The cultural rebound
As this is my seventh year in a row in East Asia and I’ve never stayed anywhere more than two years before, this is the first time I’ve noticed this effect. I now have the knowledge and ability to sniff rather than blow, slurp my noodles, eat sea urchins, survive on green tea rather than PG Tips, eat sweet garlic bread, accept tomatoes as part of a fruit salad, etc etc, but have recently decided I just will not.
I had a fast forward version of this when I was staying with my in-laws for five weeks and round about week two I just couldn’t force another stone cold and rock hard fried egg down my throat (eggs- the black hole in the centre of the otherwise fabulous Japanese cuisine) and lost all my usual (natural and developed) Japanese politeness as I straightforwardly told my wife I was starting each day feeling nauseous and could stand it no more. Alternatively, maybe I was just tired from midnight feedings then and have lost my new country buzz in East Asia now and so generally tired now. Alternatively alternatively, maybe I’m just getting old and becoming more traditionally British in the same way as I seem to be losing the last vestiges of the results of my teenage rebelliousness and turning into my father.
Anyone else experienced this? Any theories on what the most likely explanation might be?
November 29th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Go ahead, take over the kitchen and throw everyone else out. Those eggs taste ugh? Fine. I think the need to say no to bad eggs of all kinds increases with age, experience, number of diapers changed and weeks spent with in-laws in any country! ;)
November 29th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Combination of tiredness from being a new parent, and the fact that staying with your in-laws, no matter how nice they are, should probably be avoided for longer than about three days in a row! What *were* you thinking? I find that when I am a bit weary I often want “familiar” things around me – that’s pretty human Alex and doesn’t mean your turning into your dad. As for the cold fried eggs – what can I say – don’t think I’d ever adapt to that either. For me that would be a bit like watching people eating goat’s eyeballs and brains at easter time in Greece. My need to integrate has some limits, and there I draw the line. Also I have never been able to work out how anyone in their right mind can eat a pickled raw aubergine (egg plant). Seems like an abuse of an otherwise delicious vegetable. Embrace these marmite moments as part of your rightful heritage and avoid long term stays with in-laws – not that I am a psychoanalyst or nowt (and WTF do I know) but that would test the patience of a saint as it is like being dropped into intensive cultural conformity for anyone! Fear not – “this too will pass”.
November 29th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
normal culture shock, you tagged it. I always reckon that culture shock doesn’t happen when you first get to a country, that’s adventure time – it happens when you realize you’re not on holiday, Dorothy and all this weird stuff isn’t a story to tell the folks back home, it’s a daily reality…
chin-up, get the folks at home to send you some familiar things and make a list of all the reasons life is better here than there ;-)
Like Sara said, and this too will pass.
Me… on the otherhand, I have got to get out of this putting-milk-in-every-considerable-dish-and-drink… YUCK… don’t people realize that milk, cream, cheese, yoghurt has the most nauseous smell – why the heck Europeans eat so much of it in so many different forms I do NOT know.
Need to go eat some fresh food, just picked or caught.. and drink me some juicy drinks ;-)
Karenne
November 30th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I’m with Karenne on this one. I could always shrug or laugh off things I didn’t care for in another country until I got married. Suddenly I realized I was looking at being here the rest of my life. It wasn’t just some stint with an end in sight. That was really the turning point for me when I too just started to say, “I just will not.”
It’ll probably pass. Hang in there.
November 30th, 2009 at 10:03 am
I never did buy into the ‘When in Rome…’ nonsense. Unfortunately you are caught between two very intolerant cultures who feel their way is best or at least that they have a right to force you to comply with their ways.
There is no reason why you do. I agree we have to obey the laws of a country we are ‘guests’ in and to refrain from insulting the locals by publicly breaking taboos, but apart from that any cultural stuff is like a buffet – take what you like and leave what you don’t.
Now you are in the family – they pretty much have to put up with you being a gaijin barbarian. Not eating the nasty eggs is pretty small beer really.
Like a lot of things – your feelings about being abroad will go in cycles – sometimes really positive and sometimes downright sick and tired of it all. Would we were part of the independently wealthy jet set wo can move every few weeks as soon as the shine starts to wear off a place. As beginning TEFLrs we can move every year or so and that’s great for a while – but then you start to want the advantages of a settled life…
At least you’ve exercised some choice in where you want to settle which is more than most of our contempories were able to.
