An essay on 'culture stress'.

The idea of moving to Japan was for me, one of mild, nagging anxiety and stress related to the practicalities involved in such a big upheaval. The fact that I had very little idea about what to expect may in some ways have reduced the potential fear I could have experienced, but at the same time it probably instilled a feeling of numb terror. Like standing on the edge of a high building knowing that in a minute you will have to throw yourself off it. That is a really dramatic analogy to make, but it is the only thing I can think of to compare it to. One can't really imagine the experience of death and likewise I could not imagine what my life, my whole reality, would be like after a certain point in time. It was not like going on holiday. When you visit somewhere you know it is only going to be for a finite period of time, and if you don't like it you can find comfort in the knowledge that in a few days or weeks you will be back in your own bed.

However, for me, the prospect of flying to a country on the other side of the globe to start a new life felt like facing a void, an eternity. I felt 'internal blindness' for I could no longer visualize where I would be or what I would be doing or living after May 22nd. To me there is a comparison to be made with the experience of facing death. That is how I felt. Although I must add that I was not afraid. I wasn't really excited either, or happy or sad, I was mostly just sort of numb.

I had been warned that once I had arrived in Japan I was likely to experience 'culture shock' and 'culture stress'. Although what exactly this entailed I had no clear idea. One imagines that a country like Japan is going to be so alien and I was prepared for this. Although it was actually for this very reason that I wanted to go, I wanted to experience something very different. I wanted the thrill and the challenge of a culture I knew little about. So of course I imagined that I could be shocked by this but in actuality I was not concerned about it, for I felt I would be embracing those differences in culture as opposed to fighting them. (Which is what I have tried to do.)

However, 'culture stress' was something I could not really prepare myself for because I would not know how it would manifest itself. Everybody reacts differently to life in a foreign country and thus the causes and the symptoms are often unique to the individual. I felt optimistic though. I figured it would be a challenge but I was not afraid of negative emotions. I decided that whatever happened would be ok because at the very least it would give me something to write about. Thus even bad experiences and times of unhappiness have a purpose and can suddenly be perceived as positives. Writing therefore, creates an emotional escape route which always exists.

Symptoms of culture stress include: Depression, isolation, severe homesickness, uncontrollable fits of weeping, excessive eating or drinking, insomnia, hostility towards host nationals, hostility towards cultural practices, negative stereotyping of members of host culture, rage, despair and apathy. Also, "....Excessive socioemotional dependence upon fellow foreign nationals and expatriates like themselves, and the inability to form socioemotional relationships with members of the host culture. Escapist behavior such as excessive sleeping, a solitary immersion in reading books or other solitary activities, an all-consuming desire for news from home, daydreaming about foods from home and alcohol and drug abuse."

A little research on the internet revealed a rather interesting explanation of culture stress that I felt was worth posting.... (Feel free to skip it if you are not interested!)

"Contemporary research in the areas of neural, perceptual, cognitive and evolutionary psychology support the idea that we operate within and upon our physical and social environments by way of evolved and hardwired neural-circuits which guide our species-typical behavior at a macro level. In addition to these are the more plastic neural networks and resulting neuro-perceptual-cognitive maps that allow us flexibility and adaptive variability. Large numbers or bundles of these species-typical content-specific neural-circuits are what allow for the great problem solving abilities of the human mind and the species-variability of behavior in response to environmental differences. These patterns of responses we call culture. Species-variable cognitive maps are both physical networks of neurons in our brains as well as informational networks of content accumulated and defined by sociocultural experiences and stored as memory. These cognitive maps operate at both the individual and collective levels, and people who share a culture also share aspects of the collective cognitive map.

