As a world travel lover, I know a thing or two about culture shock. Though I've never actually lived in another culture long term, I know that culture shock can catch you off guard, striking suddenly and forcefully, or it can sneak up on you subtly. Dictionary.com defines culture shock this way:
Function: n : a sense of confusion and uncertainty sometimes with feelings of anxiety that may affect people exposed to an alien culture or environment without adequate preparation
I experienced my most intense feelings of culture shock when I was in Russia for two days, back in 2005. We had just found out that our housing, food, and concert engagements had all been cancelled on us, and we had gone to a bank to at least try to exchange some money. On this particular trip, it was our first time in a country where no one even understood English. Russian people don't smile, and as I struggled to communicate with the woman changing my money, I suddenly had the weird revelation that I was the stranger here. I was the one who didn't know what was going on. I was the one who didn't understand the systems or the culture. I was the one who couldn't speak the right language. The feeling left me reeling to the point where one of my team members asked me if I was okay. Honestly, I wasn't sure I was. Aside from my teammates, NOTHING around me was familiar.
The feeling passed, or at least settled down, after we had settled into our hotel, leaving me with the memory of how powerful culture shock can be. Who would have ever guessed that five years later I would experience the same phenomenon... less than 20 miles from my home!
As you know if you've read my previous posts, I took a new job back in April, working for a high end interior designer. It was a fluke that the position opened up and that I was able to slide into it, and the whole hiring process took less than two days. Looking back now, I see that this alarmingly quick job transition probably qualifies as the "without adequate preparation" part of the definition of culture shock. I truly had very little idea of what I was getting into. But I jumped in with both feet because it seemed like God had opened the doors. I still believe He did, but during the last couple weeks I have reached the end of almost every day feeling completely wiped out and sometimes a little dazed. Though my days are long with my commute, and sometimes quite stressful when the bosses get high strung, when I chalked up the actual work I did I could not understand where my exhaustion was coming from... until yesterday, when I had my epiphany. Though my job is less than 20 miles from my house, the world of difference in cultures has been getting to me, and I have once again been suffering from culture shock!
I have shared with people time and again how vastly different the culture is on Palm Beach Island, so it's amazing to me that I didn't put two and two together sooner. Maybe even I didn't fully realize how dramatically different the Palm Beach world is from the world in which I've grown up, but my quiet little middle-class environment could not be farther removed from the world of opulence and materialism where I now spend most of my time. No wonder I was internally wigging out! Visiting the Island, a person naturally will be struck with the high class of living evident there. But I wasn't just visiting. I have been meeting the faces behind the mansions and living in their world, learning that I have to play by their rules and learn a new definition of normal. Visiting a client's house (or should I say "palatial estate") recently, I saw a book resting on a side table with this title-- Palm Beach-- The Insider's Guide to the Passions, Possessions, and Pleasures of the World's Richest Society. And there you have it. The passions, possessions, and pleasures of Palm Beach society are so complicated (and perhaps sometimes twisted?) that you need an "insider's guide" to navigate them. I wish I had known this before I waltzed in so unsuspectingly!
Realizing that culture shock has been one of the main challenges I've been facing the last couple months certainly does not make the culture any more homey or comfortable for me, but it does help to realize why since I began working here I have sometimes experienced "a sense of confusion and uncertainty, sometimes with feelings of anxiety." At least I don't have to be afraid that I'm totally losing my mind!
