Oberg and the Culture Shock
This page contains student contributions of the course Comparing Cultures
Comparing Cultures Essay on „Culture Shock“
Essay by Tom B
Culture Shock, as Kalervo Oberg puts it, is an occupational disease that occurs when you are moving to another country with different cultural habits. In his text „Cultural Shock: Adjustment to New Cultural Environment“ Oberg examines different symptoms, causes and cures of people in unknown cultures.
In this essay I will reflect my living in Scotland, that has lasted one year, if I suffered a cultural Shock and in what way. It will start shortly with the reason why I decided to study abroad, followed by a step- by step guide on the basis of the phenomenon „Cultural Shock“ and the “W- model”. Lastly the essay will include my conclusion on living abroad and my view on Obergs thesis.
In September 2011 I moved from my hometown Hamburg to the capitol city of Scotland, Edinburgh, where I started studying Business Administration with a focus on Marketing. Before I went I was completely exited about my new living situation, everything worked out as planned. My wish to study abroad, my wish to study marketing and my wish to study in a whole different environment. The reasons for my decision to move into another country are quite simple. I was born in Hamburg and although Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany, my problem was, that the horizon Hamburg was giving me was rather an obstacle for me then a possibility to get to know new things and people. I was raised in an area in Hamburg where everyone is doing the same things and going to the same places without being curious about new stuff. Also the people rather orientate on their surroundings to not risk to stick out. I call my place of birth a soap- bubble where no one wants to get out of. With this telling you I don’t want to say that I am the only one trying to look over the edge of the plate, quite the contrary there were a lot of people inspiring me, such as my older siblings or friends. But I figured out that I want to learn new things and people. That’s why I decided to study abroad because it would not had matter which city in Germany I am going to since in every case I would have met people similar to the one in my soap- bubble.
As already mentioned Oberg talks about experiences of people moving to another country. He is explaining the process of adjusting to this new culture with the theory of the “Culture Shock” and more specifically on basis of the “W- Model”. This model is divided in nine different steps. It starts with the arrival at the host country you are moving to and ends with the comeback to your home country and your reflection on the experiences you have made. In his text Oberg is arguing that it doesn’t matter how open minded a person is, the strange environment of the new culture will affect you anyway. In most of the cases people have “a feeling of frustration and anxiety” and their home country becomes “irrationally glorified”. It totally fits to my situation in Edinburgh. From the beginning on I felt displaced in the country due to sickness and a very unfriendly living- environment. So everywhere I have been to I forced myself to find something positive that might cheer me up. I wasn’t too successful with it because I negated everything compared to Hamburg. So the “irrational glorification” has won. Viewed from another side the glorification fits to the first step, Oberg is describing in his “W-Model”, the “honeymoon” step. He is referring to the honeymoon, a freshly married couple is doing and to the great time they are having in a different country and culture. You are interested in this new environment, you want to explore everything and everybody. During this time you ignore all the negative things, which is basically the opposite situation I was in. Everything is also “irrationally glorified” because you’re blinded by the excitement. Another reason is that a honeymoon happens just for a short time, whereas moving often happens for a longer or even indefinite time.
A main difference of my situation to Obergs Thesis is that he most of the text is talking about foreign cultures. In my case the switch to the new culture, objectively seen, was not a profound one. I stayed in a western culture and I was able to speak the language, neither I had “fear of being robbed”, nor was I “concerned about the drinking water”. Surprisingly the language, being part of a countries culture, was a significant difficulty for me. This leads me to the second step, the appearance of differences. Oberg is arguing that you see the differences to your home- culture and problems starting to occur resulting in frustration. This frustration is a reason why you’re starting to “blame the host country”. I was able to communicate most of my problems but I couldn´t connect to people the way I was used to back in Hamburg. Now that culture is “the interrelation of cultural forms” and the result of ones “behaviour in groups”, my miscommunication made it difficult feeling comfortable in a personal environment of alien people.
The following thing Oberg is talking about is the step of feeling homesick. I can´t say that I have been in such an absolute down- situation, as he puts it. It was rather a constantly feeling I had, supported by all the free time I had, which brings my University in context. On one hand my study stressed me with it deadlines and it weekly presentations, on the other hand the four free days a week I was given, stressed me out. This sounds a bit absurd, but this huge amount of free time caused that I wasn´t distracted enough so I thought about my situation and its negative and positive things a lot, at which the negative things over weighted. To deal with my time and my problems I “developed strategies to cope difficulties and feelings”, describing the next step. I started participating in a community for planned events, I read a lot of books and I moved to another apartment close to some friends from university. So everything got a bit easier. I wasn’t too stressed anymore and I spent a lot of time with my new roommates, which got me the distraction I needed.
The “w-model” is not giving a focus just on the host country, but it is also describing the comeback. According to Oberg you are excited coming back to your home country, getting back to everything you have missed and to your family and friends. The excitement is followed by a misunderstanding of your home- environment, because they don´t see how “you have changed” and they don´t acknowledge the new impact you are bringing from your stay away from home. This could even end in “missing the host country” and you find yourself again in an adjustment- situation. For me it was a different process of getting back to my home- culture. The first time I went back was the Christmas break. I had no problems fitting into my old culture, especially because it was just for a few weeks. However I just have been away for three weeks and my negative feeling for my host got encouraged. After the holidays I tried to fit back in as good as I could, but Scotland and my university have given me a hard time doing so. After a month I decided to leave Edinburgh after I have finished my second semester. During the rest of the time I didn´t even tried to adjust to the culture.
Furthermore Oberg comments on how culture develops and how it is affecting me as an individual. “An individual is not born with culture but only with the capacity to learn and use it”. In the end it is about how much time and effort I am giving myself, no matter how difficult it is.
In conclusion I firstly want to say that my year in Scotland is something that I do not want to miss. Every negative experience has taught me a lot and supported my ripening. But this just happened because of the last step. The step of reflection. I think it is the most important one, because on basis of your reflection you are able to cope with uncomfortable situations in future and you are more open minded to different views and approaches of people.
I have different views on Obergs thesis. On one side it is an interesting sight on the result of ethno- centrism, showing how people react on different living situations by constantly relating it to ones own culture. On the other hand it is very difficult, like for all the other comparing- culture models, to adopt Obergs model to ones own situation. However Oberg is naming the main problems and gives meaningful reasons and solutions.