Back in the USA
Your trip is over and you are back in your home country.
1. Creative Writing:
Pretend that you’ve just returned from studying abroad in your target country and you are feeling the disquiet of reentry. Describe your (hypothetical) experience with reverse culture shock using journal or diary format.
Dear Diary,
I’ve been having difficulties adjusting to life back in America after studying abroad in Italy for 6 months. Italy was awesome and all, but I didn’t realize how different it was from America, especially the driving in Italy. Today while I was driving home, I ran a stop sign and was pulled over by the police and given a $200 ticket. I had so been used to the Italian way of driving where nobody really cared or obeyed traffic signs or laws. I was pissed, no one was even walking on the crosswalk and there weren't any other cars around when I ran the stop sign. I remember in Italy, everyone drove very erratically and didn’t often obey any traffic signs, but in American, everybody tends to obey traffic laws and traffic lights in fear of getting a ticket. Another thing I noticed is that here in America everybody is dresses so casually, while in Italy everyone dressed elegantly and with style. I was so used to dressing up everywhere I went in Italy even the grocery store. I’ve noticed that here people don’t seem to care or don’t want to dress nice, I see people out in their pajamas or wearing really skimpy clothing that would get them bad looks if they wore them in Italy. I so miss Italian fashion!!
Helena
2. What is Reverse Culture Shock?
Read this article as well as the Re-entry Handbook and analyze one of the following video clips with respect to reverse culture shock.
(a) According to both references, there are several stages in reverse culture shock. At which stage do you think is the person on the clip currently?
I think that the girl in the clip is in the Disintegration stage of reverse culture shock. She’s having trouble readjusting to her home country, America. She’s noticing the differences between Mexico and America and noticing that now she feels like she belongs more and prefers to be in Mexico than America.
(b) What do you think causes his/her shock? Choose possible causes from “Top Nine Immediate Reentry Obstacles” (p. 8-12) and give your analysis.
I think that Reverse “Home” Sickness and Feelings of Alienation caused her shock because she’s missing how the people in Mexico were friendly rather than the coldness of American people. She also blaming the country of America and how it’s capitalistic so the people are individualistic as to why the people in America are so cold hearted rather than in Mexico where everyone was helpful. She’s also having a tough time adjusting to the language; in Mexico everyone talked in Spanish and she did as well, but when she got home to America everyone was talking in English.