Reverse Culture Shock SUCKS.

I've spent most of the evening crying, which is fairly out of character for me. Though lately I can't make it through a worship service without losing it. I miss Yichang.

And then my wise mother mentioned reverse culture shock when I was ready to hop on a plane...and I remembered this email that was sent to me when I first got back.

First, there's real excitement to get back to the good ol' USA. It's clean. It smells good. Nobody stares at you. Suddenly you can understand all the conversations around you (it may even feel like sensory overload). And you can no longer see over the tops of everyone's heads—and the heads aren't all black. Amazing! Then there's the joy of seeing your loved ones and friends again. And eating favorite foods you've desperately missed. And what about the amazingly clean bathrooms—with TOILET PAPER and hot water? Pure luxury!

That's the honeymoon phase. After awhile the excitement starts to wear off a little bit, then it's time to begin readjusting to American life. Suddenly, everything seems terribly expensive. And you can't even bargain! At first you get lots of attention from your family and friends. But soon they have to go back to their routines, and you realize that they just don't have a lot of time to spend with you—or to listen to your "China stories". Sometimes they don't even seem all that interested. Oh maybe they are at first—for about 10 minutes. And if you're REALLY lucky, they'll even sit and look at your pictures for 15 or 20 minutes. But soon you become aware of glazed eyes, people changing the subject, or maybe even trying to avoid the subject altogether. The problem is not that they don’t care, it’s just that they have no way to relate to what you are telling them. Unless they have lived overseas, they have no meaningful framework to put your stories in. Quoting from the Peace Corp book: “you have a whole novel to tell and to you it is as compelling as a ‘can’t-put-it-down’ thriller. You’re stuck with an audience that prefers short stories.”* You simply must not let yourself feel hurt or offended. It really isn’t their fault.

This is the beginning of reverse culture shock. Yes, it’s real. Many people have said, “This was SO MUCH HARDER than the culture shock I had in China! I didn’t expect coming home to be this hard!” The good news is you will get through it eventually.

“I can’t decide!” That was my cry every time I tried to buy cold cereal after returning to the States. In China, at least we could get a couple different kinds—but they were incredibly expensive (especially when two children could eat a whole box at one sitting). With few choices for several years, this dazzling array was overwhelming: sweetened, unsweetened, oats, rice, corn, or wheat, in a box or bag, plain, with or without fruit or nuts. “It’s too much!” I lamented. The cereal section was a whole aisle long, top to bottom.

One friend we visited when we first returned asked me to help her make spaghetti. “Takes about 30 minutes,” she said. “Not where I came from,” I thought. It couldn’t be done. I envisioned thawing the meat as I cooked it, while cutting garlic, onions, and tomatoes to be sautéed. It would take almost half an hour to get the noodles cooked after boiling the water and we’d still have salad and garlic bread to make. She asked me to prepare the salad while she popped the meat in the microwave to thaw and cook, opened a can of sauce to warm in a pot, and buttered the bread with garlic butter from the refrigerator! We only had to set the table while the noodles cooked! I encountered these differences again and again. This was my home country, for crying out loud. Why did I feel so uneasy with the ease?

Along about this time you may start to notice that you sometimes feel like an outsider. Conversations about events which you did not experience with your family or friends may leave you feeling out of the loop. Time went on while you were gone, and their lives and yours were on different paths. You are both different people. If you want to re-establish those relationships, you will have to work at it again. You may expect to just pick up your life and my relationships where you left off. But it doesn’t happen that way. It can’t. You must re-form some of those relationships again. Be patient, and give it time. And accept that some things may never really be the same again. This is another aspect of reverse culture shock—loss.

I sat in a ladies’ meeting, sheepishly quiet while those wonderful sisters talked about fashion. Fashion! When was the last time you had tea and talked about fashion? You’re more likely to have tea and discuss the latest case of diarrhea. I was uncomfortable, like a waif at the Ritz. Sitting in a ladies meeting and listening to conversations about what was the “in” color for the year and what style clothes to buy made me very uncomfortable. Not that I envied them. I just could not relate.

The most common reactions to reverse culture shock are disappointment and loneliness. A survey of returned Peace Corp volunteers listed the following issues as being the most difficult during their readjustment to living in the US:

• materialism 74%
• abundance/waste of goods 74%
• indifference of fellow Americans 70%
• fast pace of living 67%
• feelings of not belonging 56%
• high cost of living 60%
• finding a job 43%*

A common behavior that results from these feelings is resistance. Some resist going back to their former American lifestyle. There can be a subconscious fear that to do so is to deny the time you spent in China. That somehow, you might lose what you have gained. Another form of resistance is to find fault with the U.S. and Americans. And some resist by deciding that they will not stay in the U.S. for long—that they are really just passing through. The truth is, “until you can begin to be happy in your home culture, you dare not let go completely of your other home in China.”*

This is the critical stage, the stage where you have to find a purpose. You must find some way to do something meaningful. You have been living a life where every day held the possibility of making a difference in someone’s life. But when you come back, that feeling is very difficult to find in the “normal” daily life here at home. As one China teacher said after she started back to work at an office job: “It all just seems so POINTLESS. At least in China I was helping people by helping them with English, if nothing else.” So you must search for a purpose. If you are going to stay in the US, you MUST re-adjust. You can do it by letting go and putting China behind you and moving on as if it never happened. OR, you can do it by taking the lessons that you’ve learned while living there, and the positive changes you’ve experienced in your own life, and put them to work.

When returned Peace Corp volunteers were asked how long it took to be comfortable with U.S. culture, nearly half said about 3 months. But nearly a third said it took a year or longer.

Don’t worry that you will “forget” China. It will always be a part of you. Remember, China will still be there and you can visit. In fact if you feel like it and it’s at all possible, you should plan to go back for a visit. It will help you to realize that those friends you leave behind are still there and they still love you. They didn't "die"--even though it may feel like it when you say that final goodbye and wonder if you will ever see their faces or hear their voices again.

For a final quote from the Peace Corp book, “Gradually you begin to make your peace with more and more features of your life back home. You understand, too, that readjustment, feeling comfortable and at home again back in the States, doesn’t have to spell the end of attitudes and values, even some of the behaviors, you took on when you were abroad and which now make up part of who you are…In some ways…you will never readjust, which may be just as it should be.”*

*Some quotes are from “Peace Corp Odyssey: The Voyage Home”, produced by Peace Corp Returned Volunteer Services, Office of Domestic Programs, Washington, DC 20526, www.peacecorp.gov