Life is Elsewhere
By Bin Xu
Sorry for stealing the title from Milan Kundera’s famous novel. This fancy title is meant to impress readers and to show off a little bit. Besides, I think the title is the best expression to describe my experience of culture shock in this country.
When I first came to the States two years ago, everything was fascinatingly new for me. The sky is blue, which is rarely seen in most big cities in China. Squirrels can be seen everywhere and they are not afraid of people. There are a lot of cars and very few bicycles. There are no separate, closed bike lanes in most cities, and in some cities there are no bike lanes at all. I admire American bicyclists so much because they usually ride very fast and share the road with even faster cars. Sandwiches are awful, but ice cream is delicious. People generally are nice. They are pretty patient with my bad English and keep praising my “good” English. They are also smart because they manage to understand the words I use which sometimes even I do not understand.
However, after the “honeymoon” with this country, I had a lot of trouble adjusting to this brand new environment. The biggest trouble was the language barrier. I could not understand what people were talking about. Nor could they understand what I was talking about. When that kind of communication failure happened, I used “pardon me” as my most effective tool. I had problems talking to customer service at the telephone company, my graduate student peers, my advisor and the secretary in my department. Once when I was shopping in a grocery store, I felt uncomfortable and really wanted to go to the restroom. I asked a service person: “Excuse me, where can I find the W.C.?” He was confused. I thought that the confusion was the result of my pronunciation and repeated my words very clearly and slowly. He was still confused, but this time he asked me a question which gave me a hint of my problem: “What’s a W.C.?” Then I tried a bunch of words related to restroom, such as toilet, handwashing, bathroom. Thank God! He caught the last word and gave me directions to the “bathroom” which I needed so much at that time. A lot of small incidents like that happened, but not all of them were so humorous. I gradually felt isolated and began to miss my family, my city, and my home country. I was afraid of talking to people in English, so many times I just smiled and listened, but actually I did not understand them. People also lost interest in making conversations with me because I did not respond to them. In graduate seminars, I usually kept silent and had a really hard time understanding what instructors and my fellow students were talking about. After seminars I ran away from the classroom and went to the library or my place where I felt a little more comfortable. I did not have to talk to people in English there. There were also a lot of practical problems. In a small town like Davis, California, you cannot go anywhere without a car, even for grocery shopping. The coursework also made me nervous and stressed me out. My only pleasure in the first several months was talking to my family on the phone. Every morning when I woke up, every afternoon when I walked through the crowd of students who looked different from me, speaking a totally different language, every time when I sat quietly in a seminar, I felt that I lived in a strange country and I just did not belong here. I recalled the title of the novel I had read: “Life is Elsewhere.”
If my experience intimidates my readers, I apologize for that, but this is truly how I experienced culture shock. Fortunately, I did not suffer from depression for long. After the first quarter, I got “A”s in all my classes, which cheered me up. One day, when I reread one of my papers written in English before I came to the States, I realized what a big improvement I had made in only a few months. Then I gradually began to feel comfortable and have a lot of fun. I realized that although nowhere can be compared to my home country, life can be elsewhere. Now I have moved from California to Chicago, which is also a brand new environment for me. But I think if you try to understand and even enjoy every new society and culture to which you have to adjust yourself, rather than isolate yourself from the surrounding environment, life can be anywhere.
Sorry for stealing the title from Milan Kundera’s famous novel. This fancy title is meant to impress readers and to show off a little bit. Besides, I think the title is the best expression to describe my experience of culture shock in this country.
When I first came to the States two years ago, everything was fascinatingly new for me. The sky is blue, which is rarely seen in most big cities in China. Squirrels can be seen everywhere and they are not afraid of people. There are a lot of cars and very few bicycles. There are no separate, closed bike lanes in most cities, and in some cities there are no bike lanes at all. I admire American bicyclists so much because they usually ride very fast and share the road with even faster cars. Sandwiches are awful, but ice cream is delicious. People generally are nice. They are pretty patient with my bad English and keep praising my “good” English. They are also smart because they manage to understand the words I use which sometimes even I do not understand.
However, after the “honeymoon” with this country, I had a lot of trouble adjusting to this brand new environment. The biggest trouble was the language barrier. I could not understand what people were talking about. Nor could they understand what I was talking about. When that kind of communication failure happened, I used “pardon me” as my most effective tool. I had problems talking to customer service at the telephone company, my graduate student peers, my advisor and the secretary in my department. Once when I was shopping in a grocery store, I felt uncomfortable and really wanted to go to the restroom. I asked a service person: “Excuse me, where can I find the W.C.?” He was confused. I thought that the confusion was the result of my pronunciation and repeated my words very clearly and slowly. He was still confused, but this time he asked me a question which gave me a hint of my problem: “What’s a W.C.?” Then I tried a bunch of words related to restroom, such as toilet, handwashing, bathroom. Thank God! He caught the last word and gave me directions to the “bathroom” which I needed so much at that time. A lot of small incidents like that happened, but not all of them were so humorous. I gradually felt isolated and began to miss my family, my city, and my home country. I was afraid of talking to people in English, so many times I just smiled and listened, but actually I did not understand them. People also lost interest in making conversations with me because I did not respond to them. In graduate seminars, I usually kept silent and had a really hard time understanding what instructors and my fellow students were talking about. After seminars I ran away from the classroom and went to the library or my place where I felt a little more comfortable. I did not have to talk to people in English there. There were also a lot of practical problems. In a small town like Davis, California, you cannot go anywhere without a car, even for grocery shopping. The coursework also made me nervous and stressed me out. My only pleasure in the first several months was talking to my family on the phone. Every morning when I woke up, every afternoon when I walked through the crowd of students who looked different from me, speaking a totally different language, every time when I sat quietly in a seminar, I felt that I lived in a strange country and I just did not belong here. I recalled the title of the novel I had read: “Life is Elsewhere.”
If my experience intimidates my readers, I apologize for that, but this is truly how I experienced culture shock. Fortunately, I did not suffer from depression for long. After the first quarter, I got “A”s in all my classes, which cheered me up. One day, when I reread one of my papers written in English before I came to the States, I realized what a big improvement I had made in only a few months. Then I gradually began to feel comfortable and have a lot of fun. I realized that although nowhere can be compared to my home country, life can be elsewhere. Now I have moved from California to Chicago, which is also a brand new environment for me. But I think if you try to understand and even enjoy every new society and culture to which you have to adjust yourself, rather than isolate yourself from the surrounding environment, life can be anywhere.
posted by ISI E-ZONE @ 9:50 AM
1 Comments:
Ben, it sounds like you have mastered the art of surviving culture shock. By the way, one of the reasons we ask student to write a "Statement of Experience" is to help them realize, as you did, that they are making progress all the time, even if it doesn't feel that way. I'm glad we have a veteran of the culture shock wars in ISI this year to help encourage new students.
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