After almost three years in Taiwan and China focusing on Chinese language and culture, we were initially out of our element when we came back to B.C., as we expected. I was a little hesitant, for example, to jump right back into city driving, among other things, but it didn’t take too long to function more or less normally again. Soon I was driving all over the place in Vancouver’s notorious traffic and it was second-nature.

But I’m realizing now that when it comes to people, like hanging out and stuff, I didn’t feel fully at home or totally relaxed or 100% not-more-awkward-than-normal until around six months in, maybe even later. I can look back now at particular social events and see how things weren’t normal for me — not that it was so bad or I couldn’t function, but that I didn’t feel totally myself and wasn’t as effortlessly engaged with people as I would have liked to be. In a few early instances I was a total dud, and I’d much rather blame reverse culture stress than my personality! ;) It feels much easier now after almost eight months, but of course we’re leaving again in a couple weeks. I guess that’s just how it goes. Hopefully when it’s time for 老二 to come along we’ll get to do it all again!

Related posts:

• Homecoming Saboteur: the cultural shock of returning home
• How to: Confuse the traffic in your hometown
• Temporary return to Vancouver – Day 5

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

He won’t jump up in your face and assault you outright; that’s not this saboteur’s modus operandi. Instead, he’s spent the entire time you’ve lived in China scheming against you, lurking just outside your range of perception, slowly sabotaging your much-anticipated homecoming from within the subconscious regions of your mind. His name is usually some variation of “reverse culture stress” or “re-entry shock,” and he can be a nasty piece of work, especially if you fly home with unrealistic expectations, unaware and unprepared. Fortunately, although you can’t avoid him, you can be ready for him when he comes, and that can make your re-adjustment back into your home culture a much less stressful and negative experience.

Welcome… home?

When you arrive back in whatever overdeveloped, obscenely rich nation you probably came from (no offense meant to the minority of expats from developing countries; offense to expats from the overdeveloped “first world” is entirely intentional, but when you’re in the middle of a bout of reverse culture stress you’ll happily agree with me anyway), re-adjustment might not seem like too big a deal at first. Your nominally curious friends will ask you, “So, how’s China?” And you’ll answer, “Uhhh… good?” Maybe you’ll all go out for “real Chinese food,” and they’ll give you painfully awkward looks when you eat bite-by-bite straight out of the serving dishes and hold your bowl off the table close to your mouth. Or maybe your sister will freak out when she discovers that somebody put used toilet paper in the garbage can. Or maybe you’ll do like me (I wouldn’t know anything about the aforementioned toilet paper incident) and refuse to accept the fact that your home city was built for cars, not bikes, and become a road hazard by insisting on walking and biking everywhere even though you’ve forgotten how the traffic works, violating numerous by-laws in the process and making the local motorists nervous.

There are myriad ways you can be surprised by the fact that you are no longer effortlessly at home in your own culture. Many such experiences are superficial and even funny, but the accumulation of such anecdotes can result in strong, confusing and stressful underlying emotions that leave you feeling almost as disoriented in your own culture as you were when you first arrived in China. In a way it’s even worse in your own culture: unlike in China, at home you have no excuse for not fitting in, nor do you expect to ever need one. But after a few months, the romanticizing of your home culture in which you indulged while away takes a U-turn. You become more critical and angry than ever with your home society; its flaws appear all the more damning and its benefits superficial or discounted. Reverse culture stress bleeds out through your negative attitude and actions. This is not only out of character, but seemingly without cause. Your family wants to know what your problem is, but you don’t know. Re-entry stress is a sneaky little son-of-a-turtle.

Friends’ Experiences

Bio returned to his native Brazil after years of graduate school in Texas, and he describes his cultural re-adjustment experience this way:

Take it easy on reverse cultural shock. It was awful to me. I started questioning everything as if it was totally different from before I left. It’s such a strange feeling! Till today I still react. There is a bit of American/European value in me after the experience living abroad. I guess I learned to appreciate it.

Beth, an American physiotherapist in Tianjin, likens it to the ultimate foreigner experience:

Reentry is like you’ve been abducted by aliens and had tests performed on you then you are returned back to your planet. When you go back to your home country you look about the same but you can feel completely different and feel like you don’t know how to do some normal things you used to do every day because of the alien experience you have had living overseas.

