Cultural Adjustment

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Cultural Adjustment

       I remember the day I was going to start for a high school in Switzerland. I was so happy that I was away from home and my parents would not know what I was doing. My enthusiastism did not last long. In the course of time, I faced difficulties. In addition, I felt that I did not belong to this school that was full of international students. As I remember, I have challenged with a new language that put me in an evil situation. I thought I could not take it anymore and I asked myself “How did I go through that situation?” Culture shock can be considered as a rain that rains rarely in a city. It is kind of a rule that people often face difficulties and get over with it. First of all, the honeymoon process is not long which puts the person in a culture shock. Three ideas that people move from the stage Honeymoon to Culture shock are because they are disappointed about new things that they don’t expect, becoming sick and not adjusting to the differences between two cultures.

       First, disappointment is the common factor that changes the situations of the people who are on the stage Honeymoon. According to Oberg, people lose their signs and cues when they get too much troubled and worried (74d). When a person faces a difficulty that he/she has never faced before, the effect can make the person think exaggeratedly. As a result, in that situation people can not focus on what they are doing.  Oberg adds “these cues (signs), which may be words, gestures, facial expressions, customs, or norms, are acquired by all of us in the course of growing up and are as much as a part of our culture as the language we speak or the beliefs we accept”(74d). The culture that the person grew up, usually does not match with another culture so that the person gets surprised and annoyed. In addition, according to Holvino, disappointment depends on the differences and similarities that will expose the person’s ways of doing things in the old culture and the new one (68). If the person often faces difficulties, the person can become sick after a while.

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            Second, when the foreigner is not satisfied as he/she hoped, the person might go in depression. Thus, time should pass to calm one’s frustration down. In that period of time the person might want to give up and go back to his/her country. Oberg explains that with the anger and nervousness the person can lose control of acts so that the person begins criticizing the people, country and the culture (75). The person doesn’t want to realize the good side of a new culture. It is very easy for her/him to criticize the new culture, because the person ...

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