This paper is based on the effects of culture shock in an individual and his relationship with the others who are around his new environment, that will be in the long run affect the human relation that exists naturally between the people from distinctively different geographical regions and they poses different cultural backgrounds, beliefs and practices.
Cultural Shock is said to be a form of an anxious feeling that is felt by someone that belongs from a different culture from the one he is going to encounter when he moves in a foreign country that he has never been to before it is said to be a result of the challenges one experiences when trying to adopt to the new cultures, this eventually results to dislike of the new culture as its different to the persons original culture (Ring, 2010).
As I had said in the introduction I am going to take a look at Culture Shock and show how it affects the communication between individuals and how to cope and come up with it but in this section. I am going to define the four stages of culture shock as they follow each other as they are stages that one has to pass through in the process of coming into contact with a new culture that is deferent the one he’s used to.
the first stage of a culture shock is dubbed the “Honey moon stage” in this stage an individual is seen to be at a cross roads as the individual will be able to merge the new and old cultures, this is especially when the individual is traveling from one to another that he has always been wishing to set foot on as he will be able to experience and also meet different people of a deferent cultures the stage comes to an end when the individual starts facing difficulties in learning the language and the cultures of the people in the given country.
the second stage according to the wikipedia is the “Negotiation Phase” this is some time after one is in contact with the people and culture of the new people around him this is were the old and new cultures collide causing some anxiety that will lead to new unpleasant frustrations and dislike of the other peoples culture and ways of life and this will lead to the new person that has gotten into the new culture to experience lots of mood changes as a result of the people culture and behaviors leading to the person to dislike the new culture as it’s a disappointing to the person.
The third stage is the “Adjustment stage” this usually takes a long time before one reaches this stage as the person will have to stay with the people and try and learn the people culture and in the long run adapt to them and know how to conduct one self in the host country and what sis expected of him in a given situation therefore at this stage the person tries to accommodate and accept the cultures of the others.
The forth stage is the “Returning Home stage” this is were the individual will have to go back to his native country after spending time in a new country getting exposed to new cultures that are contrary to what the individuals culture, once in he is back home after staying away for a long time he will eventually try to practice the new acquired cultural behaviors that will make him to feel strange in what he is doing, and by that he will have to start again to acquire the necessary cultural behaviors that he had before leaving for the new country , therefore the whole process is a viscous circle that goes round and round.
I practically experience some cultural shock not long ago approximately four years ago when my family decided to take a holyday to Asia Pakistan in particular I have just been watching TV and hearing news of Pakistan and I was very exited as expressed in the book Essentials of Human Communication by Joseph A. DeVito, when he noted down the stages that one passes through in cultural shock.
I literary passed through the Honey Moon stage as the book Essentials of Human Communication stated, I was very exited of setting my feet in Pakistan were I wanted that the day we were going to Pakistan to reach very fast as I had developed a high appetite of testing there food and learning more about them one on one and not through the constant advertisements from the media I just wanted to be part of the Pakistani people and just get to know them more.
The day reached very fast as never expected, our family set of to Pakistan in a city known as Lahore, our tour guide told us that the city is said to have been founded four thousand years ago he added that the residents of Lahore have a diverse culture but they are conservative to the Muslim culture as it helps them to maintain a peaceful society in there country.
In the Honey moon stage I was really in wiling to learn more about there culture, food and learn more about there language and this really gave me the urge of wanting to be in that country but my happiness wasn’t long-lived as I thought because I had to encounter new challenges that were made bleak by my excitement going into Pakistan.
After a week in Pakistan I was the one who was requesting my parents that we should go back home as I was facing lots of cultural shock that wasn’t clearly being seen prior our coming into the country as stated by author Joseph Devito in his book Essentials of Human Communication as the stage I was passing through is that time was the Negotiation Stage this is were is was feeling that there culture was slightly deferent from mine and I was feeling that there primitive in there cultural behavior, such as the food they took (DeVito, (2001). I learnt that they never took Pork, they added lots of spices in there food, there dressing code and there language wasn’t that appealing at all to me and that’s the great reason that I wanted to go home as soon as possible.
My parents calmed me down with the help of our tour guide I was convinced into staying and here the guide showed me great things about the Pakistani people that made me appreciate them as he taught me on how to say some Pakistani words and how to eat there food and also told me the reason behind there mode of dressing, a fact that I digested well to a point of me spending most of my time just to understand them more.
And after the visit was over I had to go back home and I had the cultural change in me had developed deep in me as it took me a lot of time to have the adapt to the cultural practices of my home country.
In the paper the main point that I have to support is that cultural shock affects a person’s behavior once they move from one place to another or country to country as this will automatically affect an individual’s behavior as the process is inevitable.
In the paper I’ve based my argument from my own personal experience and my friends experience that cultural shock though is a process that one has to go through once the person has moved from one country to the other as he will have to try and adapt to the new cultures of his new neighbors.
The sturdy that I have given down are from the personal experience that I went through while in Pakistan and the feelings that I had while going through the four stages of the culture shock and my friends experiences in similar situations with additional reading materials from magazines and travel journals.
The sturdy clearly states that the cultural shock will affect each and every person that will have decided to travel from one place to another should be able to adapt to the culture of other people living in the different corners of the world as the people have diverse cultures and will require there culture to be respected in order to maintain a good relation between the people from the diverse cultural back ground this in return helps in the maintaining of some respect and understanding of each others cultures.
In conclusion I have realized that cultural shock is a true experience that actually takes the form of the vicious circle as it revolves around, as one thinks he’s done with it and in the long run when faced with a new culture he will have to start over again in adopting the new cultural practices of the specific person the research is important as it has improved interpersonal communication as I had explained in the paper.