Sonja, a native of Germany who lives in Tianjin, describes it this way:

It’s part of the parcel, I think, and often hits when least expected and can be as nagging as toothache. Toothache you can figure out quite easily, but it sometimes takes some time until the realization “Oh, I’m culture-stressed!” hits home.

Who are you and what did you do with my home?

How did this happen? It’s simple, really: You left Blueland and went to Yellowland, and after a few years you’ve taken on an odd greenish tinge. You haven’t really noticed or understood this gradual change, even if you think you do. In ways deeper than you realize, Yellowland has altered your preferences, comfort zones, expectations, even the autopilot that guides you through crowds and traffic. On top of all this, while you were away Blueland faded to a slightly different shade of blue. Neither you nor “Home” are the same as when you left. This means that arriving home expecting to effortlessly slide back into the way things were is a small tragedy waiting to happen. Bethany, an American grad student in Beijing, experienced this first-hand:

When I’m in a foreign country, I don’t expect to understand anybody, and nobody expects to understand me – and since this total lack of understanding finds expression in every aspect of my daily life, my expectations are all fulfilled; and though uncomfortable, I at least find comfort in knowing what to expect. When I come back home, I expect to understand everyone and for everyone to understand me – but because living in a foreign country has indelibly left its mark on me, i just end up confusing and being confused by everyone else, and I feel even more out of place and disjointed at “home” than I did in the foreign country.

Tianjin English teacher Shannon Ingleby succinctly and unforgettably describes the experience this way:

Re-entry stress is like the direction of water when you flush a toilet in China… backwards and stinky.

It’s a rude awakening – rude because it sneaks up on you, biding its time to one day ambush your hitherto subconscious assumptions with the realization that things aren’t the way you remember them in your home country, and your home country could say the same about you.

How to Deal

To anticipate and respond to your inevitable experience of reverse culture stress, it helps to go in with both eyes open and informed, expecting, recognizing and understanding these inevitable feelings for what they are when they hit you.

Reverse culture stress doesn’t engulf everyone with the same force. Your particular experience will likely be shaped by several related factors. Here are three of the big ones:

• the amount of time you spent abroad,
• your degree of cultural adaptation while abroad,
• your personality and personal flexibility.

The longer you’re away, the more opportunity both you and your home each have to change. How much you change, of course, depends on how you spent that time abroad, how meaningfully you engaged and adapted to your host culture. If you lived, worked, and played in one of Tianjin’s lǎowài ghettos (aka 洋人街), living the life of a long-term tourist, chances are you got a smaller dose of Chinese culture; you’re still mostly blue with maybe the slightest whiff of green around the edges. But if you lived in an average Chinese neighbourhood for several years and spent most of your free time with local friends doing local things in Mandarin, you might be bright green in a few spots. The people who changed less while abroad have less adjusting to do when they return. Hard core, KTV-loving, Mandarin-speaking, culture-snob lǎowàis (p.s. – more power to ya) will probably be in for a harder time when they try to re-adjust back home. The upshot is that if you were flexible enough to adjust to China, then you are flexible enough to re-adjust back home whether you feel like it or not.

There are several things you can do to ease the stress of re-adjustment:

• Find others to talk to who’ve also returned home after extended time abroad.
• Recognize your feelings for what they are: the totally normal result of re-entering your home society after extended time away. It doesn’t mean something’s wrong with you, or that you’re a failure, or that you’re inflexible or can’t handle change.
• Expect to experience the culture stress cycle again: honeymoon (initial euphoria of returning home), disillusionment (negative reaction to home not feeling like home), adjustment (correcting unrealistic expectations and accepting the new situation).
• Realize that your perception of your home culture, while possibly enhanced and enriched due to your time away, is also heavily coloured by your culture stress feelings. When you’re in the second stage of the culture stress cycle, resist the urge to romanticize your host culture while demonizing your home culture. This urge arises from your reverse culture stress, not reality. If you feel like moving off to a monastery or a hippie farm, give it a few months first.
• Re-engage the relationships you left behind when you went to China. You can’t simply pick up where you left off because everyone has changed over the years, but you can catch up and move forward.

