Culture Shock, Stress, Fatigue 7 of 9 (Al Stewart)

Maybe you feel that you’re way beyond culture shock and culture stress.  You don’t have that problem any more.  You’ve been here in this place long enough to know about the culture.  You can speak the language relatively well, enough to communicate, enough to do your business, enough to share your faith when the opportunity comes along.

So you’re doing really well in the local culture.  You like the local food.  You eat it all the time.  You get along well with the local people. And, as far as you can tell, they seem to like you okay and get along with you.  You’re not counting the months, weeks, days, hours and minutes until you can climb on a plane for your home country.

Well that’s really great.  I’m happy for you.  I really am.

I’ve known some people who have spent most of their lives in one foreign culture.  They’ve adapted and blended in about as well as anyone could.  They’ve learned to speak the language like a native with no accent.  They’re loved by the local people.  Their ministry has been effective, but even after all that there have still been certain aspects of the local culture that irritate a little, that remind them they are not of this culture or place.  There are still some things that occur that make them shake their heads.  Mostly they smile and laugh to themselves about it.  They know where it’s coming from, and why, but it still bothers them just a little.

So, how about you?  Is there something that happens now and then that makes you a little angry at times?  Not angry?  Okay, how about a little upset?  Frustrated maybe?  Could it be the methods a workman uses to make repairs to something around your place of living?  Maybe it’s the service you get in a store or business, or lack of service, or the way they talk to customers? … Or could it be — maybe — the way one particular individual makes a promise to you to do something but it isn’t done? … Or the way some people are always ready to agree with you and smile pleasantly but you’re not sure if they actually heard what you said, if they really agreed with you or if they truly meant what they said in response because nothing seems to change?  It would be easy to put that down to an individual personality flaw, just the reactions, or lack of reactions, of one person.  You’ve maybe written it off as a fault of the individual or a personality clash or something like that.  It could be.  You can run into individuals all over the world that might sort of fit into that scenario.

In this case, is that really the explanation?  Is that all it is?  I know, that’s enough, but is that truly the answer or could there be some other reason?  Could it be that there might be a cultural base for the way that person makes promises and doesn’t seem to keep them?  Is he or she making the promise, or agreeing with you, because they mean it?  Or are they just trying to please you?  They don’t want to say “no” or to disagree because that might offend you, upset you or make you or them lose face.  They don’t want to embarrass themselves.  It might just be the individual — there are some people like that in every culture, probably — but take a deeper look … a wider look at others around you … and you might find there is a root to what they are doing that goes back to something in their culture.

I remember a project I was working on and I asked one of those who was helping me if we could find a certain item that we needed.  No Problem.  Big smile.  No problem.  Could we have it for tomorrow?  No problem.  I felt pretty good, we were making progress, Except that tomorrow came.  Then the next day, and a week.  The item still hadn’t been found.  As it turned out this person didn’t completely understand what it was that I wanted but he didn’t want to embarrass himself or me by admitting that he didn’t know, so he thought it would keep things peaceful by saying “no problem” and postponing the inevitable.

One personality?  Well, I thought so at first, until I discovered that those two words formed what seemed to be the most common phrase in the vocabulary of just about everyone there.  ‘No problem’ sometimes meant that it would be done … and it was — sometime — eventually. Maybe not right away, but sometime. At other times it was just words.  It wasn’t just a personality, it was a cultural thing.  You could even make a suggestion to a group or make a request and get a chorus of ‘no problems’ in response.

For me this worked out to be another cultural learning experience, a little culture shock and a little frustration, and when the results of ‘no problem’ put the project behind schedule it produced some stress - culture stress.

Which brings us around to a statement I heard recently …

In order to deal with culture shock you have to recognize that culture shock is what the problem happens to be.  It doesn’t necessarily help to put the blame for what has happened, for what has frustrated you or annoyed you, on an individual.  They may not be lazy.  They may not be truly deceptive or dishonest.  There may be a deeper reason for what is happening.

