1. The Rotary Youth Exchange Experience: Culture Shock and Reverse Culture Shock
Dennis White, Ph.D.

2. Culture
An integrated system of learned behavior patterns that are characteristic of any given society. It refers to the total way of life, including how people think, feel and behave.

3. Culture Shock
The profound sense of disorientation and discomfort that comes with extended travel or living in a foreign culture markedly different from one’s own.

4. Culture shock is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all familiar signs and symbols of social interaction.

5. These cues, 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 a part of our culture as the language we speak or the beliefs we accept. All of us depend for our peace of mind and our efficiency on hundreds of these cues, most of which are unconsciously learned.

6. These signs are the thousand and one ways in which we orient ourselves to the situations of daily life:

7. when, or whether to shake hands
what to say when we meet people
when and how to give tips
how to make purchases
when to accept and when to refuse invitations
when to take statements seriously and when not
what to eat and how to eat it

8. When an individual enters a strange culture, all or most of these familiar cues are removed. He or she is like a fish out of water. No matter how broad-minded or full of good will we may be, a series of props have been knocked from under us.

9. This is followed by a feeling of frustration and anxiety
This is followed by a feeling of frustration and anxiety. People react to the frustration in much the same way. First they reject the environment which causes the discomfort: "the ways of the host country are bad because they make us feel bad."

10. Second, they look for anything or anyone that will help them feel more comfortable. This can be a fellow countryman, but it can be and often is anyone from anyplace who is also a foreigner

11. Keep this in mind when we later talk about The Irritability Stage and: The Inbound Syndrome The Homebound Syndrome

13. Ethnocentrism:
The universal tendency for any culture to see its own values and practices as natural and correct.

14. Ethnocentrism:
All cultures are ethnocentric - and must be to impart their values to their members.

15. Versailles

18. New Berlin, Wisconsin
Cairo, Illinois
Minot, North Dakota

19. At first we will be dependent upon translators – sometimes a risky business

21. Sometimes, even when we are trying, pronunciation leads to problems!

23. In a new culture everything is harder

24. Our own culture, or sub-culture, comes to us as naturally and unconsciously as our handedness. We generally don’t think about what hand we will use to write our names Changing our cultural point of view is about as hard as changing our handedness. Both are possible, but neither is easy.

25. Handwriting exercise

26. Unconscious beliefs and values
The Cultural Iceberg
Conscious behaviors
1/8th above the surface
Unconscious beliefs and values
7/8ths below the surface

27. Advice often mistakenly given to American Outbound students (from an ethnocentric point of view): Just be yourself!

28. Consider the new culture to be an iceberg

29. You are the Titanic!!!
(Ship Outta Luck!)

30. Exchange student journal, 2 months
“Culture Shock takes me outside my comfort zone.”
Exchange student journal, 2 months

31. Personal Examples
Holding hands
Crossing the street
Thumbs up

32. Culture Shock
The profound sense of disorientation and discomfort that comes with extended travel or living in a foreign culture markedly different from one’s own.

33. Stages of Culture Shock:
Initial enthusiasm and excitement
Irritability and negativism
Gradual adjustment and adaptation
Integration and bi-culturalism
Culture Shock.doc 
The Middle Wave of Culture Shock.doc 

34. Typical Culture Shock Cycle
Rotary Youth Exchange
Typical Culture Shock Cycle
Months
Pre-Departure
Return …...
Normal Level of Feelings
Adapted from a model by Robert Kohls

35. 4 1 3 2

36. Stages of Culture Shock:
Initial enthusiasm and excitement
Irritability and negativism
Gradual adjustment and adaptation
Integration and bi-culturalism

37. Examples of Initial Enthusiasm and Excitement
Trying any food (once!)?
Saying “yes” to almost any suggested activity
Wanting to go and see as many places as possible
Finding many similarities with things back home
Politely and pleasantly smiling and saying “yes” whether you understand or not
Taking lots of pictures
Frequently sharing your new and exciting experiences back home

38. Stages of Culture Shock:
Initial enthusiasm and excitement
Irritability and negativism
Gradual adjustment and adaptation
Integration and bi-culturalism

39. Examples of Irritability and Negativism
Why don’t they ever hug or touch one another?
Why do they always hug and touch one another?
Why don’t they make their street signs easier to read?

