Stuff You Notice During Reverse Culture Shock PART I

I’ve gone through reverse culture shock at least twice in my life; once coming back from South Korea, and again right now, after two months back from Indonesia.  Arguably, coming home from college was another culture shock before that. When you first arrive in a new place, you notice everything, and your mind is hyper aware. When you come back home from a really different culture, you have that hyper aware feeling while also dealing with the mundane and familiar and whatever expectations you have about what life is like in your hometown. Eventually you are left with a paranoid, jaded, bored feeling that’s something like teenage angst.

I think I’ve been making excuses for still having teenage angst for the entirety of my 20's 
(Photo by Flikr user .sarahwynne.)

Anyway, I’ve decided to outline some of the feelings/realizations I’ve come to during my 2-3 months of reverse culture shock since I've returned home. This is the first part of a longer post. I will write and post the rest later.

1.       





Formality, accents, and the repetitive expressions people use are weird.

When you first move to a new country and barely understand the language, you feel intensely curious. What are those people saying, exactly? And slowly, ever so surely, time passes, and you start to understand people. You start hearing the same words over and over again…and again…and again…and again. Eventually you totally understand those common expressions, and not only do you understand them, but you’re intensely irritated by them. Do you have to ask me where I’m going all the time, or if I’ve eaten, or taken a shower? Why do Indonesians (or insert any nationality here) keep asking about such stupid, pointless things?  Why do they have to use the same expression over and over again? Why is that silly song about where that kid’s dad is so “funny”?

Because you’re hyper aware, you start to pick out the expressions and tones people use to sound tougher, sadder, to get pity, to flirt, to fake humility, etc. Because you actively have to learn how to do these things in a new culture, it’s almost like watching people put on and take off masks because you are trying to learn how to do what is they’re doing.

Or I’m just saying that because I wanted to reference this book and sound cultured 
(photo from Wikipedia)

Silly things start to annoy you even if you know that logically you shouldn’t be annoyed. Why do people keep using religious words? Why do they keep talking about God? Why do Korean girls put on that weird whiny accent all the time?

When I try to explain to someone what reverse culture shock feels like in the simplest way I can, I usually retell this anecdote: I went to a local diner in Westchester County, NY a few days after I got back from Korea. As I was sitting there, the room seemed so loud. More than one person who’s lived abroad for long periods of time in an non-English speaking country has agreed with me that when you come back home, sometimes it feels like everyone is talking to you. You can finally totally understand everyone around you, but you’ve just spent a long time getting used to people using English only when they want to talk to you. This feeling was stronger when I returned from Korea than now, after returning from Indonesia. It’s possibly because I speak Indonesian more fluently and more Indonesians would speak to me in their native tongue than Koreans would. 

Number of People of Asian Descent in America (not including mixed race) [From Wikipedia]

Group	Population 2000	Population 2010	Percent change
Indonesian	44,186	101,270	58.6%
Korean	1,099,422	1,463,474	33.1%

(And yet, just going by these numbers knowing Korean better would have opened a lot more opportunities for looking cool in Asian neighborhoods in America…)

What also struck me in this diner was just how strong everyone’s accent was. The English speaking foreigners I had been around were not from Westchester, New York. And there I was, suddenly hearing aw’s instead of a’s, the false aggression, the abrupt, harsh staccato characteristic of New York accents and feeling really irritated. Did they really have to talk like that?

What everyone sounds like right now
(From Friends Wikia)

Many Korean teachers of English have a habit of telling their students that English doesn’t really have formality. I used to say that just because English doesn’t use honorifics and different levels of language, doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to be more formal, which I think they knew, more or less, but they didn’t totally believe. So I used to make some basic rules for my advanced students: Generally you use more passive sentences, you avoid “I” or “you,” and strong emotions, and you make use of more Latin based words instead of Anglo-Saxon rooted words (i.e. you use “reception” instead of “welcoming” or “commencement” instead of “beginning”, “refrain” or “desist” instead of “stop,” etc.).

