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I never get Culture Shock when I travel, but I always seem to get it when I come home. Back in 2003, upon my return from a year spent in Germany. I stepped off the plane in Toronto and walked out to the parking lot and was completely thrown off by the fact that the cars were HUGE. I couldn't comprehend how cars had gotten that big while I had been away. I hadn't noticed that the cars in Europe were smaller, I only noticed that the cars in Canada were bigger.
Back on March 3rd of this year, I was on a plane from Hong Kong to Vancouver. I had spent 4 weeks in China (Yancheng, Suzhou, Shanghai, Xi'an), and about 10 days in Singapore. Although some people had warned me of getting culture shock in China, I had not experienced it. There was a brief glimpse of it upon arriving in Xi'an, but that was more a case of being tired and being annoyed at how the pollution stung my eyes.
Gabe and I had many a discussion about why it was that I didn't experience Culture Shock. We both agreed that it was probably because I never travel with expectations. I don't ever expect that I'll know exactly where things are, that the stores will be familiar, that the customs will be similar, that the people will be the same...so, when I find that things pretty much are the same, it is a pleasant surprise.
I'm also an extremely adaptable person. Observe and adapt accordingly - it's how I enter new situations at home and it's how I live my life while abroad.
So, there I was flying into Vancouver, and my video-screen broke two hours before landing. Since I couldn't finish the movie I had been watching, I flicked open my window shade and watched the sun rise on another March 3rd...over mountains. Tons and tons of mountains. Mountains as far as the eye could see....from a plane. Between the mountains there were rivers and streams flowing into the ocean, valleys that led into other valleys through rocks and rapids. I tried to picture being on the ground. I tried to picture the world before dynamite and pavement, when the Native people would hike over those mountains, paddle those bays and inlets. So comparitively small against the never-ending wilderness around them. My first thought was that the canoe was a marvelous invention. My second thought was that it was all sort of intimidating.
Then Vancouver came into view. We circled over it in order to land on the correct runway. The plane dipping it's wing and giving me a view of the entire city. One of Canada's largest cities...and all I could think was that it was too small. Way way too small. I suppose I had gotten used to the large Asia, where Yancheng is considered a small town (though it has a population of 8 million). Suddenly, I was flying over a truly small city, that was dwarfed further by never-ending mountains and tall trees. A small city surrounded by impenetrable wilderness - and that was Culture Shock.
I suppose what happens is that I go abroad and I observe and adapt, and then I forget that I have to do the same when I come back home.
Even once I landed, riding the bus with Susan...the architecture was all different. It was Canadian, and I did not understand it.
I could understand the bus and my sister and that was it. I could understand her apartment, and I was immensely grateful for that.
Then the next day I woke up, walked outside, and suddenly everything shifted into place. Suddenly everything was recognizable...and my thought was "I'm home!" Because I grew up surrounded by never-ending wilderness. I grew up in this country where all of our cities (save perhaps Toronto and Montreal) are dwarfed by the land forests and nature that surround them. The never-ending mountains, that had been ominous and threatening the day before, were suddenly protecting and embracing.
So, yes, during my trip to China, I finally discovered what Culture Shock feels like. It just didn't happen at the part of my trip that people expected it to.
