Transient Transformations

Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. I learned that the hard way. Traveling is transformative, in the sense that it puts you squarely in the fire of transformation. That fire burns away everything that you are not, and within the ash remains only what and who you truly are. I’ve had the incredible experience of getting to travel the seven seas, seeking all manner of things-temples, languages, food and much more, but the only thing I ended up truly finding was myself. For me, deciding to leave home and move to the People’s Republic of China was me a no brainer, however returning home a six years later was not just a difficult decision to make but it was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.

Leaving home to move to another country is incredibly difficult, but what they don’t tell you is that coming home is even harder. Most tell you about Culture shock, the psychological process and “disjointing” that happens to the psyche when you go somewhere unfamiliar, when you notice that “you’re not in Kansas in anymore.” It’s natural-you’re eating new food, hearing and speaking a new language, having to learn new social mores and unspoken rules. It’s, shocking, even, but you grow as a person, mentally, emotionally and most importantly, spiritually. Yet, the real shock is coming back to the home and people that you left, into the fire of what is known as reverse culture shock. The word shock in that phrase is no exaggeration. It has been a psychological shock of seismic proportions.

When the expat repatriates, he comes back to what was familiar people, places and things that you knew for years and for years they knew you. I came back in a familiar body to family and friends but internally I had changed immensely. People thought they knew me, but they didn’t, not anymore. Their lives had continued, as anyone’s would, but mine had changed radically. I had done things, been places and seen things that they could only see on T.V. I had vacationed in the Philippines, eaten authentic foreign cuisine, conversed in a foreign language and worked in lived around people from probably 15-20 different countries My mind had been exposed to so much that my soul had been transformed, the jack was out of the box and it couldn’t ever be put back in. I hate to brag, but within me was this worldly, cultured person who had done so much, but externally I looked like the same 18-year-old that people knew before. They treated me like the person I used to be, they judged me and made projections based on a person I no longer was and instead of taking the time to get to know the new me, they treated me like the person I was before I left.

Once you come back, you become acutely aware of all of the aspects about your original culture that you didn’t notice before. For example, I was suddenly shocked about how loud Americans were. I had heard multiple times, from my British co-workers, about the “loud American” and how they were so uncouth, but upon repatriation, I noticed that we truly are loud. We are very loud, and in the American South, to which I returned, folks seemed to be yelling everything as if we were communicating from porch to porch.

Another issue was the food. I had always heard about “the fat American”, this stereotype of the overweight, bloated waddling American. Now, stereotypes may be incomplete and partially untrue, but we do need to lose come collective weight, but I think we’ve put on so many pounds because of our food portions. American meals are massive! I was absolutely flabbergasted at how huge the portions were! Don’t get me wrong, I am a human food disposal machine, myself, but in China the portions are much smaller. If you were to just pop in at an American diner the usual proportion for an American meal is enough to feed a whole Chinese family. Once I got past the portion problem, I had to then deal with the fact that American food is just doused in sugar. Everything was so sweet! Even the meat. Why do we have sweet meat?

With that out of the way, the next issue I had to tackle was the social milieu into which I had to return. That milieu was the abyss of American materialism and the rat race towards it. Oh, these poor souls! My soul truly cried out, for I was surrounded by people encapsulated on the ever-turning wheel of the American eat-work-entertain-sleep cycle, people trapped in what Plato would call “the cave.” I was expected to immediately jump back onto this wheel as if my tenure overseas was some sort of play time. As if it was now time to come out of the sandbox and “get serious.” But I couldn’t, my eyes were opened now, 33 years of social conditioning began to undo itself, to fall off of me like clothes off a whore. In America, the material remains supreme, people are judged by what they have, not what they do and god forbid, by who they are. Everyone asked me “what do you do?” Once they figured out what my job was, they then used that to determine how much respect to give me. This, not the sugar, not the level of people’s voices, not the gargantuan size of the cars, the people and their portions, but the unadulterated tunnel vision being fixated on material existence that shocked me the most.

Reverse culture shock forced me to go within. I had to mentally re-adjust my perspective so and maintain and water my own peace amidst what felt like a spiritual desert. Suddenly, I was forced to had to cultivate a new direction in life. It was a bit surreal, as if I was feeling very alive before and then suddenly thrown into the abyss filled with the walking dead. When I say the walking dead, I mean literal walking dead-people who lived the same year 75 times and called it “life.”

With all that being said, it isn’t enough for me to simply go on and on about America and the results of reverse culture shock. Moving forward I would prefer to write something that is akin to a letter, meant for all, but more particularly, for my friends who are still in China and will be coming home soon. I went first, I struggled and now I wish to lay down what I learned as a type of survival guide. Think of the entire endeavor as snow that I have already walked through, now, those coming behind don’t have to create their own footsteps, they can walk in the foot steps that I’ve already made.

Survival Guide:

1). Only those who do, know.

No one will understand what you’ve been through and how your life has changed. They won’t understand how you’ve changed. They will see a familiar body and face, but will care nothing for getting to know the knew soul inside of it. Accept this. If people project the old you, onto you, you made need to ask them “what are you basing this behavior on?” I was in China for 6 years, so I had to remind others that people change in that amount of time and that I had changed immensely.

2.) Everyone will expect you to just pick up where you left off.