Of course there are many formal things that Koreans do at meetings or when greeting each other that are unnecessary for Americans, such as always shaking your elder’s hand with two hands instead of one, using titles instead of first names, and generally avoiding eye contact. Trying to learn all of these extra things at first can seem exhausting and silly. But when I came back from Korea, I felt so irritated when waitresses nonchalantly put plates down with one hand.

Before speaking in meetings, Indonesians generally say an Arabic blessing before they talk. And before making formal speeches, my students used to add two paragraph long blessings praising Allah and his creation. At the end of the speech, they would apologize for mistakes. When I said goodbye to my host family, I also apologized for my mistakes. Sometimes I’d get so annoyed with these formalities. They took so long.

But I went to a work meeting last week, and before the boss even started speaking, he spent a few minutes praising everyone, wishing everyone a good vacation, mentioning different family members and wishing good health. Before the meeting ended there was another five minutes of praise, of formal thank you’s, of encouragement. I’m sure someone could write whole research papers on what this implies; why do Indonesians use their formal speech for praising God and talking about the world and apologizing, while Americans use their formal  speech for gratitude and encouraging individuals?

When I first got to Indonesia the constant Inshallah, Alhumdulilah, Mashallah, and  assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarokatuh  was overwhelming because it comes from a different religious background than the one Western civilization is based on. But being back, I’ve been reminded of how often people in America say “Lord,” “Jeeze” “Jesus” “Jesus Christ” “damn” “thank God,” “God forbid” and “Oh my God.”  And it’s reinforced the idea to me that just because someone is steeped and in a certain religious/cultural background, the way in which someone speaks doesn’t necessarily reflect how personally religious that person is.

2.       

2.  Everybody asks stupid questions

At the risk of making myself and my fellow Peace Corps volunteers seem like a bunch of jerks, sometimes we would compare the dumbest questions Indonesians asked us.  There were the inevitable questions about America’s reputation for “free sex,” and inappropriate questions about the status of our virginity. There were the religious questions, “Do you know who Adam and Eve are?” There were questions about wealth; “There are no pot holes in America, right?” “All the roads are perfectly smooth, right?” “Everyone has a big house in America?” There were ignorant questions about race, “Is that [insert nonwhite race] person actually American?”  Then there were questions like “Are there many zombies/superheroes/vampires in America?” “Does it rain in America?” “Are there trees in America?” “Are there mountains in America?”

That "America The Beautiful" song is a total lie. Don't believe it.
(Photo of the Rocky Mountains from Wikipedia)

                

As silly as some of those questions were, I don’t think that it meant the people asking them were stupid. Indonesia and America are on complete opposite sides of the world. They’re connected to completely different global networks (America to the West and Indonesia to the Muslim world and to Asia). There aren’t many Indonesians living in the US (according to the 2010 census they were only the 15^th largest group of Asian Americans) and the majority of Indonesians living in the US are Chinese Indonesians (over 7000 of which were asylum seekers) and not the Muslim, Sundanese Indonesians I was living with. 

“Sundanese” is the name for the ethnic group that lives in West Java and has nothing to do with Sudanese people living Africa. I’ve confused a lot of people since I’ve gotten back

Sundanese people (photos from Wikipedia)

                For the most part, people asked me those questions as a conversation starter. Sure, many of them had seen American movies or music, but most of them had never really thought about what life was actually like in America. These questions were an invitation for me to talk about the weather, the nature, to talk about myself, to connect. Somewhere in there was a bit of national pride, too. They weren’t just asking me if America had mountains or trees or rain, but if we have mountains as grand and numerous as Indonesia, trees as green and lush, or rain as pounding and heavy.

                People in America ask “stupid” questions also.  “Your students knew how to use Facebook?” “If some people had smartphones, air conditioning, wifi, etc., weren’t they not poor?” “What do you mean that some people weren’t poor?” “What language do people speak in Indonesia?” “You don’t have to get sassy, Indonesian isn’t a real language, is it?” “Most Indonesians are Muslim?” “Didn’t you have to wear a burqa?” “Are women allowed to do anything?”  “Wasn’t it hard to live with all those Muslims?”

