Cultural shock!

Greetings! Today I’m going to talk about cultural shock. 

What is cultural shock? Let me brief you. This concept has a history and I don’t want create confusion about it. This was originally proposed by a Canadian anthropologist named Kalvero Oberg in a congress in Rio de Janeiro.

He said it was a psychological adaptation to a new different culture. If we travel to another country or if we move to another social environment, we could experience this sensation of disorientation.  In fact, this shock may cause a lot of physical and psychological symptoms, like excessive sleep, anger, stress and hostility.  Summarizing, it is the confusion produced by a new language, new customs, unknown expectations and feeling that we draw attention to others.  It is the feeling that we are "different" and foreign.

In anthropological terms, cultural shock doesn’t affects in the same ways adults and children, because kids, in a new culture, go through a different process called acculturation.

 In my live I have never experience a cultural shock, at least not a big shock with the terrible consequences that brings with it. But, years ago I had classes in a school from San Juan, Argentina. The uniform was different, the place, the people, everything was different! Even some speak forms was unlike mine. Well, I entered to the room and everyone was staring at me because I was the Chilean girl. The first class was History, Argentinean History. I didn’t know about the dates, the process, and the important character so I felt like out of place.  Like if I didn’t belong there. I feel terrible, but my friends were there to cheer me up, and my classmates were really kind.

An example of cultural shock would it be if we move to Japan forever. First, the impact of a totally different language and writing, second the food, then the people, etc. The impact would cause in us a terrible culture shock with all the symptoms.

Well, that is all, hope you like it! See you next week

Goodbye!