Both the physical neural networks and the informational content of these culturally influenced networks are somewhat flexible due to our neural plasticity and can and do change and adapt through experience and learning and through both conscious and unconscious effort. But our tendency is to rely on these networks or mental maps in a relatively consistent and stable manner, unless forced to change in order to adapt. These networks provide proven and somewhat predetermined maps for us to use in the processing of information from our sociocultural and physical environments. They are more than just memory and they allow our brains to negotiate our environments without having to reinvent responses all the time. Once these neural networks and cognitive maps are laid down and used for many years they become somewhat difficult to change and require considerable effort to do so. A mismatch between our neuro-perceptual-cognitive maps and our physical and sociocultural environments can therefore cause considerable uncertainty, confusion, insecurity and anxiety. The complex of thought, emotion and behavior caused by this mismatch is called culture shock."

My company warned that the first two months can be the most difficult for expats because this is the time that culture stress can be experienced most acutely. People either deal with it and get through it, or succumb to it and plunge into a very negative emotional state from which the only perceived way out is to return home. For recruiters for positions overseas, this must be a very significant factor in deciding who to employ and who not to. Not only must they look at the skills each candidate has, but at their personality too. They must try and make a judgment about whether or not they think they can work successfully in a different culture. At the training sessions I attended in London a fair bit of time was allotted to discussing the topic of culture shock. Apparently when one first arrives a 'high' is experienced because everything is new and exciting. However, after a week or two this wears off as one is forced to deal with the practicalities of daily-life. It is at this point that culture stress sets in. It can last for any amount of time, and will probably continue to, to a lesser degree in the future. The critical time though is in the first two months. Life can be an emotional roller coaster. One can slide into severe depression unless attempts are made to keep 'on top' so that in time one will eventually settle down.

Well my two months in the 'high-risk zone' have now passed, and looking back on my time so far, I have come to realise some interesting things. About two weeks ago I started to notice that I was feeling different. I was more relaxed and accepting of my new life. I think the process one goes through when adapting to a major life change is similar to the way humans and animals react to all traumatic experiences. I once read that someone who is faced with death (for example they are diagnosed with a fatal illness or are grieving the loss of someone), go through a series of similar emotional states. First there is numbness. Then denial and isolation followed by anger. Then comes depression and finally acceptance. I also read that when grieving for someone who has died, acceptance is composed of various stages which include; recognition of the loss and then the release of emotions of grief. Once through this phase people tend to need to develop new skills as a way of moving forward with their lives and start work on reinvesting their emotional energy into the present.

"This work involves the need to take on new roles and make new kinds of contacts in the world. Making a new set of friends, finding a support network, relating to others in a new way, taking on new roles in the family, and becoming more independent may all be part of this process. Underlying this work is the work of incorporating the experience of the loss into one's identity. The opportunity for personal growth and development is perhaps most clearly seen in this part of the grief work."

After reading this I felt that my comparison of the emotional journey I made when moving to Japan and death or more precisely, grief, was actually very appropriate. A few years ago I live in Italy for 5 months and when I returned home I experienced an inexplicit form of depression. Something I was not really conscious of, but that my Father pointed out was a form of grief. I loved my life there, and my return home had torn from me what made me happy, what had become 'me' - Italy had been my reality, and I was emotionally attached to it. Therefore, I believe that much of what is labeled as 'culture shock' or 'culture stress' is actually grief for what has been lost culturally.

The numbness I experienced before leaving, and in the first week after arrival, was certainly like the early stages of grieving for everything and everyone I was about to lose. So far, I think that has been one of the hardest stages of this journey - mainly because I wanted to feel something, I felt I was meant to be, but just couldn't. It was disconcerting, and yet just out of reach, beyond the numbness lay this ache of fear and stress and pain. Anyway, I don't want to make out that it was all doom and gloom, for it wasn't. I was excited and this is what I wanted to do, and I am happy. It is just that now I have achieved some clarity and can start enjoying the experience as opposed to just coping with it.