As an expat, you get to watch and laugh at others, free of the rat race, feeling “beyond it.” When returning, people will expect you to jump back into the rat race, to find a job, a humdrum job and simply get on with the checklist of life. You’re to find gainful employment, find a mate, get married and then continue on with the rat race. They never escaped the soul crushing cycle and don’t know what it means to be out of it.” Forgive them, for they know not what they know not.

3.) You may have outgrown some people.

Your soul has been cracked wide open. Through sheer exposure, you have been forced to grow in ways others may never be able to fathom. Adapting to another culture shifts your perspective radically. Others, and no fault to them, haven’t had that experience and all experiences aren’t translatable. Many of my friends who were my closest for much of my life can no longer relate to my experience and I don’t feel like I click or mesh with them anymore. Their concern with clothes, haircuts, having nice cars, putting up an image to impress other people and fascination with material things seem immaterial to me now. I’ve found that with many of my old buddies I just don’t have anything to talk to them about, and if I do talk about my life in China, they think I’m bragging. Some will feel threatened by your growth and new outlook and will want to compete with you, in some sort of experiential dick measuring contest. If you need to separate from some people, or stop hanging out with them, do it! There is no harm in this, and it may be necessary for your psychological health. Focus on those who you feel good around and who are open and willing to understanding your experience. Remember, a different vibe calls for a different tribe.

4.) You will see nothing the same as before

In China, I became acutely aware of China’s cultural differences and, now, that I’m in the U.S I am acutely aware of America’s faults, I have become very critical of my country’s shortcomings. More importantly, I developed an unorthodox opinion about everything in life. In China, I was a foreigner. Now, in America I feel like a foreigner. I don’t see with the same eyes, I look at our education system, our politics, our business ethics, our social issues and have drastically different things to say about them. Annoyingly, I compare everything to how it’s done in China and I know that people hate that. Don’t get me wrong, I never intended to be the “in China…” guy, but that’s literally most of my adult life experience. My solutions to problems at work are out of the box at least and this grates upon the soul of American parochialism. Allow me to elucidate here. Parochialism is as American as apple pie. America sees its corner of the world as “the world” and doesn’t want anything to do with another perspective or one where our way of doing things isn’t considered the best. I can’t count on 5 hands how many times I heard the response: “This isn’t china! This is America,” as if I didn’t notice.

Try your best to not give your opinion out freely, don’t pass it out like some flyer at an election poll. Try to focus your conversation on others’ lives and not your own, this will help others feel more comfortable and since you’ve lived their lives and they’ve lived their lives, it’s something you can both relate to. Your experience will seem foreign to them, bring it up as little as possible. And for God’s sake, when people ask you “How was (the country you left)?” just simply reply “It was great!” Remember, they don’t really want to know. You are the platonic person who stepped out of the cave, they are those who remain, staring at the shadows on the wall, don’t whisper to them “Those shadows aren’t real.” As Rumi said, “if they wish to continue sleeping, let them.”

5.) Life back home may seem draining and baseless.

American society often lies to us. I was taught to get a degree, find a good job, preferably a high-paying one, buy creature comforts that I don’t need, get married to someone extremely attractive, buy a house, buy a car and start a family, all by the tender age of 26. One must also be incredibly fit, look hot in yoga pants, have a six-pack and have an Instagram profile full of pictures of you and your incredibly hot girlfriend or boyfriend on some beach on an exotic island. People seem more concerned with an idealistic life that they aren’t actually living and less concerned with the life actually happening in front of them. Don’t mind this type of thinking, just as others will not mind everyone around them while they direct their hyper-focus at their phones. This may seem shallow to you, you may become disillusioned with it all, and everything about life in your home country. The psychological effects of reverse culture shock are unavoidable, and it is an emotional rollercoasting. The mind will be pulled this way and that, there will be times that you feel 15 different emotions at once and there will be time when you fall into an abyss of despair. You will be met with a barrage of some of the dumbest questions that you’ve ever heard in your life. Everything from “What do Chinese people eat?” to “Do they have restaurants over there?” So many times, I found myself defending China against a legion of gross generalizations. However, nothing is permanent. I suggest that you reach out and grasp for the familiar foods, music and cultural relics from the country you left. Get out of the house, go for a walk, listen to international music on YouTube and refuse to feel guilty for avoiding people who are comfortable in their ignorance. Also, you may need to limit some people’s access to you.

6.) Seek other International People.

Seek out international venues, people and food. My saving grace was a childhood friend of mine who’s father was from Germany and who’s mother had international living experience. They understood where I was coming from and how I felt about things. They could understand the jokes I made, my sarcasm, and my wit didn’t go over their heads. When I peppered my speech with foreign words, they didn’t look at me like I had a horn coming out of my head. I felt more comfortable around them and they understood me.

In conclusion, returning home is incredibly different. It is literally mind-numbing and soul-grating. Study abroad programs have power-points on file that teach you about culture shock before you go but no one teaches you about reverse culture shock before you come home. Not that the experiences are truly comparable, but it’s almost like you’re a soldier being rotated home from a tour. You’ve had this awakening experience and everyone around you seems dead to the world, like they’re just going through the motions. There were times when I just wanted to scream at people “Wake Up!” But they wouldn’t have heard me. There were times when I felt like I was speaking Chinese to Americans, when I was clearly speaking English. People just couldn’t understand where I was coming from. Mostly, because they didn’t understand where I had just come from.