人教初三culture-shock---a-personal-experience.docx

A personal experience

　My friend Dr. Dong had a wonderful chance to go to Seattle to present a paper at a professional meeting. Having attended my course in Intercultural Communications, he consulted me to review some of the cultural differences he might experience. I also gave him the phone number of a friend of mine who lived in the area. When he got back, we met to review his experience.

　　Dr. Dong told me that the course information had helped him. He experienced the typical stages of culture shock. He arrived expectant and happy and enjoyed his first days very much. At the medical conference, he felt quite confident in his area of research and was able to perform well in his presentation. But after a few days, he began to feel uncomfortable. His medical English was fine, but the social interaction skills were different, and he was unsure of the cues and the communication style.

　　He worried more and more that he was misunderstanding simple English greetings and table talk conventions. When someone greeted him with, " Hi, how's it going?" he thought they had asked him " where are you going?" and answered with the name of the conference hall, only to get a quizzical stare from them. At a western style dinner, a colleague asked, " So how're you enjoyin' the States?" he thought he heard, " how are you enjoying your steak?" and answered that he was eating chicken, not beef. That time, they smiled, and patiently repeated the question, then both laughed at the error.

　　Such misunderstandings and miscommunications were minor. But for Dr. Dong, they were the beginning of a sense of " cultural confusion." By the end of the meetings, he felt a deep sense of " cultural stress" and was worn out from having to pay attention to so many new expressions and ways of dealing with things. He felt his handshake was not as firm as Americans', found that people reacted unusually when he modestly insisted his English was not good after they complimented him, didn't know how to accept dinner invitations properly and therefore missed out on going to several lunches, and so on. Eventually, he was so bewildered that he felt the full impact of " culture shock."

　　What is culture shock and why does it occur? The term was coined about 50 years ago by the Swedish scholar, Kalvero Oberg. His seminal article，"Culture Shock: Adjustment to New Cultural Environments" (1960) has been reprinted and revised for many textbooks and magazines. He called it " the occupational disease of people who have been suddenly transplanted abroad." His use of the word " disease" is a pun, because it implies that it is like an " ailment, with its own symptoms and cure," but also that the root cause is also a feeling of " dis " ease, or unsettled uneasiness.

　　Think back on your own experience. Have you ever moved from one context to another? Many students feel some of this adjustment shock when they change from one school to another, or move from a small town to a big city.

　　The list of sensations one feels in new surroundings often includes:

　　＊ Feeling like an outsider, feeling unsure of oneself or even feeling stupid;

　　＊ Sensing that one's language skills aren't good enough, missing jokes, colloquial phrases, references to TV shows or pop songs or other cultural " insider" information;

　　＊ Feeling uneasy and unsettled, irritable and increasingly short tempered;

　　＊ Feeling lonely and wanting to go " home," feeling more and more like a stranger or outcast;

　　＊ Feeling overwhelmed, overloaded, daydreaming, staring blankly at things or even staring at nothing;

　　＊ Becoming more and more afraid of communicating and of making mistakes, worried, anxious.

　　These are all symptoms of initial culture shock. With a new context comes new ways of doing things. So being uninitiated and unsure of what to do, this sense of displacement is often very strong at the beginning. But the good news is that humans are very good at adapting. Though everyone undergoes some degree of psychological stress in transition, after a few weeks or months, we learn how to " read" our new context. We become aware of the new cues, the new expectations, the new ways of communicating. With some trial and error, and with a lot of patience with oneself, most people succeed in overcoming culture shock and learn to enjoy their new context.

　　Dr. Dong's visit to the US was only three weeks long, but by the end of the 5-day medical conference, he was already starting to feel more confident. Sure he felt a little foolish about some of the mistakes he had made, but he quickly learned to laugh at his errors and found his colleagues smiled with him. This broke down the barriers to communication and helped him build some good professional relationships. And after the conference, he contacted the family I had referred him to and had a very nice time visiting them. There were some new cultural surprises, but he discovered he could better understand and adapt to them.

　　By the time he returned to China, he was feeling quite positive about his American trip, and was glad for the new experiences and new skills it had given him. He had become successful in the initial transitions to a new culture. Though he had gone through some embarrassing or trying culture stresses, each had proven to be valuable learning experiences, and in the end had helped him overcome culture shock.