                People have ideas about what a Muslim country, or an Asian country, or a Peace Corps country should look like. They especially have ideas about Muslim countries, and a lot of people are looking for me to confirm some of their biases. This makes it difficult to honestly answer some of their questions because, although I may not have a hundred percent positive opinion about something, I know that if I say anything negative to many people ,they are going to take that and run with it and use it to confirm whatever they think is true. For example, no, I didn’t have to wear a burqa. I saw more women wear tank tops or mini-skirts in Indonesia than I ever saw in a burqa or niqab. Did most women cover their head, yes, but I didn’t, and aside from a couple of religious ceremonies, I was never told I HAD to cover my head. (for the confused, here is an easy guide to different types of Muslim coverings).

Did I ever feel judged for not covering my head or annoyed that the Indonesian media sometimes pushed a narrative that women that covered their heads were more morally pure than those who didn’t? Absolutely. But the average person I meet is not interested in listening to me say no, Indonesian women are not forced to cover their heads, but outside of urban areas there is a huge social pressure cover; there are many reasons, but some of which include cultural ideas that stigmatize female sexuality, that looking overtly religious is tied to looking more upper class, the Indonesian fashion industry and popular trends, and the emulation of Arab culture as a push back to growing Western influence.

Interestingly, Indonesian mass media tends to show a lot less covered women than the proportion of covered women you see on the street. For example, this video for Indonesian Independence Day (August 17), in which I saw only ONE woman with her head covered. 

However, I don’t necessarily think stigmatizing female sexuality means that women are totally disrespected or undervalued. No one in Indonesia ever told me women with stupid or evil or worth less than men. Women there are more comfortable breast feeding or openly talking about their periods than they are here. However, female virginity is still viewed by a lot of people as a marker of moral character, there are huge numbers of teen pregnancies or underage marriages, women are often labeled as more emotional and less able to lead, etc. What I’m saying in too many words is that the position of women in Indonesia, like in most countries, is complicated. And while I am not completely okay or blind to the issues Indonesian women face, I don’t want always bring those issues up to people who don’t know anything about the country. Call it paranoia, but I don’t want people to use what I say to confirm an extreme view that dehumanizes the people I lived with for two years.

                Did I ever find things difficult about living with a Muslim community? Yes, of course. But sometimes when people here ask me about it, they ask it with an expectation already in their heads. They are setting themselves up to hear a story that is some kind of an “us versus them” tale of how I somehow managed to deal with people who were utterly inscrutable and confusing. It leaves me feeling like I can’t be totally honest about the things I didn’t like because it feels like a betrayal.

There are things I don’t care for about Islam, such as that stigmatization of the female body and sexuality (to be fair this exists in Christianity and Judaism and plenty of other religions to various degrees, too), sometimes the sheer amount of rules and how particular Islam can be about diets, the proper way to pray, to eat, or to conduct one’s life can also be confounding and frustrating. So can trying to understand the reverence for Arabic culture, having to wait for people to pray, how loud the call the prayer can be, and the fact that living as a minority in any culture is hard and creates a lot of stress even when the majority isn’t actively or overtly trying to change you or make you feel bad.

But at the same time, there are things I admire about Islam. I admire the discipline, the order, the commonality. I can appreciate how many aspects of Islam were revolutionary for the Middle Ages (and now) and how it promoted reflection, scholarship, hygiene, and law. I appreciate its racial tolerance and emphasis on humility. And as annoying or shocking as the Adzan, the call to prayer, was at first (at 3:30 in the morning when the Mosque is right in front of your house and the speaker is broken and distorted and blasting at an angle directly into your room and sung by an old man with an extreme smoker’s cough, I was especially not too happy), I can appreciate it now for how well it fit into the rhythm of the agrarian day. The sound seemed to rise and fall with the heat, to follow the birds on their path through the day, and served as a way to make you feel connected with everyone around you.

My view during the evening call to prayer

Noontime

How do you explain this and so many more feelings to people that ask? Most people don’t care or need that long of an explanation. I know some people would selectively hear only negative things, and it’s very sad to imagine that these people who took me in for two years, that became my friends, that have individual personalities, might become nothing more than a simple label. Sometimes I want to have a more honest conversation with someone about things I might not like about Islam, or Indonesia, or even my specific village, but I never want to reduce the people I lived with or the culture around me to just a hardship I had to deal with rather than these living, breathing, complicated, nuanced things that they really were.