So did I feel denial and isolation I wonder? Yes in a way I think I did. I felt restless and found myself thinking a lot about what I would do after my 'Japan adventure'. I spent evenings looking at university courses in London, looking wistfully at maps of the world, dreaming about where I would move to next. I shut myself in my classroom in between lessons and wrote in my journal or read books. It wasn't severe but it was significant I believe. I made plenty of effort to be sociable but it required effort, I didn't actually feel like it. I did it because I knew that to do otherwise would not help my mental state.

interestingly, I remember one night in June I dreamt that I just returned home. I was in The Dragon bar and all my friends were there and they were so pleased to see me. But after a little while the conversation shifted away from me, and I was no longer the center of attention. It was as if I had never been away. I woke up in a start, unsure of whether I really was back home or still in Japan. When I heard the early morning train thundering by I felt relieved because I knew I was still in Tokyo. It was then that I realised I didn't want to go back home yet. That despite the difficulties there must be something about the experience that I was enjoying. One's subconscious can be very revealing at times. This realisation was a milestone for the end of the stage of 'denial and isolation' I believe.

So what about anger? The psychologists describe rage as a symptom of culture stress as well as grief. There were moments when I felt (and still do) extreme frustration at being unable to communicate. For example I wanted to phone my parents and had obtained a free phone card that simply required topping up with credit. But every time I went to a convenience store and asked them to do it (or rather gestured for them to do it) they looked blankly at me. One guy even look scared and hurried over to his colleague and talked earnestly in hushed voices. He then returned looking confused and blank and just stared at me until I gave up and walked out. This made me so mad because I knew they had the ability to do it, it was the right store, my friends had done it there, but for some reason they wouldn't do it! It took ten days to finally get it done - it turned out it was actually my fault because I hadn't registered it, but how was I to know?! I had blamed the of shop assistants and gotten angry, and they didn't have the ability to tell me why they couldn't help me - frustration and embarrassment all round really. Language is such a useful thing!

There has been only one occasion that truly took me by surprise. Situations such as the one I have described above suggest a good reason for getting angry about something, but there was one evening that I experienced almost completely unfounded rage, and I think this was certainly a dose of more acute culture stress.

I had attended a picnic in the park with a large group of co-workers and students as part of a renewal campaign. It was hot and humid and the sky was threatening to rain all day. We had a few beers and played frisbee and all in all it was a very pleasant afternoon. At about 5 o'clock it started to pour so we left the park. Someone decided that it would be a good idea to walk back to Tachikawa in the rain and then go to an izakaya to continue the party. By the time we arrived at the restaurant I was wet and wondering why on earth we had walked instead of getting the train. We sat down and beer and food was ordered, and for a while I was having fun again. Yet as usual the choice of vegetarian food was limited and the menu was all in Japanese so I had to let other people order for me. (The inability to read or understand the spoken language instills within one a feeling of stupidity, of inaptitude. In effect it is a form of deafness and blindness. It is highly frustrating.)

The tofu salad once again arrived with dead baby fish on it. The green soy beans had minced pork (no not nuts) mixed with them. The 'potato dish' I had just tried was swimming in a pool of raw egg that I had noticed only too late. People were laughing and tucking into their sashimi squid and god knows what else. One of my students was so drunk he had fallen asleep sitting up. Everyone was laughing. Their joy in everything left me feeling worse and worse. I started to resent having to pay the same as them for food I didn't like. I found myself asking why anyone would drink until they fell asleep at the table - "why can't they hold their drink?" I thought. (Cultural stereotyping.) The girl opposite had a big glass of clear liquid and was stabbing a rotten looking fruit - a putrified plum, in the bottom of it with her chopsticks, until the whole drink was clouded with swirling mush. I watched with disgust as she stabbed and sipped, stabbed and sipped.

A red vaporous rage was flowing through my veins. "Why can't they drink normal drinks? Why are they laughing at things that aren't funny? Why can't I have a normal conversation with anyone? Why do I have to continuously make small talk with people? No one knows me here. I feel so alone...." This overwhelming rage was so shocking to me and so debilitating I had to leave. I couldn't handle being there a moment longer. A short train ride back to Toyoda later, and the rage had transformed into despair. I barely had the will to walk and I couldn't understand why I was feeling so negative. It wasn't like me. Anyway I knew what would cure it. I went home and watched a 'Legally Blonde' a ridiculously upbeat Hollywood teen movie. A good dose of the American dream, it never fails! (Now what does that say about the link between culture and personal identity? Not that I am American of course but I guess I relate to their culture far more than I realised.)