　　我的朋友董医生有幸获得了一次去西雅图在一个专业会议上做学术报告的好机会。已经上过我的跨文化交际课程，他请我帮他温习一下他可能遇到的一些文化差异。我也将我的一个在该地区居住的朋友的电话号码给了他。当他回来后，我们聚到一起回顾了他的经历。

　　董医生告诉我，课程所学派上了用场。他经历了文化冲击的典型阶段。他满怀期待高高兴兴地到了美国，非常愉快地度过了最初几天。在医学会议上，他对自己的研究领域颇为自信，而且他所做的陈述也相当成功。但在过了几天后，他开始感到有些不适应了。他的医学英语不错，可是社会交往技能却是另一码事，他拿不准那些暗示及交际风格。

　　他越来越担心他会误解简单的英文问候语以及餐桌交谈习俗。当有人用"嗨，一切都好吗？"向他打招呼时，他以为是问他"你要去哪？"因而答之以会议厅的名字，结果招来了疑惑的目光。在一次西式的晚宴上，一位同事问他："你在美国过得好吗？"他听成了"你觉得牛排味道如何？"因而回答他在吃鸡肉，不是牛肉。那次，他们笑了，并耐心重复了那句问话，然后都对这个错误大笑一通。

　　这类的误解和交流不畅还是次要的。但对于董医生来说，它们是"文化困惑"感的开始。在会议快要结束时，他深深地感到了"文化压力"，而且因为还得注意待人接物时这么多新的表达法和方式而感到精疲力竭。他感到自己握手不如美国人那么有力；在人们称赞他后他谦虚地坚持说他的英语不好时，他发现他们的反应异乎寻常;他搞不清如何适当地接受宴会邀请从而错过了几次午餐，如此等等，不一而足。最终他被搞得不知所措,彻底感受了"文化冲击"。

　　什么是文化冲击，为什么会产生文化冲击？这一术语是瑞典学者卡尔维罗·奥博格大约50年前造出来的。其拓荒之作《文化冲击:适应新的文化环境》（1960年）为许多教科书及杂志所再版和修订。他称之?quot;突然移居海外的人所患的职业病"。他用的"disease"这个词是个双关语，因为它暗示这如同一种"病，有其自身的症状和疗法"，而且其根源也是一种（dis）不（ease）适或心神不宁的感觉。

　　回想一下你自己的经历。你曾从一个环境迁到另一个吗？很多学生，当他们从一所学校转到另一所，或从一个小镇到一座大城市时，都会感到这种顺应冲击。

　　＊感到像个局外人，对自己没有信心，甚至感到愚蠢；

　　＊感觉自己的语言能力不足，领会不了笑话、口语化用语的含意，也搞不懂电视节目及流行歌曲或其他文?quot;内涵"的信息；

　　＊感到不适和不安，易激怒并且脾气越来越暴躁；

　　＊感到孤独并且想要回"家"，感觉愈来愈像个陌生人或被抛弃的人；

　　＊感到不能自持，负担过重，想入非非，失神发呆；

　　＊越来越害怕交流和犯错误，担心、焦虑。

　　这些都是文化冲击的最初症状。新的环境伴随着新的行事方法。所以缺少积极性并且不知道该做什么，通常这种移位感在最初都很强。但是好在人类很善于调整适应。尽管在转变过程中都经历了某种程度的心理压力，但在过了数周或数月后，我们学会了如何"解读"我们的新环境。我们逐渐懂得了新的暗示、新的期望、新的交际方法。几经磨练，自己也有了耐心，大多数人成功地克服了文化冲击，并学会了享受他们的新环境。

　　董医生的美国之行仅仅3周的时间，但未等5天的医学会议结束，他已经开始感到比较自信了。当然他对自己所犯的一些错误感到有点愚蠢，但他很快就学会调侃自己的过错，并发现他的同事也在向他微笑。这消除了交流的障碍，并且帮助他建立了一些良好的业务关系。会议结束后，他同我提到的那一家人取得联系，并愉快地拜访了他们。他的美国之行有一些新的文化惊奇，但他发现他能够更好地了解并适应它们。

　　在他返回中国时，他感到此次美国之行很有意义，并对此行的新经历和所获的新技能感到高兴。在对一个新的文化的最初转变中他已经取得成功。尽管他经历了一些尴尬或难受的文化压力，但每一次都证明是颇有价值的学习经历，并且最终帮助他战胜了文化冲击。