# Midwest



## alexbonn (Oct 16, 2008)

Hey, 
any expats in the Midwest, especially in Iowa? I would never think I would start missing Europe but it only took me a year.... Really thinking about going back, no kidding! Does anybody feel the same way? Just a short survey


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## twostep (Apr 3, 2008)

What are you really missing?
It comes and goes. Hang in there.


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## Fatbrit (May 8, 2008)

Google "culture shock" -- it should now make some sense to you.


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## Tiffani (Dec 4, 2007)

yes, you're in the "hostility stage" of cultural adjustment, by the sounds of it.

I know it well... but it comes in waves. 

Takes a while to get used to a place, but there are some days that I would really prefer to be back home in the US instead of here in Oz.


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## alexbonn (Oct 16, 2008)

I actually did google "culture shock", the problem is that I don't know if this phenomenon still exists. We all speak the same language (for better or for worse), quote the same "Seinfeld" episodes and know where to get anything we want. I really think that "culture shock" has stayed in the 90s and is slowly dying as the cell phones and internet are taking over. I feel pretty nostalgic actually thinking about my first Spain vacation as it was so mysterious and kind of like discovering a new continent. Maybe that's the curse of globalization and we should start "culture shock" something like "culture stock" as we are just stocking up information about all these different places we have already been or are planning to visit. 
I don't know if Oz is different, Tiffany, it is a 24-hr. flight so chances are it is not as US influenced as I imagine it to be. But I think it is America's curse to be the good and the evil in every sense and I bet I am going to miss it the moment I am back in Europe...


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## Tiffani (Dec 4, 2007)

nowadays the official, technical term is "cultural adjustment" and yes, it is very much alive. In some ways it's worse for people who move to countries that speak the same language and have perceived similar cultures, because it hits them when they don't expect it (if you moved to Ghana, you would've expected to have a harder time, right? You thought America would be close enough to British culture that you would adjust easily, right?). 

I have lived in England and I know that it's just as hard to adjust to the UK being an American as it is to adjust to Australia being an American. In some ways, Australia is almost like a melange between US and UK culture. I don't mean to say that they have no sense of their own identity because there is plenty about Australia that makes it unique, but I will say that having lived in both the US and UK has provided a sort of cultural "buffer" for me moving here to Oz. 

So, to make a long story short, even though we all watch Seinfeld and speak English, we do have very different cultures and what you expect is not always what you'll get. The differences are more subtle than what they were in 1990s Spain for you, and in some ways that makes it all the more insidious. Yes it exists absolutely without question. And yes, it is perfectly, 100% normal  

This too shall pass


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## chriszz (Oct 17, 2008)

I miss it every day


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## alexbonn (Oct 16, 2008)

I certainly do prefer cultural adjustment (despite the opinion of many fellow countrymen claiming that the relocation to the US would result in the adjustment to the lack of culture ), but the question if there would be a difference if I moved to Ghana instead is not without substance. Have you ever watched "Amazing Race" on CBS? You probably have, having lived all around the globe. I think that with every season the candidates had less and less trouble adjusting to a new destination with the knowledge of 3 phrases in Spanish, "merci" and "spasibo". Last season they had to find their way around Osaka and finished the assignments probably faster than any Japanese ever could. 
To answer your question: I was extremely familiar with the American culture before relocating (would the detailed knowledge of "Harry and the Hendersons" be proof enough ?) but maybe knowing too much is sometimes a bigger issue than knowing too little. Did you have this experience in Oz? Is the overadaptation ever a factor?


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## synthia (Apr 18, 2007)

I went through culture shock not only both times I moved back to the US from overseas, but several times when I moved within the US. Usually it is small things, but some things are big. I never really made a friend that had grown up in Boston during the 2+ years I lived there. It's very much a closed society, I think, at all socio-economic levels. The newcomers remain newcomers. And they call a milkshake a frappe, which is confusing.


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## Tiffani (Dec 4, 2007)

milkshakes are called frappe in Australia too, or maybe it's smoothies. But anyway, I agree that culture shock works both ways. It's really weird to get it when you go home after some time away! 

As far as "over-exposure" is concerned, I think we are over-exposed to what the media wants us to see about a place, so we go there with expectations based on half-truths or sometimes outright lies. Or at the very least, we don't really know until we're knee-deep in it.


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

I've read, too, where the culture shock on return to your "homeland" can be worse than the original culture shock in a new country. If you go home after a couple of years, you are expecting to return to the place you knew - but life goes on and things there have changed, too.
Cheers,
Bev


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## synthia (Apr 18, 2007)

I know that I tend to idealize the US when I have been away for a very long time, especially if it is for a year or more. Then reality slaps me in the face when I arrive and can't get a luggage cart unless I pay.


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## twostep (Apr 3, 2008)

Bevdeforges said:


> I've read, too, where the culture shock on return to your "homeland" can be worse than the original culture shock in a new country. If you go home after a couple of years, you are expecting to return to the place you knew - but life goes on and things there have changed, too.
> Cheers,
> Bev


I went back to Europe for six months. At our arrival in Atlanta I mentioned that being home feels good. My better half had a hard time believing his ears. It took a while to get fully integrated. Work was never a problem. Social life was so different for me it took some adjusting.


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## synthia (Apr 18, 2007)

Even work was a problem. Like, where was the tea lady? I kept expectig, subconsciously, to have the tea lady roll up at 11. And what was with this working late all the time?


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## twostep (Apr 3, 2008)

synthia said:


> Even work was a problem. Like, where was the tea lady? I kept expectig, subconsciously, to have the tea lady roll up at 11. And what was with this working late all the time?


Good luck:>) I have not yet been able to figure out what this white soft stuff is that is referred to as bread. .

My problems were the small things of daily life. Some of them almost comical in retrospect.


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