Do the workmen appear to you to be lazy or is that the cultural way of doing things?  Maybe you need to study things a little deeper.

Do they make you feel annoyed and a little tense when they come to work at 10 in the morning, quit at 4 and of course take an hour out for lunch in the middle of that … and you expect them to at least work an 8 hour day … or maybe more when it is necessary to get the job done?

Is it laziness or does that have it’s root in the cultural background of those workers?

You may feel, with good scriptural backing, that the Christians in this culture should be honest and truthful.  When you find that they’re not, is that because of a flaw in the individual’s moral character?  Are you going to question their Christian testimony?  Or was this habit, maybe, formed by a lifetime in a culture where honesty and truthfulness are more a matter of convenience and advantage?

I remember one man whom I respected a great deal. A godly man.  But, in a certain work situation, as we worked together, a situation came up and I asked him about it.  The answers he gave were frustrating.  As a matter of fact, in my context they were not truthful.  But, they were given with a perfectly straight face.  Seriously, or with a nice friendly smile.  So what was I to do?  Accuse him of not telling the truth?  Challenge him?  That wouldn’t have helped the working relationship.  It would have been very difficult to do.  It would have created and caused difficulties all the way around.  A deeper look into his background showed that very likely there was a cultural aspect to this, a pattern developed over a lifetime.

So what was the answer?  Well, in this situation I had to recognize that this was a cultural situation.  I’ve got to admit, it was a little bit of culture shock and it did create, for me, a small amount of culture stress.  Okay. So it was a culture thing.  The answers were still wrong.  So then what?  Then I had to find ways of asking the question in a different way or requesting the information from a different direction so that the answers could be produced without making him feel the need to not be truthful.  Everything worked out fine.  We got along great.  Once I recognized that it was not a personality flaw that was annoying me, it wasn’t the matter of a great sin that needed to be fixed.  It was a situation of cultural backgrounds that were meeting at a point that could, and did, produce a certain amount of friction.

It was another cultural learning experience.

Which brings us back to that little statement I mentioned earlier …

In order to deal with culture shock you have to recognize that culture shock is what the problem happens to be.

“But,” you say … You know others in this same place, from the same culture, that don’t act or react in the same way so it can’t be a culture shock situation.

Maybe.  Maybe not.  In most countries today people have a lot of different cultural influences on them.  An individual’s mother may have come from a country village with it’s own cultural variations, habits and customs.  Father may have been raised in a large town or city with  different background, different influences, different training, different schooling or no schooling perhaps for one of them.  And their parents, where did they come from?  What cultural and religious influences formed their personalities, outlook, life philosophy and customs?

Remember that each of us brings our own assortment of cultural baggage to every new situation which adds a tint of color to how the new cultures affect us and how we view what is happening.

So what am I saying?  Don’t be too quick to condemn an individual for what they do or say. Learn more about them.  Where do they come from in this country?  Even if they are living in this town where you are they may have come from a different region.  Every region in this country has some cultural differences.  The culture of this country is not one descriptive unit. Much of it probably is, but there are variations from city to country and from region to region.  So learn about the people you’re working with or relating to in some way.  Learn about the cultural habits and customs that might be in their backgrounds.

If this friction you’re feeling turns out to be a cultural thing, a little bit of culture shock or culture stress, then you know what to expect and you can take steps to accept the situation or work around it, knowing this is what is likely going to happen.

Ask the Lord to wake up your sense of humour so that you can see the funny side of what is happening to you.  Does that sound like an unspiritual approach to the problem?  Who do you think created your sense of humour and gave it to you?  By all means pray for the situation, but I would suggest that you don’t pray for the Lord to change all these situations and smooth them out for you.  Pray instead for His peace and calmness as you face each moment of culture shock.  Pray that the Lord will help you to recognize some of the happenings as really very minor bumps in the road of life and like I said, pray for the Lord to wake up your sense of humour so that you can approach each bump on the road with a smile.  It really does help.