As for depression, I think that that that is something I have experienced since the beginning - in small doses though throughout the weeks. After the night of rage I did have a week of feeling pretty low. Actually that was transformed rather suddenly one night when I found myself unable to sleep. I felt almost as low as I ever have, and made myself work through it in my head. I asked why exactly I was feeling like this. After several hours of staring at the ceiling and allowing myself to feel the pain of it I came to a realisation. I knew what I had to do to make myself feel better. I had been 100% honest in my thinking and I had achieved clarity. Although this didn't relieve the depression immediately, within a day or two I was feeling very upbeat and positive. It was like I had to experience that low to then be able to move forward into the acceptance stage.

"Culture shock can be prevented by striving to become more culturally relativistic and flexible in your thinking and behavior, by developing a real enthusiasm for learning about the host culture and by forming real intercultural relationships. Successful cross-cultural communications is a fairly straightforward proposition. With the correct attitude, a few good cultural informants, a few cross-cultural communications concepts and some time spent as a participant-observer, a person will quite naturally develop a repertoire of intercultural interaction skills. And, when a person begins to move further along the continuum of cross-cultural understanding and interaction, they will more quickly put down ego-identity roots in the new host culture and feel more at ease with themselves and their surroundings. They will become more happy and productive at work, at home or while moving about within the society at large. They will no longer be negatively affected by disconfirmed expectancies. They will understand more and be understood more by others. In short, they will have become bicultural individuals."

As part of my plan to take control of my new life and start making the most of it, and build up my rather flagging self-esteem, I got a hair cut and joined the gym, did some sight seeing. Next week I am starting Japanese lessons. The problem is of course, that even though one may discover a new found energy for life, obstacles still rise up to challenge you. Just because you choose to embrace life, it doesn't mean that life will suddenly become easier. For example, when I went to join the gym I had to fill in forms and read through pamphlets and try to communicate with non-English speakers. It took ages. When I finally got my ticket to the swimming pool and found my way to the changing rooms, I discovered that in Japan there aren't any!?! There is a big locker room and everyone just gets changed together, the showers are communal too. For the Japanese this is completely normal. At the hot springs people bathe naked too, they just do not have a problem with public nudity. For me on the other hand this is not something I feel comfortable with. The experience was quite traumatic really! When I stepped out into the pool room I was then greeted by a lifeguard who welcomed me and introduced herself. (She knew a colleague of mine who told her that I was going to come.) I just wanted to get some peace and have a swim.

As a Westerner I felt like I was unable to get the privacy I craved because I stood out like a sore thumb. In many ways I am a very private person, I like my personal space and time alone, and do not always feel sociable. My job as a teacher kind of contradicts a lot of what my personality makes me inclined to feel. As a Westerner in Japan I tend to feel either like a ghost-like outsider, or the centre of attention, and neither are particularly nice. I am endeavoring to get over my issues of being naked in public now but it is extremely difficult. The exercise is partly a philosophical one and partly a pragmatic one - I mean I want to use the swimming pool!

"A person can experience considerable stress and anxiety when they are living in a different culture with different values from their own. A person may find that some of their own cherished and deeply held values and assumptions about life may not be equally important to members of their new host culture. The areas of religion, moral behavior, justice and fair play, racial equality, work ethic and privacy are areas where there may a great deal of cultural relativism, and people living and working overseas need to learn to deal with these differences in a relaxed and nonjudgmental way."

What is interesting though with the gym scenario is that it illustrates rather explicitly the dramatic cultural differences one can come up against. They are often surprising and unforeseen, and highlight how much we are a product of the society we were bought up in.

"The disconfirmed expectancies that we experience when living in a different culture contribute to uncertainty, insecurity, anxiety and stress. In addition, individuals also experience anxiety and stress due to ego-identity diminishment. Our identities are rooted in our home culture and its particular physical and sociocultural environment. When we leave that particular complex of sociocultural and physical environmental factors we also leave the roots that support and nourish our personalities."