As humans, I think it’s normal to romanticize the unknown and unfamiliar. Many of us who identify as travelers claim to thrive in these spaces, and can appreciate the differences we encounter along the way. But there is a difference between briefly visiting a country and its culture and completely immersing yourself within it.
Giving yourself the time and space to fully immerse and learn about a culture not only paves the way for better cultural sensitivity and awareness in the future – but it also comes with its own set of challenges that one must prepare for.
Moving to India for the Banyan Impact Fellowship with AIF was not only my first time moving abroad, but also my first time ever visiting India. Though I had spoken to other American friends who had lived in India for extended periods of time (upwards of 12 months) before making the move, I don’t think I fully understood what I was getting myself into, nor did I fully prepare myself. At that point in time, I didn’t fully understand how intense culture shock could get.
But I have learned – over and over again over the past seven months – that full cultural immersion is an ongoing process that is not for the faint of heart. There are four main stages of cultural immersion that each person goes through: honeymoon, crisis, recovery, and adjustment/stabilization. The duration of each stage differs and depends on the length of time a person is within the host country, but these four stages are pretty universal experiences.1
Stage One: “The Honeymoon Stage”
Honeymoon stage – The stage of a relationship where everything feels new and exciting.
I’ll be honest: when I first arrived in India, I had been wearing a set of rose-colored glasses. Everywhere I went and everything I did was viewed with complete and utter fascination. Each first – whether it be the first time I drank chai, or the first time I tried street food, or the first ride on the back of a motorbike – was seen as a novelty.
For someone who had never been to India before, coming into my host organization and city was like going from 0 to 100 on the culture scale. I was immediately welcomed in with wide open arms and immersed into the community. I ate my meals with them; I slept in the guesthouse that other family members slept in; I worked with them; and I spent my free time with them.
Everything and everyone was new – and therefore – exciting.
I felt engaged in a way I never had before, and challenged in ways that were unfamiliar. My mind was open with curiosity and a willingness to learn whatever I could, absorbing every new piece of information with the veracity of a sponge.
I said “yes” to everything, afraid to miss out on cultural opportunities and discovering new places and people. I would sit with the family members until late at night, listening to their stories and music and wondering how on Earth I got so lucky to be in this place.
But there comes a point where a sponge takes on all the water that it physically can. There comes a point where any excess water will simply come pouring right back out.
Living in my host community had become almost all-encompassing, and finding the time and space to sort through every emotion or event that occurred proved to be difficult. And as much as I enjoyed my time, I couldn’t help the nagging feelings that began to linger at the end of each day.
Stage Two: “The Crisis Stage” (or, Culture Shock)
Crisis – A time of intense difficulty or danger.
“After a few days or weeks, when the honeymoon wears off, people tend to focus on inconveniences and annoying differences. This stage is critical because the individual either adjusts or succumbs by going home.”1
If there is one thing I have learned in the past seven months, it is that culture shock is real, and is almost a literal shock to the system. It takes time and patience to navigate and – if you have never experienced it before – understand where it is coming from. The cultural elements that cause it are such things as climate, language, food, dress, and social roles.
A few common behaviors during this stage include: criticism of the culture and its people; feeling insecure, confused, or anxious about cultural differences; comparing your home culture to the new culture; and even wanting to go home.1
It’s important to note that all of these are very normal experiences, and I will freely admit that I have gone through each one of these, but it does not mean that I dislike India, or my host community. Culture shock brings up a whole host of complicated and intense emotions for an individual.
“It grows out of the difficulties in assimilating to the new culture, causing difficulty in knowing or going along with what is appropriate and what is not. Often this is combined with strong moral and aesthetic disgust with certain aspects of the new culture. Culture shock does not necessarily occur suddenly, but may gradually affect a person’s mood over time.”2
I think this stage is what has taken me the longest to muddle my way through, because every aspect of my life in Jaisalmer is fully immersed in the local culture and people. The access I have to the small comforts from home are extremely limited – either by cost or availability. My small bedroom is the one place I can go to at the end of each day and decompress . . . but it is also far from a safe haven. The stone walls echo and noise travels easily, which is unfortunate when you have the urge to cry or vent at the end of a long, stressful day, but don’t want others to hear you do so.
Because of this, I found myself trying to bottle up each negative emotion I began to feel, and though I had a few select friends I would open up to if need be, it wasn’t enough to release or cope with the frustration welling up inside.
On the outside, I pretended that everything was fine; but on the inside, a storm was beginning to brew. Which . . . is probably how I found myself experiencing many of the negative side effects of culture shock: anxiety and depression; homesickness; insomnia; isolation; as well as decreased productivity and poor time management.
I felt stuck in many ways, like I had fallen into a hole that I couldn’t climb out of.
Not only that, but I also found myself feeling slightly resentful. While other fellows were expected to conduct field visits to villages and work within their host organization’s offices, many of them were able to rent apartments and build their own space. They were able to cook their own food. They were able to commute to work. They were able to move about their cities freely and without restrictions.
And while some of them may have seen these things as a chore – I found myself incredibly jealous at the freedom and independence that they had. As someone who loves to cook for myself, choose the places I go to in my free time, and go for solitary walks, the adjustment to my host community’s culture proved more difficult than I had initially believed.
I found myself asking why almost every day. Why is it a battle to cook my own food? Why can’t I go to the market by myself? Why does everyone need to know where I am at all times?
In the midst of this frustration, I found myself unable and unwilling to confront the issues or push back. After experiencing such high levels of discomfort for such a long period, I was exhausted – physically, mentally, emotionally, and culturally – and without ample or fruitful access to the ways I would normally seek rest, it felt like a losing battle.