Related Posts:

• Homecoming Saboteur: the cultural shock of returning home (PART 2)
• How to: Confuse the traffic in your hometown
• Temporary return to Vancouver – Day 5
• China-friendly New Year’s Resolutions for Laowais

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

oh. Canada.
I’m delighted by all the trees, clean air, dishwashers, real washing machines and dryers, water pressure, counter space, and the customer service. Do you Vancouverites have any idea how unbelievably easy it is to get things done over here? I went to do some banking — they practically fell over themselves trying to serve me; I was almost embarrassed for them. They worship customers here!

Jessica and I were walking home from the store and stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the signal to change. There weren’t any cars. “Do people really just wait for the signal even when there’s no cars?” I honestly couldn’t remember. Jessica was certain that they did. I’m still not sure. It felt so weird to just stand there, all that open road space in front of us… surely that’s not necessary!

It was a little disappointing to find out that the Asian supermarket up the road uses traditional characters, and I still have to consciously remind myself not put the t.p. in the garbage can. But it’s too early for us to be really annoyed with anything yet.

In honour of Chinese New Year and our temporary return to the Great White North, I’d like to present Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his rather Canadian Chinese New Year greeting to Chinese Canadians, which for some reason made it on CCTV (begins at 1:22):

(Australia’s PM did his video in Mandarin.) There’s apparently a some sort of Chinese New Year’s celebration this coming Saturday in Richmond, Vancouver’s newer Chinese center, and I plan to be there (CNY is on a Monday in Canada, so some festivities are postponed to the weekend, or so I’m told).

Greater Vancouver’s an odd place, though aside from reverse culture stress stuff I don’t plan to blog about it. It’s not particularly Christian or American, but I biked by this sign on the way to the bank. Also, it turns out that just before we arrived, some homeless guys (homeless people have conspicuously strong political advocacy in Vancouver — contrast that with Tianjin!) set fire to the wooden supports for one of the major bridges going into Vancouver, meaning 80,000+ vehicles per day can’t use the bridge for at least a month, turning our whole area into a “traffic nightmare.” Funny thing is, this ‘traffic nightmare’ looks rather quiet, calm, and orderly to me. Only two lines (lines!) of cars where Tianjin would have four abreast plus bikes, and they’re all carrying only one person each! Canadians…

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

I didn’t know that there’s a six month limit on foreign visitors to Canada, and Jessica’s an American. Plus it’s complicated: I was born and raised in Canada (dual citizenship). We don’t have a place in China at the moment (we had to move out of the apartment). We haven’t been to Canada in almost three years, and previous to that that we were in the States for university for even longer.

I shouldn’t have put my parents’ address where I grew up as our current residence, or told them that we planned to be in Canada for more than six months. They made us get in a really slow line full of people who don’t know English well enough to fill out their landing cards properly and who apparently also don’t know that you can’t take photos of Immigration Canada operations while waiting in said line (they had to get a translator just to delete the photo off the poor guy’s phone, since the phone all in Chinese).

Canadians living in China take note: put a Chinese address as your current residence, and if you’ve got a foreign wife and want to stay longer than six months, plan a trip to the States within the first six months and when entering Canada tell them that you plan to stay until that trip to the States. Then re-enter a second time from the States. (If you tell them you plan to stay in Canada for more than 6 months but plan a trip to the States during that time, it won’t work.)

PS - Vancouver smells like trees. Aaah…

PPS - And to drunk Canadians on overnight flights who keep everyone on the airplane awake with loud, boring, boorish, and bawdy stories when they want to sleep: I hope the altitude change gives you massive hangover. You earned it. I should’ve put the video I took of you on YouTube with the date and flight number.

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

It’s Thursday morning. I’ve just dried off from the shower and started eating breakfast sans clothing. I’m in a hurry because I want to have an hour before class at the school to read through the material. My morning routine is maximized (unlike my writing) for time efficiency so I can wait as late as possible before leaving and almost be late (yeah, I know). Jessica left for class half an hour ago. Our front door doesn’t latch shut unless you lock it, so it’s closed but can be pushed open.

Suddenly there’s a knock at the door. I know it’s a Chinese person by the way they knock — repeated and insistent, as if they expect that you’ll try to ignore them. You couldn’t knock this way in Canada; it’d be really rude: *Bang-bang-bang!* [wait 1-2 seconds] *bang-bang-bang!* [continue repeating long after any North American would have given up.] My first thought is that it’s probably the neighbourhood committee collecting fees. Everyone tries to avoid paying — our neighbours have even told us to try and avoid paying. We pay ($1.50/month), but at this moment I’m eating breakfast, undressed, and in a hurry. I’ve already slept as long as I could; I don’t want to interrupt everything, rush to get dressed, and then open the door for what might turn into a conversation the will eat into my study time. It’s too early to get thrown off my groove.

