Culture Shock: Negotiation

My blog has been somewhat sparse the last few weeks. I do have a draft from a couple of weekends ago that I’ll probably finish eventually, and I will go back and recount more Thailand adventures, AND write about the 5k I ran/walked, but other than that it’s been rough to find things to write about. This isn’t because nothing has been happening, but because I have been homesick, frustrated, exhausted, and discouraged a lot lately, and it’s just not a great idea to write a whole lot of public content in that sort of mood all the time.

While I don’t at all regret coming here, I’ve reached the point in cultural adjustment (called culture shock phase II: Negotiation) in which the novelty of things are wearing off, and I’m faced with the reality of getting through one day after another in a country where I still don’t speak the language much at all, where I use all my energy to cope on a daily basis and therefore have no leftover energy for language learning, and where misunderstanding and cultural differences with my coworkers and the nearby residents are starting to accumulate and cause tension (whether real or imagined). Some expats respond by wanting to surround themselves with fellow citizens of their home countries, some start to badmouth the people/food/culture around them thinking the country is crazy and fully to blame, and some just want to withdraw and stay in their apartments and watch movies from home, eat food from home, and talk to people from home. I’m sure I fall somewhere in the middle, or experience a little of these in varying levels through the week.

People who stick it out in the foreign country do move past this stage eventually, but right now it sort of stinks. Rainy season began in earnest today, so I’m told I can look forward to slow-drying laundry, umbrella collisions in the streets or subway, wet socks, and mold colonies in the near future. I’m just glad it cooled the temperature about 15 degrees from the mid-90s we had on Monday and Tuesday. I’m glad for the time I’ve lived in Tennessee that let me acclimate to a hot, humid summer. I’ve got it a lot easier than people who are from Canada, Minnesota, or other northerly locations (thanks to Sarah F. for the picture idea!).



To help work through this state, I’m trying to focus on positives of my current home and not be too hard on myself if occasionally I’m a little anti-social, don’t quite finish my full plate of Korean school lunch food, or resort to eating a 9 p.m. dinner (since I was too depressed to cook) of yogurt, string cheese, and Doritos purchased from the foreign food store. I try to bring my little Canon PowerShot camera with me wherever I go. As a result, I’ve been able to take some lovely pictures of the flowers and foliage around the city where I live. It’s indescribably comforting to walk through a park and be able to identify forsythia, azaleas, roses, pansies, violets, and hostas. Taking time to literally smell the roses, take some pictures, and just wander through the park with no particular destination or schedule is so wonderfully refreshing! Even with rainy season setting in, I can still find a few moments to snap a picture, or make little weekend trips where my camera is never at rest for long.




Getting some ongoing problems addressed has been a cause of much thanksgiving recently. I’ve been waiting for my entire time here (4 months as of Monday) to get a real cell phone, instead of the years-old pre-pay phone model that my recruiting company provided when I moved here. It worked well enough at first, but I’ve found that it’s nice to be able to talk to friends on the other side of the city occasionally, and I can’t always get to Skype, so either they had to call me (always using their minutes) or I had to recharge my phone all the time. I also discovered that any unused credit got wiped at the end of each month, so I lost probably $15-25 that way.

Then I got a notification that my phone could no longer be recharged unless I went to a phone store, took my passport, tried to communicate with the salesman, and got the phone registered to my name. For all the hassle involved, I just wanted a real phone with a real contract and auto-billing from my bank so I don’t have to deal with it. By this point in the semester though, my co-teachers are all ridiculously busy, more so than their usual levels of ridiculous busyness. Let it be known that they are great people; they just have double the workload I do, so helping me in addition to their other duties is not easy. They kept forgetting or putting me off for weeks in a row, and I, being the non-confrontational person I am, didn’t get outwardly angry or violent, and simply tried to refrain from nagging after having asked 5-6 times with no result. Eventually, I worked out my schedule with a Korean friend from church, and she helped me get a contract. It’s an iPhone 4! Pretty pricey, but I’ve already been enjoying the benefits of GPS, data plan without needing wi-fi access, and free texting apps. I ended up being without any phone besides my US one for about 1.5 weeks. It was a little harrowing, but I’m thankful the problem is fixed.

They found out by word of mouth at school, and one co-teacher came up to me and said, “I heard you went a got a phone without my help going to a local store??” (I wasn’t able to read the expression, unfortunately—one of the things contributing to my cultural confusion lately) I replied that it seemed like this teacher had been extremely busy lately, so I thought it would just be easier on them if I got a phone on my own with the help of a Korean friend. They asked about the expense (the rumor mill had reported I got an iPhone), and I explained that I hadn’t had to pay upfront as they had told me a few weeks ago I would have to; instead, I subsidized the phone contract over 24 months, and if I leave before then, I’ll just pay for the months remaining. Problem solved. So my school was a little surprised that I got the task done without them, but honestly I couldn’t wait any longer. It was causing me to be angry and resentful (and feel a little unsafe about traveling anywhere in case I got lost or hurt), and the problem wasn’t going to be solved merely by me wishing away the tension; it had to be solved by actually… working out the problem. Sort of like board-breaking… Hah. And I’m so thankful for my friend’s help!

The other problem that got solved recently was the long-overdue flight reimbursement. My contract said it was supposed to be paid within 30 days, but I actually got it about 100-120 days after arriving. It finally came! So that was a nice bonus, and it’ll go towards my flight back to the States in October to attend my brother’s wedding! I’m not thrilled with the bureaucracy that held it up, but I certainly can’t blame the country for that, just bureaucracy in general. It was another cause for tension (having to ask my co-teacher again and again as the weeks went by and getting no results or progress), but it’s solved, so I hope I can move past it and maybe my main co-teacher won’t dread seeing me walk through her door (I had been getting that vibe). :) She was in a great mood today despite the torrential downpours outside, so that was something to be thankful for.

I’ve had positive and less-positive interactions with the corner market produce sellers. Sometimes I manage to communicate exactly what and how many of something I want. One time it wasn’t great though. I gestured at the tomato baskets (pointing at two individual tomatoes one at a time) and said, “Two please.” They started to package up two bushels! I quickly said, “No, no! Two! One, two!” and tried to indicate that I literally wanted two tomatoes. They got the idea, but I guess they were selling in sets and weren’t thrilled to split it. I got some rather sour looks. I summoned my resolve and shopped there the week after, buying some kiwis. I asked for three, and they added a fourth for free! That interaction made me feel better about the situation. The kiwis were delicious!

Oh, and I realized about 1/4 into watching X-men: First Class that it was maybe a poor choice to watch in a foreign country. Did you know that (what feels like at least) 10-15% of the dialogue is in German, Russian, French, Yiddish, or Spanish? Actually, only about three sentences are in Spanish. I could tell what the characters were saying there. For the rest of the time though, I had no idea, since the English translations were of course switched to Korean subtitles. I’ll look forward to seeing that movie again sometime when I can actually tell what Kevin Bacon is dramatically saying, and the reply that is being dramatically delivered to him. *sigh* It was a good movie at least! It taught me to always look up beforehand whether a movie has something in the end credits. I waited through the credits to the point of embarrassment for the poor ushers outside, and then there was no final scene. You let me down, Marvel, you let me down… ^_~