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Stages of Culture Shock

First stage - incubation/honeymoon
Everything is new and exciting

Second stage - frustration in trying to adapt
Feels impatient, frustrated, incompetent, angry

Third stage - the turning point
Gains understanding, feels positive OR returns home

Fourth stage - integration
Recognizes new culture has much to offer

Fifth stage - re-entry shock
Sometimes experiences difficulty returning to own culture

During the first few weeks most individuals are fascinated by the new. They stay in hotels and associate with nationals who speak their language and are polite and gracious to foreigners. This honeymoon stage may last from a few days or weeks to six months depending on circumstances. If one is a very important person he or she will be taken to the show places, pampered and petted, and in a press interview will speak glowingly about progress, goodwill, and international amity. If he returns home may well write a book about his pleasant if superficial experience abroad.

But this "Cook's tour" type of mentality does not normally last if the foreign visitor remains abroad and has to seriously cope with real conditions of life. It is then that the second stage begins, characterized by a hostile and aggressive attitude towards the host country. This hostility evidently grows out of the genuine difficulty, which the visitor experiences in the process of adjustment. There is maid trouble, school trouble, language trouble, house trouble, transportation trouble, shopping trouble, and the fact that people in the host country are largely indifferent to all these troubles. They help but they just don't understand your great concern over these difficulties.

Therefore, they must be insensitive and unsympathetic to you and your worries. The result, "I just don't like them." You become aggressive, you band together with your fellow countrymen and criticize the host country, its ways and its people.

This criticism is not an objective appraisal but a derogatory one. Instead of trying to account for conditions as they are through an honest analysis of the actual conditions and the historical circumstances which have created them, you talk as if the difficulties you experience are more or less created by the people of the host country for your special discomfort. You take refuge in the company of your countrymen and this cocktail circuit becomes the fountainhead of emotionally charged labels knows as stereotypes. This is a peculiar kind of shorthand, which caricatures the host country and its people in a negative manner.

In the final stage of adjustment the visitor accepts the customs of the country as just another way of living. He can operate within the new milieu without a feeling of anxiety although there are moments of strain. Only with a complete grasp of all the cues of social intercourse will this strain disappear.

It might be well to point out that the difficulties, which the newcomer experiences are very real. If individuals come to a tropical area from a temperate one they quite often suffer from intestinal disturbances. Strange foods sometimes upset people. In Rio, for instance, water and power shortages are very real. When these physical difficulties are added to those arising from not knowing how to communicate and the uncertainties presented by customs the consequent frustrations and anxieties are understandable.
In the course of time, an individual makes this adjustment. You do what is essential about water, food, and the other minutiae of daily life. You adapt yourself to water and power shortages and to traffic problems. In short, the environment does not change. What has changed is your attitude towards it. Somehow it no longer troubles you; you no longer project your discomforts onto the people of the host country and their ways. You get along under a new set of living conditions.

According to Judith Martin, an associate professor of intercultural communication at the University of Minnesota, it is more difficult to come home. When you go abroad, she says, "you expect it to be different; when you come home, no one expects you to have changed."
Some universities have begun to offer classes to help students make sense out of their experiences abroad and recognize the impact it has on them. The differences between cultures and the changes you undergo will affect you the rest of your life, your future academic work, and your career.

Integrating the study-abroad experience into your life is the most important step to overcoming the culture shock. You sought international study to broaden your understanding of the world - now use it to help others achieve that understanding.

If you feel a need to work through some re-entry shock, or just want to share your foreign experiences with others, here are a few suggestions:

1. Ask high school foreign language instructors if you can give short guest lectures, illustrated with photographs, slides, or videos.
2. Many local civic and children's organizations enjoy speakers who share their foreign travel anecdotes. Audience members often add their own stories to the conversation.
3. Kiwanis, Rotary clubs, Girl and Boy Scout troops may be able to utilize your experiences through presentations.
4. Talk about your experiences with others who have recently traveled abroad and who may be experiencing the same feelings you're having. They may be able to share some tips with you on how they learned to deal with their feelings.
5. Solutions to re-entry shock are numerous and unique to each individual. Most important, remember that the time, energy and expanse spent studying abroad was well spent.