Anyway – you will never be Japanese. Frankly, there are enough Japanese Japanese, they don’t need us to turn ourselves into ersatz Japanese.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
It’s moments like these, ALex, when we realise that the constructivists have got it all wrong – and there’s no such thing as free will, either.
We are products of our early environment, and despite being able to ‘be fexible’ and ‘go with the flow’ in our strongest years (if not downright keen on it), once that big 40 starts staring us down the nose, there’s no resisting the urge to migrate back into our early selves – or our parents.
It’s all in the genes, you know. I feel I should look forward to morphing into my Dad, if I haven’t done so already, and start wearing silly hats at Christmas dinner, get drunk at lunchtime and fall asleep (instead of into bed with somebody), and complain about other people’s bloody kids making SO much noise when mine are extremely well-behaved.
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Face it you’re now just a grumpy old man. I spent 6 years in Japan and I brought the green tea, sea urchins, hard boiled eggs, sniffing, and all that back home with me. Including the wife.
You’re just getting to the stage when you remember all the good things about UK/Europe and can’t remember just how crap weather is or how infuriatingly bad restaurant service is of how long it takes to find a clean public toilet!
My wife spent 6 months living with her in-laws in Bonnie Scotland and this turned her against most things in Scotland that aren’t the countryside or fresh air, well, the people mostly!
Japan is a land of contradictions so I am sure there is plenty of enjoyable things to soften the damage of the odd hard boiled egg. (or overcrowded train, or grown man wearing kitty-chan goods, or taxi driver that doesn’t know where he is going, etc…)
If you’re not going anywhere else, enjoy that!
Mata ne! Tony yori
December 3rd, 2009 at 7:06 am
hard BOILED egg?? I dream about a hard boiled egg! I’m talking a perfectly good fried egg that’s been left to sit so long that they yolk has gone hard and rubbery here!
Still, any regular readers will know that I far prefer Japan to the UK, though I no longer in either so the irritations of either are only occasional. The question is, in 6 years (5 for me) were there no Japanese cultural habits that you tried on, got the hang of and then decided to give up?
December 3rd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Having done 10 years in East Asia, then returned home to Australia, let me just say it’s amazing what you do and don’t miss… Not what I expected!
December 3rd, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Alex,
In my 6 years in Japan, I have no recollection of being forced to eat cold fried eggs. Is it a family thing? Or did I just escape that one?
I just asked my wife if she thought I gave up any of my Japanese habits, and she suggested ‘working hard’! Which is kind of true. I got so tired of the pace of Tokyo and working 8:00 till 8:00 six days a week that we decided to move to the UK. (Seemed like a good idea at the time.)
I can certainly remember aspects of Japanese culture that grated on me but I can’t remember anything I adopted and later gave up.
Shamisen? I learned Shamisen and then ditched it when I moved to Tokyo.
Tony
December 9th, 2009 at 9:01 am
No reheated fried eggs either? Matsuya is my favourite restaurant chain in the whole world, but I’d happily pay double if they’d just fry me an egg especially for my bibimdon
Now I come to think about it, I did have this before when I was in Spain, when I decided I was going to say please and thank you in shops (in Spanish, that is) even if it made me sound less like a local
December 10th, 2009 at 4:52 am
My time in East Asia left me with a firm resolution never to work too hard. It doesn’t make them happy so whyever would it make me happy?
I now focus on finding a balance between working for what I really need to have and doing without the things I don’t really need…
East Asians seem to have an insane work ethic – and this can feed into language learning too. Koreans particularly are some of the least productive workers in the industrialised world. They put huge amounts of money and effort into learning English but don’t get commensurate results.
On the ‘please and thankyou’ thing I do the same – which makes people laugh or at least smile. Trying to teach this basic politeness to cultures which don’t have it is an uphill struggle.
December 11th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
You should know the Japanese are completely mad, read some of there recent history if you can stomach it – a lot more distasteful than cold eggs!
China on the other hand has a gentle tolerance of the world and I must admit the dignity of the people, their hard work ethic and humility are admirable qualities. Now back to cooking and culture.
Cooking is an inspiration and a joy which enriches my life daily – even when I am noshing on a simple boiled or fried egg – if the locals can’t cook then teach them – why do we travel? to exchange the best of both worlds I hope. The Chinese people are easier and more pleasant to live with than anyone I have known in the UK (my old country) Japan! I would find it hard to visit – I have read too much history.
David