June 2004

Blair Sly

When I was young, I used to associate culture shock with the movie, The Jewel of the Nile. Although I haven’t seen this movie in years, I still have clear images of the turban-clad Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito tromping around a marketplace in some African city, while hoards of camels and people crowd the scene from all directions. People jabbering in a foreign language, utter confusion and clutter, a feeling of awkwardness; in my eight-year-old mind, this was culture shock.

And when I came to Japan years later, my expectations for culture shock were based on these naïve and Orientalist preconceptions that I had conjured up in my early age. Culture shock was that pang of puzzlement and surprise that you felt when you stepped off the plane in some exotic place, and everything was so visibly different.

For the first few months after arriving in Japan, I did feel this shock. It was driving on the left, eating natto (and spitting it out), hearing the sound trucks at election time, hitting my head on the low doorways. Although I was puzzled, surprised, and wounded by many of these experiences, I found, like any other kind of “shock,” I was generally able to shake it off, and wake up the next day with no ramifications.

However, after living in Japanese society for three years, I have become aware of another type of culture shock that has affected me on a much deeper level. It is easy to brush off a foreign food or activity as being different or strange, but when some principle or belief that you cherish as part of your identity is rejected by society, the shock tends to develop into longer-term trauma. Working in a completely Japanese environment, there have been times when I have felt extreme alienation and frustration, as no matter how hard I tried, I could not comprehend something that people around me accepted as a matter of fact. I have found these type of situations are much more taxing on the psyche, as the root of the difference often lies in the core principles and morality of each person’s culture.

Living in a foreign culture, it is necessary to develop a method for dealing with these inevitable conflicts. While some version of the “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” proverb seems to exist in almost every language and culture, rejecting your principles and completely assimilating into a foreign culture would be a threat to one’s identity. At the same time, persistently sticking to one’s original mindset could limit access into the target culture. Learning to balance these two methods and undergoing the process of judging which aspects of the culture you are willing to accept, while redefining your base principles is one of the most rewarding parts of living abroad.

In many ways, I am nostalgic for those first days after coming to Japan. Along with the shock and amazement, there was also a sense of excitement that was a result of constantly experiencing new things. While this excitement has faded, as I head home this summer, there is a certain gratification in knowing I have truly and thoroughly experienced a foreign culture.

Posted on June 2004 in the following categories: Opinions, Stories and Information