Establishing Into A Different Culture
Culture shock is a problem people face every day, especially when people travel to another country or when people move from one country to another with having two different cultures. Almost everyone experiences culture shock when they come to a completely new environment. Culture shock is basically having the idea that everything is different to the person: the language, the food, the plumbing, and the people. The experience of culture shock comes from the person not knowing what to do or how to do things in a new environment, and not knowing what is appropriate or inappropriate. “People can experience culture shock right here in the United States when, say, African Americans shop in an Iranian neighborhood in Los Angeles, college students visit the Amish countryside in Ohio” (Macoinis 10) Culture shock doesn’t necessarily mean going from The United States to Europe, it just means going somewhere that’s different to your culture and society. Like a city girl going to the country rural would be a good example of culture shock.
I actually have a class this semester with a young lady named Dahn and she explained to me that it was hard for her to accustom to our society; coming from a Muslim country in the Middle East. She mentioned that when she first moved over here she HATED it, she said that others would always stare at her because of her cultures way of dressing. She said it was a strange place to her at first, being a Muslim she was use to eating on the floor rather than eating at a table. Another thing she mentioned was that it was really uncomfortable for her to hear younger people say jokes about her being a terrorist she told me she knew that they were joking but she didn’t think something so serious was so funny for them to laugh about. She said there was an age while growing up where she suddenly couldn’t decide whether she wanted to wear a headscarf, she didn’t know if she wanted to act like a
Cited: Macionis, John. Society:The Basics, 11th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. 2011. Print.