41. Examples of Irritability and Negativism
If they mean “no” why don’t they say “no”?
Why don’t they just tell me what something costs?
Why can’t anyone stand in line?
Why do they drive so fast?
Forcing a smile with clenched teeth when you don’t understand what is going on.
Complaining about your discomfort to sympathetic people back home, or other inbounds in country
Withdrawing

42. If the easiest response to the
Irritability and negativism stage is
to find comfort with other Inbounds
or electronically with friends and family
at home, the student may get stuck going
back and forth from stage one to two,
back and forth

43. Stages of Culture Shock:
Initial enthusiasm and excitement
Irritability and negativism
Gradual adjustment and adaptation
Integration and bi-culturalism

44. The Inbound Syndrome An almost universal tendency for Inbound
students, and expatriates of any kind, to
gather together and become very close
when living in a foreign country.
Often this can be to the detriment of their
ability to immerse effectively into the host
culture.
The Inbound Syndrome revised.doc 

45. Typical Culture Shock Cycle
Rotary Youth Exchange
Typical Culture Shock Cycle
Months
Pre-Departure
Return …...
Normal Level of Feelings
Adapted from a model by Robert Kohls

46. 4 1 3 2

47. Stages of Culture Shock:
Initial enthusiasm and excitement
Irritability and negativism
Gradual adjustment and adaptation
Integration and bi-culturalism

48. Examples of Gradual Adjustment and Adaptation
Learning the language.
Finding yourself dreaming in the host language.
Finding yourself unable to precisely explain a concept you have learned to someone back home using English.
Insisting people speak to you in the host language rather than English
Going to host parents and local Rotarians with problems rather than people back home.
Speaking with other Inbounds in the host language rather than English
Becoming involved in school or community activities

49. A language learning game

50. Enculturation: of the surrounding culture.
The successful adoption of the behavior patterns and customs
of the surrounding culture.
(also called acculturation, immersion, assimilation, adaptation)

51. Stages of Culture Shock:
Initial enthusiasm and excitement
Irritability and negativism
Gradual adjustment and adaptation
Integration and bi-culturalism

52. Examples of Integration and Bi-Culturalism
Not having to translate in your head first.
Traveling across town by bus, making a purchase, meeting friends in the host language and no one asks “where are you from”?
Engaging in host culture practices without thinking:
- Eating with fingers, or a knife and fork or chop sticks Standing close, or distant, in line with host customs and
feeling comfortable.
Accepting and appreciating fundamentally different cultural values as just that – different not right or wrong.
Telling people back home – I’m not ready – you can’t make me come back!

53. Culture Shock Cycle Adapted from a model by Robert Kohls
Rotary Youth Exchange
Culture Shock Cycle
Months
Pre-Departure
Return …...
Normal Level of Feelings
Adapted from a model by Robert Kohls

54. Most people anticipate some degree of culture shock
Most people anticipate some degree of culture shock. Very few people believe they will experience reverse culture shock.

55. Reverse Culture Shock (Re-entry Shock)
The often unexpected and difficult period of disorientation and readjustment experienced after returning to one’s own culture after an extended period of living abroad.
So You Think You're Home Now.doc 
Going Home.doc 

56. The Stages of Reverse Culture Shock are almost the same as those of Culture Shock
Initial Euphoria (may be very brief or not happen at all)
Irritability and Negativism ( may be very lengthy)
Gradual Adaptation
True Bi-Culturalism

62. “It is impossible to describe the shock of return
“It is impossible to describe the shock of return. I recall how I stood for the longest time staring at a newly painted yellow line on a neatly formed cement curb. Yellow, yellow line.
I pondered the human industry, the paint, the cement truck and concrete forms and all the resources that had gone into that one curb. For what? I could not quite think of an answer. So that no car would park there? Are there so many cars that America must be divided into places with and places without them?
Was it always so, or did they multiply vastly, along with telephones and new shoes and transistor radios and cellophane wrapped tomatoes, in our absence?”
The Poisonwood Bible

63. Culture Shock and Reverse Culture Shock are not just unpleasant side effects of international living.
They are the necessary ingredients that bring about quality intercultural education.

64. For more information, visit www.yeoresources.org
Dennis White, Ph.D. 207 S. 4th Ave. Sturgeon Bay, WI Telephone Fax
For more information, visit