Returning from Overseas 2 從海外回來 2

Returning back also contains challenges culturally in addition to the financial ones I discussed in the last post so bear with me as I belabor this point one more time. Coming home seems like something easy to do, but often people don’t realize how much they have changed. Assuming someone has really made the effort to adjust to expatriate life 已經適應了留在海外的生活, he or she will have culture shock coming home and it will be all the more so because it is unexpected.

I hear so many little anecdotal accounts. One person doesn’t understand why he has to stand in line in the stores. Another doesn’t understand why clerks don’t greet him at the door of a convenience store 不懂為什麼要排隊. “Don’t I have to throw the trash into the truck that comes around my neighborhood daily?” Or for me every time I return, “I have to drive everywhere?” People feel out of place the first few weeks or even months.

Of course a big factor is personal connection. Those of us involved in cross-cultural marriages 跨文化的夫妻 while overseas, like myself have really adjusted. Same-culture couples will not adjust as much as expats so they don’t have to readjust when they return. I heard one pathetic story of a girl from a Western country who grew up in Taiwan, went to a local “international school” and could not piece together one sentence of Chinese 一點都不會講 by the time she was 18. She no doubt had no problem re-entering her home culture.