Culture Shock文化冲击

Culture Shock

As we all know, it is defined as culture shock that someone who comes to a completely new cultural environment will experience a psychological anxiety and confusion. Culture shock is a long-term topic under the trend of globalization.

Culture shock is a common phenomenon that reflects the lack of direction, the feeling of not knowing what to do or how to behave in a new environment, and not knowing what is appropriate or inappropriate. The feeling of culture shock generally appears after the first few weeks of coming to a new place.

For example, Lucy was transferred to work abroad, when her family moved to Mexico from California after a period of time, she tried to understand people speaking a different language, to go to the store, to make new friends, to overcome the confusion and helplessness. So she began to suffer culture shock.

What situations Lucy met is a miniature of all people who suffer culture shock. They are like fish out of water, away from familiar motherland and close relatives, lonely struggling in a strange country that differs from the original country in values, ideology, communications, eating habits, styles and so on.

Meanwhile, new things threaten the basic belief in the subconscious mind that the original cultural customs, assumptions, evaluation and behavior is always "right". What you are familiar with are taken the place of something new. You would feel as if your heart was suddenly stolen leaving a gray blank and losing in a helpless, lone and cold circumstance. Like the shadow of your original culture disappeared all of a sudden. Maybe you like to do something based on the adult, but you always feel like

an ignorant child. In the end, you would become vulnerable, frustrated, upset, irritable, may also suffer from homesickness and depression.

Culture shock and change in degree depends on the following conditions: firstly, the length of your stay. The longer time you stay in a strange atmosphere, the more serious shock you will stand. Secondly, the purpose of your trip. If you travel as tourists or for business, either temporary living in another country, perhaps you can’t be interrupted by culture shock, on the contrary, you can enjoy different meaningful journey. Thirdly, degrees of contact between the local culture and the new culture have a significant effect on your feeling including happiness, sadness. One example is that Bush paid China a visit and he may be welcome by many of Chinese, companied with some American officials, besides he lived only few days, so he needn’t concern about what culture shock is.

The consequence of culture shock is obvious and predictable. If you can’t handle the culture shock in a positive way, you probably become victims of cultural differences, which destroy your most important business relationship, cause friction, even break you dream. You stay away from the crowd, and you cry, you're angry; by day you are drowsy, but can’t sleep at night. At the same time, it’s effective to your career and makes you lack of sense of accomplishment. Individual cases, culture shock can lead to serious depression and personal problems.

There are some reasons for shock that we can seek methods available to overcome shock and thereby enhance our strength and reduce weakness. Firstly, someone is addicted to original culture and seldom broadens their horizons, as a