I have read that the term “culture shock,” is used more for its well-known connotations rather than its literal dictionary definition. In other words, we throw the expression around a lot, but its precise meaning is limited to a specific situation. It’s not just confusion or awe due to the sheer difference of a new place or society. Rather, it is where the cultural situations and definitions that we expect don’t seem to mesh with the reality we find.
Isn’t it ironic that we are actually more culture shocked going to London or Montreal than to Casablanca or Tokyo? It makes sense, however, that when we go somewhere that is altogether foreign in our mental projections and cultural expectations, we can hardly be surprised when we arrive, braced for the strange, and then find it, often in lesser doses than that for which we had prepared. On the other hand, I expected Britain to feel like something of a three-quarter scale America with better beer and museums and fewer vegetarian options. Nevertheless, I felt culture shock as never before-in expecting a seamless correlation with the United States, I was unprepared for the country’s many subtler differences from diet to diction, and its fixation with tea and trance music. This is a superficial reading, but it conveys the point: culture shock is a malady of proximity and its ability to induce stages of relativity and vertigo, and not the oddity of a constructed cultural other.
My culture shock has lingered for months now. Even after setting foot back on home soil, I felt the disquieting feeling creep into my psyche even without the stimulus of international travel. Culture shock can affect us in the microcosmic as well as the transcontinental sense. In this particular case, I am speaking of senior year, one foot in the world of droning twenty-somethingdom in the (un)comfortably alien terrain of the “real world,” cloistered in my attractively decorated, inviting townhouse.
The world of my first two years here is like a mini-trip to Zambia, summer camp, or Vegas. What happens there stays there, and the conventions of American law and social conduct cease to hold jurisdiction. It is understood that behavior in this “state of nature” cannot carry over into the real world, hence the adage, “if you drink like this after college, you are an alcoholic,” (or “if you piss in that mailbox after college, you are a sociopath”). The whole experience of living in dorms forces us into behavior, drives us to seeking release and individualization after being empowered with a newfound freedom. The landscape is unique and new, but safely delimited, like a strip club. Once you leave the room and, say, head home for Christmas, you wake up feeling like you were in a surreal dreamland for what felt like a semester. Kafkaesque and exhilarating, yes; culture shock inducing, no.
Culture shock is growing past the velocity and chaos of the first few years and finding a stable niche without realizing that you have done so. Going abroad is not so strange; coming home to expectations not met is. Many seniors will embrace this year as a perpetual throwback to the rebelliousness of those earlier years, railing against the onslaught of responsibility. Others view it as a last hurdle to overcome before they are free of the yoke of homework and roommates and on their way out of the cocoon as a nascent adult. I am somewhere in between. One of my few goals is to never look back on this time as my “golden years” before I was saddled down by the real world, looking forward to retirement. All I want is to keep growing and living experiences and stages that are ever richer, deeper and invariably different than those of years past. Thus college is a series of small stages of development, exploration and mayhem that have been heterogeneous to say the least.
Here I am, knee-deep in senior year, with expectations of a year of fond farewells, triumphant barbeques, debaucherous parties and last hurrahs that have yet to happen. I am in a perpetual state of anticipating the stereotypes. They will not arrive. I also wonder why ten shots of Wagner’s vodka, or kegs of water-logged pilsner, along with staying out all night and dressing to impress, have lost their charm. Attempts to recapture the frenetic spirit of freshman year feel like vain nostalgia, and I find myself thinking I should do things because they are what a senior should be doing rather than what I want. Village A and Burleith parties can only feel natural for so long.
Some might say I am prematurely aging, usually with a negative connotation. It’s silly to create a binary opposition between reckless college zeitgeist and somber adulthood. In fact that’s the problem: I expected strict separation between college Ian and adult Ian. Thankfully that line does not exist, and living in the border region induces culture shock and intrigue. I have one foot in the door and one foot out. All I can hope for is innumerable other borderlines and frontiers that will coalesce and blur throughout my life. In the meantime, another adage comes to mind. Why does normal sometimes feel so weird?
Ian Bourland is a senior in the School of Foreign Service and associate editor of The Georgetown Voice. Any complaints should be addressed to Bill Cleveland.