My students

Me and some of my bros

Me and my host family

3.       I could be more forgiving/tolerant

Stupid questions are annoying. But as I said, sometimes people are asking you stupid questions because they are trying to get close to you or give you attention or connect to you but don’t really know the best way to do that. A lot of volunteers complain about the bluntness of Indonesians, especially when it comes to physical appearance. If you’ve gained weight, look tired, have a pimple, or seem ill, Indonesians are not likely to beat around the bush. They say it directly.  This can be extremely stressful and shocking, especially when you first arrive in Indonesia (Koreans also are pretty blunt about physical appearance, so perhaps I was a bit prepared for this). There are some people who are trying to tear you down (like there are everywhere), but as I advised some new volunteers coming into Indonesia as I was leaving, sometimes people just say stupid things because they’re trying to connect with you and they don’t know what else to say or do. And no, they’ve never thought about whether or not it would be offensive to talk this way or that way to an American because it’s not something they’ve ever had to think about in their lives.

                When an Indonesian friend bluntly asked me about the death of my grandfather two days after it happened with a big smile on his face in front of a crowd of people, I know he wasn’t trying to upset me. He was trying to connect with me, however tactlessly. And yeah a lot of people asked a lot of stupid questions about America. But they all have their own lives and worries. It’s not their job or priority to know any in-depth details about America.

                In regards to the stupid questions I get in America about Indonesia, I think it’s easy to write off people that ask me stupid questions as ignorant or prejudiced. Or, I could accept the fact that just as it’s understandably not relevant for the average Indonesian to know anything about America, it’s not a priority for most Americans to know anything about Indonesia. Instead of getting annoyed—I mean this is the country with the fourth largest population in the world, and considering that our own government was very active in their country through the second half of the 20^th century, it’s pretty bad that Americans barely know Indonesia is a country—I need to just accept this reality. Most Americans don’t know about Indonesia because of some malicious hate for Indonesians; it’s just a result of international politics, colonial history, Western Imperialism, globalization, etc. I can’t expect Americans to know about Indonesia or be experts on South Korea. All I can ask is for openness and a willingness to listen.

                When you live in another culture, you are constantly fighting an internal battle to remain relative, fair, and patient. I have never been and will never be those things perfectly. But sometimes when we go back to our hometowns and countries it’s easy to forget that patience. It’s easier to get mad at the people we meet back home because they’re a lot like us, but they’re less open or knowledgeable. And sometimes we do definitely have the right to call those people out on the stupid things they say because we know more about their lives and cultures. But they haven’t been the places I’ve been.  Most people haven’t had to change so dramatically and to examine their world views so drastically. Some people have been able to go through life without ever being forced to really question the things they believe and somehow been able to avoid or not think about things that might challenge some of their view points. And you know what, just because I’ve lived in Asia for over six years doesn’t make me some paragon of wisdom either. There are plenty of things that people who’ve never left their hometown will experience that I never have or never will.

                But just as I had to learn to accept (even if I didn’t like it at all) that there are Indonesian men that married 13 year old girls and are not in jail or hated, I need to accept that there are some very hateful, condescending people in my home country. Despite the ugly things about them, they are still human. I cannot change someone’s opinion if I write them off as an enemy or as a complete idiot. Finding patience for the ignorance of people from your own culture can be an even tougher and less successful battle.

A very, very difficult internal battle
(picture from Flikr user Gage Skidmore)

And who knows, even with all of my traveling and my mind opening experiences and my worldly new perspective, perhaps life or history will prove me to be a hateful, ignorant moron because I hold some viewpoint I’d never even question as problematic.

Things my grandchildren will tell me after the biggest scientific discovery of 2060: 
"MOSQUITOES HAVE SELF AWARENESS, COMPLEX EMOTIONAL LIVES, AND PRODUCE ART AND MUSIC, YOU HORRIBLE GENOCIDAL ASSHOLE!"
 (Photo from Wikipedia)