I met a young woman from Colorado today in the play park with her 14-month-old son. She said, "I knew you weren't from around here because you are friendly." Then she told me her life story - how she worked in tourism before she met her Scottish husband and settled down here.
She rolled her eyes. "People in Edinburgh they just don't care to be friendly."
You are suffering from culture shock, I thought. I didn't say it though. She had at least 10 years on me. I just put on a sympathetic smile. We all have days like that.
She had to leave to go on a road trip - family obligation, very important, you know what day it is.
Today is Robert Burns Day. Robert Burns, author of "My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose" and "Auld Lang Syne", is the Shakespeare of Scotland. Today is a Scottish holiday. You are supposed to eat haggis, neeps and tatties, shortbread and stick toffee pudding. No sooner will you finish hearing "wee, sleekit, cowan, tim'rous beastie" than the dagger falls on the sheep's bladder and it all goes up in steam. Everyone dusts off their family kilt and the bagpipers play with added gusto round the city till your ears ring.
Isn't that how YOU celebrate January 25th every year?
How to Cope with Culture Shock
1. Focus on the Positive
Stacia, a PhD student's wife I met at a church event, confided in me, "The cream here is amazing! I would have gained so much weight if not for all this walking we do here. Don't you love how you can walk everywhere you need to go?" She might just as easily put a negative spin on it and said "They don't pasteurize the milk products properly, resulting in an increased and outrageous level of buttercream fat in dairy - imagine! We are too poor to run a car so I have to walk miles to the supermarket and clothes outlets."
Having an initial positive attitude not only helps you but other people.
2. Do not idealize
I am an idealist by nature so I tend to do this. Before I had kids, I imagined I would spend most of my time cuddling sweet-smelling, cooing infants in dazzling rays of sunshine. In actual fact I spend a significant amount of time dashing madly between two boys' foul smelling nappies in a drab flat as one or both scream at me for attention, and no one ever seems 100% okay.
My husband is an idealist too so we often argue about which country is better. I defend the UK (which of course is perfect) and my British husband defends the honour (or should I say honor?) of the United States of America.
I say nappy. He says diaper.
I say mum. He addresses me to our kids as mom.
Anytime there is a particularly sordid story on the news or anytime I get a particularly snarly set of orders from the UK Border Agency, my husband throws his hands in the air and says, "This would never happen in America."
I assure him sordid things happen in the States and our border control is rubbish too. "You know you can say trash, dear," he says. "I like saying trash. There's nothing wrong with trash."
A seasoned cross-cultural married woman, originally from the UK but married and living in Canada for more than a decade, told me, "Never fall into the rut like I did of assuming everything's perfect here in the UK, or everything's perfect in Canada. What my husband and I eventually learned, after living in both our countries, is that there are good and bad things about both."
3. Don't be critical about the differences.
There is nothing less attractive than a foreigner criticizing everything and everybody.
A student we met recently writes at least 3 times a week on facebook or twitter about how bad British people's teeth are, how small the cars, and how hard British people are to talk to.
Dear foreigners: This is really not a goo way to make a good impression, says my British husband.
Top complaints:
-how awful the weather is
-how disgusting the food
-how inferor all the shops and supermarkets are to Walmart
-British people are so hard to talk to
-size of everything. How they would kill to be able to use a proper dryer or refridgerator with a freezer compartent bigger tthan a squashed shoe box.
-how hard it is to talk to British people. Well it would be easy if you were British! Did you expect it to be easy?
My sister just said everything was weird. The shower was weird. The bird poop was weird. The accents were weird. The food was GROSE! She was not so much as touching the haggis She would throw up if she had to touch it with a fork. Ew, ,ew ew.
This is not the way to live in a foreign country. Accept the differences.
When I was learning how to give birth, someone suggested instead of resisting and tensing up during contractions, I should embrace them. Relaxing with minimize the pain. It really helped my second delivery.
So the same goes for painful cultural experiences. Embrace them!
4. Don't make sweeping generalizations
No one likes being put in a box. You probably don't enjoy people chatting about "those loud, pushy Americans" as if all Americans are loud and pushy.
I often hear people say how hard it is to talk to British people, how unfriendly they are. But the fact is that Edinburgh folk are quite reserved but people from Glasgow are mostly an extraordinarily outgoing, friendly, bend-over-back-wards-to-be-nice-to-you lot. Some British friends I know would lay down their lives for me.
5. Don't expect a sense of Home
One American friend who has lived here for so long that she has a British accent which can convince even British people told me when asked the secret to being at home in the UK, "Our real home is in heaven."
If you are a Christian, you know this world is not the be all end all. My Father's House has many mansions, Jesus said.
6. Find older role models and enlist the help of mature people in the culture who you trust to help.
Recently I made a joke in a mother toddler group which was not well received. I had brought cupcakes for my son's birthday and one young mum said, "Wow I'm so impressed you had time to do that." I joked, "Me too!" as I am always overwhelmed looking after two boys (hence why I post on this blog about once a year).
She just stared.
I wondered if I should have been more reserved and self-deprecating. I quickly sought out my most trusted British friend to demand what she thought. She laughed and put me at my ease at once. "Don't worry, I like that kind of humor. My favorite uncle carried on like that all the time," she said. "Other people got a bit offended but I always knew he was joking."
7. Find creative ways to keep family and friends part of your life.
The worst aspect of culture shock is missing family and friends.
Skype is great, MagicJack is great, but sometimes these can be hard to coordinate. I have talked to more than one person who felt hurt that her family never bothered to call her - that she always had to be the one to make the call.
It is easy to have misunderstandings and lose nuances on static-ridden, delayed, second-skipping calls. Persevere. Love knows all things, forgives all things, believes all things, hopes all things. Love never ends.
Find creative ways to keep them part of your life, persevere, don't take offense and always make time for them. And thank God if they do the same for you.
8. Break down the feelings of being overwhelmed by newness down
if you can't stand sing along time at the local school, spend a few hours on youtube learning the tunes and lyerics to the songs so you can sing along
etc
9. Have grace for yourself.
You may try really hard to be culturally sensitive and relevant but it's okay to keep your own cultural moorings too.
I have learned I miss doing something on Thanksgiving. It doesn't have to be the full blown feast, but something on the day is nice.
Did you know you can get Hershey's syrup on amazon.co.uk or at specialty American food shops?
If you are desperate, it is usually cheaper to invest in whatever nostalgic thing you crave (Aunt Jemima's pancake mix, a visit home) than uproot your family and move countries. Keep things in perspective.
It helps me to make new traditions for my own family. If there is some confusion (perhaps stress as well) over how to spend a special day, make a compromise that makes everyone happy even if it has little or nothing to do with the traditional way of celebrating the holiday.
For example today is Burns Night. We had no haggis, no odes to mice (none of like haggis, and our mice infestation problem is too fresh in everyone's minds), but we did have some buttery, rich, almond shortbread for dessert and sang Auld Lang Syne.
