My culture shock

If loosely explained the rubric of this blog maybe defined as a feeling of disorientation and awkwardness experienced in a different social or economic environ rising from the ingrained departure of one’s familiarization or rather un-familiarisation with the aforementioned  surroundings. It may seem very rudimentary and very basic to one who has been detached from any of the social or cultural conservativeness which I regard as the basic cause of my “Culture shock”, but more than it being a state it mind it is an indicator of one’s own ethos and at the same time his pathos towards any of the two comparative culture ; that being the adopted and the native culture.

Culture shock is said to have four phases: 1. Honeymoon,2.Negotiation,3. Adjustment and 4.Mastery. I don’t relate to any of the above “phases” per-se as such a psychological disorder, dare I say is unique and is discrete in all form and its generalization seems redundant to me. It may seem a very Freudian idea but who has a proven it to being a uniform and non-amorphous in the first place. As extravagant as the word “shock” may seem but when you come to terms with it, at first it seems as if you were blind-sighted and sandbagged,; hence the word “shock” seems apt.

Meeting new people who seem very normal to you in the sense that they appear to be the same people whom you see back home is kind of a deception and this is the greatest folly that a Culture “Shockee” may commit. But the only party at fault here is the shockee itself as expecting the same behavior from people living hundreds and thousands of mile away is like being gullible and brain dead at the same time. This rather exacerbates the condition. In my case the people I met would easily pass as the most lively and vivacious motley group of people but that is not unusual as every place has such kind of people in abundance but then the question arises that why does one feel so awkward. I can safely say that the group made every effort to dissect the figurative shield of defense that I had by making me feeling comfortable and at the same time a part of the group, but you tend not to join the madness (that it seems to you) as one would prefer to be a spectator of it. I would like to draw a comparison here for the shockee and the shockers with that of an anthropologist studying the aspects and ethos of a group of people. You notice them and find nothing odd or out of the ordinary but you still feel flabbergasted and jaded even though every thing which is being done is highly expected.

What I feel is that the problem is with the shockee as he is not able to accept the evident social order rather he thinks of it as the indictment of the same and has an illusion of the exalted status of his morals and moral fiber. If a shockee were to be seen through the prism of a shocker , the exact opposite may happen as the shockee would be regarded as a socially unenvolved, morally pugnacious and intolerant which I feel keeps it on an even keel.

In my experience and my case there only seems to be a difference of social façade as I fail to see any distinction be it economic, intellectual or spiritual. What we perceive of others doesnot set the perception of others towards us and neither does it set the perception of that culture in any realistic sense. As convoluted as it may sound to many of the readers but that is what culture shock does to you. It changes your pre-set perception and fiddles with your judgment of people . By all means I feel that there is discord of sorts between not only me but also between other cultures among themselves, but that is the only great thing about cultures , either you shun and write it off in your mind or you accept it and embibe what is right about it. Unity lies in diversty , as paradoxical as it may sound, the veracity of it is as formidable any anything.

            Great Allama Iqbal said and I quote “Magas ko bagh mein jaane na dena ki na-haq qatl parwane ka hoga”…. Sacrificing one social/moral idea gives rise to another which is refined in every sense, but is this adulteration of moral perceptions desirable….Will let you know as soon as I go beyond the four “phases” and indulge into mastery of it….