
people’s relationships. It doesn’t mean that we are under pressure. But we are
aware of the situation between the two governments. However, there is a
difference between governments’ relations and people’s relations. These are two
separate things and that’s what I am struggling all the time to show.
(Informant 13, from
It is such a difficult
time for the Iraqi people. Actually some Americans sympathize with us. They say
‘OK, how are you doing? How do you think, what do the people think of us?’. So,
I don’t have so bad problems here but I will have many problems when I return
back home and say that I have been here. I can return neither to my home town,
nor to my university. I will definitely go to some other place far away or even
to some other country. I am thinking of
(Informant 21, from
It
seems that the bigger the difficulty to maintain one’s identity is, the
stronger the identity becomes. Any perceived non-acceptance, distrust or
suspiciousness on the side of the hosts provokes the resistance of the
sojourner and actually highlights his or her identity. In the opposite,
individuals who feel that they are very easily accepted accommodate themselves
easier to the new environment and are even prone to some modifications in
identity. These are the cases of the Romanian and Bulgarian informants, for
example. They reported not only the easiness with which they were accepted but
their readiness to become part of the American society too. The Muslim
informants, on the other hand, feel a kind of pressure and openly declare their
need to maintain their cultural identity. Simultaneously some of them are aware
of their personal change and know that they will never be accepted in the same
way by their co-nationals back home.
This
means that although they struggle to confirm their identity, they have
developed, at least subconsciously, a hybrid identity. On the one hand, they
stick to their native traditions, customs and values. On the other hand, they
have been influenced by the values of the new culture and thus they have
modified to one or another extent their social behavior. Most of the informants
are aware of the difficulties that they have faced being nationally or
religiously different but few of them are conscious of their new psychological
tendencies. This conclusion actually confirms the thesis of acculturation
(Berry, King & Boski 1988) and the hypothesis of hybridization in
multiethnic cities, first launched by Hall (1993) and later by Pieterse (2004).
Although they relate cultural hybridization mostly to the immigrants in a new
culture, the results of the interviews confirm that this thesis is applicable
to the life of sojourners too.
Another
example of the process of cultural hybridization is one of the Nepali people
interviewed, a 19 year-old woman.
I didn’t know anything
about dating, because I grew up in a Nepali culture. Going to school here was
very difficult. For me the most shocking was that kids my age had sex. I always
knew that sex is done only after marriage. And the Americans talk about
everything, even in school there is health education where they teach you about
sex. I am Nepali and I won’t do sex before my marriage. But I don’t understand
why we don’t talk on this topic. In my family we have never done it and I don’t
think it is a good thing.
(Informant 22, from
In
her speech the informant from
Homogenization or diversification?
This
paper does not agree with the popular thesis that cultural hybridization will
most probably lead to the homogenization of cultures, languages, and
ethnicities and to the creation of a global identity (Risse 2003; Hymans 2004).
The latter is most often understood as an amorphous synthesis of cultural elements
taken from everywhere (Smith 1991). Some authors make parallels between the
The
theory that
It
seems that at least in the present stage the idea of a homogeneous European
culture is utopian. In addition, there is a considerable difference between
multiculturalism in
The
ethnicities in America have not only survived in the ‘melting pot’ of the past
centuries but nowadays some of their members tend to strongly differentiate
themselves from the other communities. Let us take for example the cultural
fragmentation of
So,
it seems that cultural hybridization is not a simple, elementary and one-sided
process. I argue here that cultural hybridization should not be equaled to
cultural homogenization and assimilation but rather it should be understood as
a multiplication of social roles that people play in multiethnic societies.
Moreover, these roles are situational and are highly dependent on the cultural
context. For example, a Chinese in the New York China town may speak Chinese
and behave in congruence with the Chinese etiquette but when he is among white
Americans he speaks English and adopts different behavior. Speaking English and
doing things ‘in the American way’ does not necessarily mean that he or she is
assimilated. Nowadays individuals should respond to many different social
situations. This is why they need to acquire new knowledge and to develop intercultural
skills and abilities. This is a process of multiplication of social roles but
also of social and cultural identities. In such a way the identities should not
be viewed as monolithic but rather they are compounds of many different
belongings, which according to the context can be brought to the fore and
underlined.
Conclusion
The
existing literature on culture shock pays almost no attention to the perception
of culture shock by the people who experience it. The main thesis of this paper
is that the perception of culture shock develops through three different
phases. Initially most of the sojourners are not conscious of their culture
shock, which is based on some specific details of the material culture they
encounter. In this phase individuals usually observe and register facts mainly
from the physical environment of the new country. These can be houses, shops
and geographical distances but also race, ethnicity, physical traits of people
and the languages spoken by them.
In
the second phase the sojourners become aware of the values and the way of life
of the host people. They actively compare the attitudes, customs and traditions
of the new country with these in their home country. Most of them also perceive
and interpret signs, symbols and behaviors in the host culture through the
values, attitudes and meanings of the home culture. Thus this paper also argues
that culture shock appears out of the disjuncture between true codes and
perceived meanings.
Two
basic groups of characteristics of the American culture were outlined on the
basis of the interviews. The first group consists of characteristics mentioned
by all the informants independently from the country they come from. The second
group comprises characteristics mentioned only by groups from particular
culture zones. This is why also these characteristics are informative as for
the host culture as for the home culture of the sojourners. It was found out
that the intensity of culture shock depends on the sojourners’ expectations
before they enter the country and on the previous experiences as sojourners
that some of them have. The feelings of satisfaction/ dissatisfaction of the
new country are related to the extent to which both good and bad expectations
correspond to the real experiences in the country.
In
the third phase of the perception of culture shock the individuals are fully
aware of having experienced culture shock. Most of them have made considerable
shifts in their understanding of the social roles, attitudes and behaviors in
the host country. Empathy and thinking over the new culture are the true signs
of this process. However, few of the sojourners interviewed are aware of their
new psychological tendencies and of the fact that they have developed a hybrid
identity. On the one hand, they hold to the native traditions, customs and
rules but on the other hand, they have been influenced by the new culture and
to one or another extent they have changed their social behavior.
Finally
this paper argues that cultural hybridization is not a sign of assimilation.
Rather, it should be understood as a multiplication of social roles in
multiethnic societies. Thus identity is not simple and monolithic but rather,
it is a complex compound of different social belongings dependent on the
particular cultural context.
Notes
The
study presented in this paper was supported by a Fulbright senior scholar
fellowship given for lecturing and research at the
References
Adler, Peter (1987) Culture Shock and the Cross-Cultural
Learning Experience, In: Toward Internationalism.