Culture Shock

"The Misery Of Silence" is a very touching story. I feel a little bit sad too while reading it. A sensitive little girl and her friends with the same foreign background struggled between two different cultures. One culture existed in their family, their Chinese schools and their Chinese communities in the small scales. However, the other culture, with which those little immigrates were not familiar, existed everywhere else. They had no way to avoid it. They didn’t get any effective guides from their parents or teachers either. What they could do was to keep silent. At last, they broke through the silence and finally started to talk and face up to the new culture and new changes.

The immigrates, not only children, but also adults, have to overcome the culture shock sooner or later. ("Culture shock is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse." ) I don’t know if there are so-called best practices to keep the shock as slim as it could be. From my personal experience, to have an open and positive attitude is very important. At first, we need to admit there are huge differences between our own culture and the new culture. We should not ignore the difference, nor escape from them. The second, we should observe and learn from the differences and adopt some of them. To be annoyed by the new culture is not a good way to start adopting procedure. The last, the foreigners don’t have to hug the new culture completely. After all, it is a personal choice to select his/her own life style and value system.

I was lucky not to suffer the culture shock too much. Since I am a simple-minded person and kind of easy going. I am not very sensitive to the environment change. Also, before I came to the States, I already had learned a lot about US cultures from the Internet and from the Hollywood movies. Thanks to the new technology and the information highway, it turns the world into a well-connected village.