So I ignore them. They keep knocking. I keep ignoring. We hear this routine often when our next-door neighbours are avoiding the neighbourhood committee people, so I know about how long they’ll keep knocking (longer than you’d think). Except this time they don’t quit. They make a phone call and keep knocking; I can hear there’s more than one. I can’t believe they’re still knocking! What do they want?! They crack the door open but can’t see me, and close it again. I can’t exactly confront intruders in the nude — well, I could but given the option… — so I throw some shorts on in time for them to crack the door open again. I open the door all the way and who do I see?

Three of Tianjin’s finest. Oops…

I invite them in — the place is a disaster zone — and stutter something about just getting out of the shower and not having any clothes on yet. They’re actually very polite and seem to be in good moods (I find out later the phone number they had on file for us was the school’s, and they’d phoned the secretary and angrily demanded that she open the door, not realizing it wasn’t our home phone and that she didn’t have a clue what they were talking about). They inform me that they need to see Jessica’s passport either today or tomorrow. There’s a problem with it that I don’t have the vocabulary for. The youngest cop finally says in English, “Time out.” They’re saying her passport, which she has with her at school, has expired (it hasn’t). After I repeat the stuff about being sorry for taking so long to get out of the shower and promise that we’ll go down to the police station that afternoon, they leave.

Down at the Station
I feel for those desk-bound officers; what nightmare of a work environment. Actually it reminded me of our English-teaching Taiwan-bǔxíbān days. The reception room is a giant rectangle with absolutely no sound-absorbing material — like an empty swimming pool with a roof (carpets are often considered unsanitary in China; mop-able floors are preferred). At one end of the room some neighbours are having a loud, animated argument before a police officer (police here seem to do a lot of on-the-spot mediating). At our end, four energetic Australian children have turned the place into a playground (their family has been required to fill out paperwork in person, rather than having their landlord do it for them like all the previous times). The Chinese grandma in line behind us laughs, “So chaotic!” and holds her ears.

It took about two hours. First they told us they didn’t have our information in the computers. We told them again about the officers coming to our apartment and phoning our school. They asked if we had a certain form, they hold up a sample which looks vaguely like something we maybe were given 18 months ago when we arrived. After 20 minutes of paper shuffling — during which we chatted with one of the officers I’d met that morning (he practiced some of his English) — the one at the computer finally holds Jessica’s passport right up to the screen for comparison. He asks again if we have the form, we say it’s at home, and he says, “Done!” We leave the officer simultaneously answering both phone calls and radio calls with three other family’s paperwork on the counter in mid-completion.

So it was our first time interacting with Tianjin’s police force, and I was pleasantly surprised. Nice guys!

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.

Chinese New Year may be even bigger than Christmas. It’s also the only time of the year when the millions of migrant workers – whose backbreaking labour for often less-than-promised wages is building China’s booming cities – get to return to their villages and see their families. Millions choose this life over trying to eke out an existence in their hometowns.

This video is a folk song for the migrant workers set to images from this year’s New Year’s migration and the chaos that came with it. At the worst possible time of year – the onset of the world’s biggest annual migration – severe snowstorms crippled China’s vulnerable train and power systems. Three electrical workers died while trying to restore power. The situation at the train stations was so bad that the Chinese PM apologized to stranded crowds at a train station in person. English translation of the lyrics is below.

“Returning Home 2008″

Windy Snow
I am on my way home
Mom is sleeping by the road
She was expecting I would be home
My old village looks run down in the winter
We migrant workers are away from home and working all over the country
We are the migratory birds of this time
Fly over the freezing walls, fly and fly…
The dreams are with us on the way home
Fly over neon lights, fly and fly…
I am missing you when I am going home

Father is really getting old
His hair is turning gray
He is waiting for me at the door…
Fly over the freezing walls, fly and fly…
[translation found here]

There’s video all over YouTube about the storm and resultant hardship. Here’s one that gives a taste of the situation at the train stations, as everyone, not just migrant workers, tries to go home for the holidays.

©2010 China Hope Live. All Rights Reserved.