Until watching the Culture Shock video I didn’t know that such a phenomenon existed. I have definitely experienced it more times than I could count but I didn’t know that it had a name and that it happened to everyone else as well. Living in the United States for the past seven years, I had forgotten about my experience arriving into a completely different country and culture with a foreign language. Being depressed, losing weight, and becoming more of an introvert, missing ‘home’ to a point where I craved hearing spoken Russian; I never attributed them to culture shock. I blamed it on not learning English while I lived in Uzbekistan. The first month before school started, everything was new, shiny and exciting. But that didn’t last long; once I started interacting or the lack of interaction with my peers in school quickly turned everything to dull, gray and confusing. Being forced to navigate through a new culture and language with no outside help or support affected my health and well-being.
Now that I think about it my parents didn’t help me deal with it in a healthier way. From day one, my siblings and I were not allowed to speak in Russian, read in Russian or listen to Russian music. They wanted us to learn English, and having no other options and losing that connection to ‘home’ that was built through Russian language, I became obsessed with learning English as fast as possible, to a point that I almost forgot Russian completely. My siblings did; they only speak in English now and some Farsi. Fortunately for me I have regained most of the Russian that I lost but that connection is not as strong as it was before. Now that I am getting ready to go to Poland for study abroad in three months, I can’t help being a little nervous. A completely different culture and a language that I know nothing about, the idea that I might experience culture shock again, is putting my nerves on edge. But this time I am more prepared for it. I feel like understanding culture shock and almost expecting it to happen will help me deal with it better. Poland will definitely be a challenge but one that I am ready for. I have learned a lot from my experiences and I am ready to tackle culture shock once again.
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