Because every aspect of my life was within the community, it felt like I had become trapped, and thus began to fold inward on myself. I stopped hanging around the house late into the night; instead creeping back into my room to hide away. I didn’t want to confront the issues building in the back of my mind, because I was afraid of the confrontation, and of possibly making the environment an even more uncomfortable space for me to reside in.
By bottling up my emotions, I began to question the very aspects of the culture I had learned about in my initial months. I knew the answers to these questions, but in my building frustration, they were far from satisfactory. It felt like not only my independence, but my own identity had begun to slip away. Reckoning with this new discovery was not easy – because how does one continue to exist in a place where they question their very sense of self?
It wasn’t until AIF’s Midpoint Conference – the first time I physically put distance between myself and my project since my arrival in October – that I was able to fully recognize all of the negative emotions and feelings that had begun to build up. So much so that there were many days that I ended up feeling physically sick.
When I came back to Jaisalmer, I folded in on myself even more, stuck in a perpetual loop of exhaustion and frustration but not wanting to cause friction or damage relationships.
Thankfully, another American came to LKSS a week after midpoint ended, and it was with her that I was able to work through some of these feelings I had been having. It felt good to have another person there who understood how intense culture shock could be, and the feelings of isolation that come along with it. With her help, we came up with a plan alongside the community to help me regain some of the parts of my identity I had lost touch with.
This time around, they were incredibly receptive to my needs and accepted it without question. I was now free to roam the markets on my own, and we set up a small kitchenette in the guesthouse for me to use when the urge to cook my own food came. Seemingly small wins, but wins nonetheless.
I also started speaking to a therapist, trying to untangle all of the complicated emotions that had been pressed down for months and ignored.
Though the resolution was slow to come, and intervention was needed, it made a huge impact on my ability to re-enter my project feeling like I had more control, and greatly improved how I interacted with the community every day.
Through this frustration I have learned that cultural immersion is not a one-way road. In order to feel fully integrated and accepted within the cultural context you find yourself in, there needs to be an investment on both sides and the willingness to exchange cultural perspectives. Both sides need to feel heard and respected. Otherwise, the frustration will not fade away; nor will it make room for adjustment or acceptance.
Stage Three: “The Recovery Stage”
Recovery – A return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength.
“With time and patience, we can experience the positive effects of cultural adjustment such as increased self-confidence, improved self-motivation, and heightened cultural sensitivity.”2
This is the stage I find myself in now. Part of recovery means recognizing what your needs are and advocating for yourself in obtaining those needs. When it comes to my own mental and physical health, the best thing for me was to take some time and space away from Jaisalmer in order to have access to the medical, physical, and emotional care I needed in order to begin my own recovery.
Each person’s journey looks different, and for some people, this distance is not required. For others it may be necessary.
For me, it felt extremely necessary to leave Jaisalmer and see other parts of India. I wanted to remind myself how wonderful this country could be and also challenge the negative emotions that had begun to replace my own appreciation for India. I used my personal leave to visit friends, reconnect, and start healing the parts of myself that I hadn’t been able to tend to previously.
This time and distance away not only helped me to regain my appreciation for India as a country, but also feel more comfortable living in and encountering the culture as an individual. Slowly, the independence and sense of security in my own identity that I had been missing came back.
“By this point, you are no longer reacting to the new culture positively or negatively, because it no longer feels ‘new.’ You become concerned with basic living again, as you were in your culture of origin, and you have probably worked out how to act in your new cultural environment in terms of interacting with people, making friends, doing daily tasks, and succeeding in your new academic environment.” In this phase, the individual:1
- Begins to understand the behavior of the people.
- Feels more comfortable living in and encountering the culture.
- Feels less isolated.
- Regains his/her sense of humor.
The recovery phase is much like recovery after a disaster: it is slow and painstaking, but with each day, something that was lost is built back up again.
Stage Four: “The Adjustment Stage” or “The Stabilization Stage”
Adjustment – The process of adapting or becoming used to a new situation.
Stabilization – The process of making something physically more secure or stable.
Some diagrams I have found also like to refer to this stage as the “acceptance stage,” but I personally prefer the terms “adjustment” or “stabilization” because this is the stage where you begin to feel more secure within the cultural context and host community after several months or perhaps more time. The longer you stay and the more you interact with the culture and people of your host country, the greater will become your sense of comfort and empowerment. During this stage, an individual:1
- Enjoys being in the culture.
- Functions easily in the culture.
- Prefers certain host country behaviors to that of his/her own culture
- Adopts certain behaviors of the host culture.
I wouldn’t say I’ve reached this stage yet – and I don’t know if or when I will. I think it takes a considerable amount of time to achieve stability within a new cultural context – and there have been many times where I have thought that I felt secure or stable, only to realize a few days later that it was merely a brief return to the honeymoon phase.
What I can say, however, is that I feel more able to lean into the daily discomfort and more comfortable at navigating each situation I find myself in. I no longer feel stuck, or constantly frustrated at the parts of the culture I may not understand or agree with. I feel more confident in my abilities to communicate and engage with the people and culture, and to move around on my own using public transport and my own meager Hindi skills. I feel less like an outsider now, more integrated into the culture, and more stable in my own sense of identity.
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However, I don’t think culture shock is as linear as we would like to believe. There are some days and weeks where I lean fully towards the frustration side of things, and others where I slip on my rose-colored glasses and pretend I’m back inside that honeymoon stage. And I am always, always adjusting and re-adjusting my expectations and actions as I learn new things. No one’s journey looks the same, and everyone may experience things differently, but one thing is certain: culture shock is inevitable. It’s how you deal with it that shapes the outcome.
And I would like to believe that we all come out on the other side as better, more well-rounded individuals.
