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Culture Shock Bites Back
I’m being to wonder if the worst part of going abroad is coming back home.
Personally, I’d like to smack whoever started the myth that repatriation is easy. Kicking the crap out of those who believe that you only experience shitty days when you’re in a foreign country and nothing seems familiar would really do wonders for my mood, too. Because in case you hadn’t heard? It. Just. Doesn’t. Work. That. Way.
Hello, Culture Shock. What a surprise to see you here.
All those difficulties that didn’t materialize in Australia—the homesickness, the confusion, the disorientation, the irrational bursts of anger, the days when I wanted to hide in my room and never come out—have come back to haunt me here, now. The nearly effortless adjustments that made it reasonably easy to adjust to the Australian Way are stubbornly refusing to be unlearned. I find myself longing for pavlova and lamingtons, walking on the left side of the road, and calling my breakfast food of choice “muesli”. And all I can do when I catch myself—if I catch myself—is wonder when home will feel like home again.
Sigh. When you’re abroad, especially when you’re a student abroad for a single semester, sometimes the only way you get through really bad days is to remind yourself you’re going home—where everything’s “normal”—eventually. But when you’re home, you can’t tell yourself the opposite; when your family looks at you funny because you’re trying paying for a taxi with a credit card, you can’t console yourself by thinking “I’m going back soon, and everyone will understand” because you’re not going back soon. You may not be going back, ever. And, in the meantime, people expect you to know the rules, because you knew them before. People expect you to know the rules, because it’s home.
And most people expect, too, that you fit happily back in your old life again. That you’ll probably have some funny stories to share at << Muse, Where Art Thou? | Home | I Need a Better Part-Time Job >>