How I Overcome Culture Shock

Human life is unpredictable, and at every step you face something new and learn to overcome it. Especially, moving to a different country from where you were born and grew up and doing everything anew is one of the most difficult challenges. Even for me, I am living in a new place facing all this. There are things in America, such as the processed food, fast food and obesity that I don’t like, but there are more things I like. Some things shocked me and I didn’t like it, but most of it was positive. I have positively reflected the following things that shocked me.

First, the education style surprised me in some ways. As for me, here in America, I didn’t receive a general education, but I have my own experience of elementary education. As a parent, I have been volunteering in my daughter’s classroom for the past two years here in America. The process of entering the class sometimes made me feel like I was in preschool, which surprised me, but I liked the way the teacher talks to the child and explains the reason in a very comprehensible and comfortable way. Also, parents learned how to support their children’s education by giving them the opportunity to volunteer. On the other hand, in my country, children are pushed a lot, and the next topic comes before they have understood the previous topic. Everyday after school, children continue to do their homework and then it’s time to go to bed, which causes stress to both children and parents. Here, the teacher uses a different method to support the child to develop into a good person rather than forcing the child to do homework. A different way of teaching like this made me wonder.

The second difference that impressed me was the driving style. Here you will see a lot of females putting on makeup while driving on the highway, but it will be much less stressful than in my country. In America, drivers are mostly polite and tolerant. There is no stop sign in my hometown, and I was shocked when I came here and realized the reason for this sign. In my country, we have a lot of traffic jams, so people are often stressed and sometimes don’t follow the rules of the road, but here I am well aware of the rules of the road.

Finally, the healthcare system shocked me. For me, coming here for the first time and getting a doctor’s appointment to see the hospital was like a difficult challenge. It’s normal to wait for many hours and minutes on the phone and finally get an appointment after one or two months. Even with insurance, in some cases medical bills are unimaginably expensive. For example, for the cost of one colonoscopy here, I can get a full body examination in my home country. On the other hand, the medical equipment in America is the latest, but it is perhaps outdated in my country. However, the cost of medical services is still shocking me. One way is to diagnose and treat the disease early before it gets worse, and save money. As a result, it was concluded that early detection diagnosis is more developed here. The healthcare system takes care of people with self-discipline and regular physical activity. Although this is a very serious industry, I am amazed that people are diagnosed and treated before they become seriously ill.

In conclusion, in my case, you need to quickly adapt to the conditions of the place where you live. While you may not like everything such as driving, learning and maintaining your health are important things in your life and you’ll be dealing with them all the time. Therefore, you need to quickly study all this and learn to live with it. Although you’ll be shocked at first, you’ll eventually get used to it and enjoy it. One day it will become a habit.