Last night I gave the second half of a presentation on culture shock at the American Corner in Skopje, an information center, library, and all around awesome symbol of my country. The people there put huge amounts of effort into offering presentations, workshops, and materials to help people get jobs in the US, study in the US, or just learn more about the culture and language. I think it’s excellent soft diplomacy.
Anyway, the presentation was split between me and a Macedonian, Igor, who had studied in the US. He gave a general overview of culture shock, and then I related some of my particular experiences of it here in Macedonia. What was interesting is that some of the symptoms Igor cited where things I hadn’t even realized I’d been doing. In the discussion afterwards, some of the Macedonians who had lived abroad pointed out more things that resonated with my own experience. They also pointed out that it’s hard to understand just how pervasive and involuntary culture shock can be if you haven’t lived abroad yourself. I’m just going to run with that and list off some of things I’ve done or felt here that are probably part of culture shock.
- Excessive anger about minor inconveniences: I have more than once been inappropriately ornery at my roommate about fairly small things. Friends and family have also had to hear me rant with nearly sputtering rage about such matters as “they make you pay for ketchup!” or “cars park on the sidewalk!”
- Sudden intense feelings of loyalty to your own culture: I look forward to every Sunday when I go with the other Americans to one of the local expat bars and watch football. Here’s the thing: I hate football. I never watch it back in the States. For that matter, I don’t watch any sports back in the States. Here though, it somehow makes me feel more essentially American and less homesick. My roommate has pointed out that, even when I’m talking about distant American government functionaries or matters wholly unrelated to myself, I’ll say “we” instead of “they,” stressing a shared membership that he finds puzzling. It’s probably part of this symptom.
- Overeating or loss of appetite: Both, actually. Some days I forget to eat. Literally, I just forget about it. And then other times I’ll be ravenously and insatiably hungry the whole day.
- A need for excessive sleep: I’ve been fighting this one recently, because it started to get a bit ridiculous. No one needs ten hours of sleep daily.
- Feeling sick much of the time: I’ve already ended up in the hospital once, and that turned out to be a legitimate infection I needed treatment for, but I’d just ignored this one too because I’d had so many other random maladies that couldn’t be traced to anything specific before it. For example, one day I was feeling totally fine, if rather stressed out, the entire day. I came home, ate the exact same things I normally eat for dinner, got on the computer to do some work, and inexplicably started to feel queasy. That queasiness turned into an upset stomach so severe that I stayed up till five a.m. vomiting every twenty minutes. Then, magically, the upset stomach disappeared. I had no fever, no other complaints, I was suddenly the peak of health again (though still stresed). It was literally one day perfect, that night more violently ill than I’ve been in years, the next morning perfect. I suspect it was actually just a physical reaction to the culture shock stress, though I could be wrong.
- Exaggerated cleanliness: I actually don’t mind this so much, as I tend to like neat spaces, but am not very good at keeping things organized or clean under normal circumstances. Here though, I clean almost obsessively. It makes me feel like I’m taking back control over my personal space, after spending the whole day being off balance and constantly on my guard interacting in a foreign culture. For some reason, it hadn’t occurred to me that this sudden change in my cleanliness could be a product of culture shock.
These are just the things that I was surprised to hear associated with culture shock. The rest you’ve already probably read previously on this blog, if you’re a regular reader. The upside to all these downsides of being abroad is, when you have a good day, you have a really excellent day, as yesterday’s post testifies. It’s kind of like a high. Everything is new, everything is an adventure, and there’s no time to be bored.
That’s definitely worth it.
send them to resorts for boys and girls to get their wits together

I usually post here when something strikes me as particularly weird or interesting in my experience. But I’m afraid that might give an overly negative impression of how I feel about Macedonia, since what surprises me in this country often frustrates me as well.



























