Review:
Cross-Cultural Reentry
is a very helpful collection of individual essays on aspects of re-entry into
one’s home culture from a sojourn overseas (Cross-Cultural Reentry, Ed. Clyde Austin, Abilene Christian University, 1986).
Chapters are applicable to
international students, missionaries, missionary kids, third culture people,
business people and those in the Foreign Service or the military. The essays
are insightful, sufficiently research-based and very practical. It is an
excellent resource book on this topic.
Kudos for Dr. Clyde Austin, the editor.
Mary
Lou Codman-Wilson, Ph.D.3/18/1
Excerpts
I. Re-entry Issues
“Coming Home, Adjustment
of Americans of the United States after Living Abroad” Sidney Werkman
1. Special competencies
“There are special competencies that are required in living overseas-competencies
that help people adapt to new situations successfully.” (For example, they
learn to take the Paris metro successfully, to interact tactfully with a wide
variety of people, to converse about restaurants, museums, monuments and
political parties throughout the world.) Mastery of these bits and pieces on
knowledge…contributes to an aura of distinctiveness…Such competencies are of
little use when a person returns to his original home. As one returnee said,
‘the people back home don’t care about how I’ve lived, whom I’ve met, what I’ve
done, who I am now. They ask questions, but they don’t care about the answers’”
(pp. 9, 10). The
lack of interest is discouraging for the returnee.
2. Separation and loss
“Returnees leave a significant part of themselves behind
when they give up a foreign life…Unfinished tasks, unfulfilled dreams must be
dropped or forgotten…Adjustment may at times cover over a host of barely
contained feelings of uncertainty, alienation, anger and disappointment…There
can be long-lasting feelings of being restless, rootless, out of place” (pp. 10, 12).
3. Observers not active social participants
“Returnees tend to view life in comparative terms and
characterize themselves as observers rather than active participants in social
experience” (p. 15).
“A Strategy for managing cultural transitions”
Art
Freedman
4. Conflict
“Upon reentering their native culture…people are likely to
discover, much to their surprise, that they cannot simply pick up where they
left off…Their friends, family members and work associates did not go into
hibernation when they were away. Not only that, those who stayed behind have no
way of knowing how the migrants were affected by their experiences…They (the
returnees) are expected to be very much the same. However, to the extent that
they really did allow themselves to become immersed in the foreign culture,
they will not be the same people they used to be. They will walk, talk, think
and feel in ways that are strange and perhaps unheard of to the citizens of
their home culture” (p.
23).
As a result, “the citizens of a person’s native culture…can
be expected to exhort a considerable amount of pressure on the returning
cross-cultural traveler to give up his or her strange and unpredictable
behaviors and to return to the comfortably predictable person they once
knew…People who are important to us inform us that unless we return to our
culture’s traditional norms and standards, we risk being excluded and isolated.
We may be asked to feel bad or guilty about what our behavior is doing to
people about whom we care” (pp. 23-24).
“Culture Shock in Reverse”
James
Corey
5. Old cultural patterns in the home culture
(Dr. Corey was a professor in Saudi Arabia for 10 years and
he tracked Ph.D. students from Saudi who went to America to study and then
returned to Saudi…He describes the frustration, anger, disillusionment of Ph.D.
students returning to their native Saudi Arabia “with the expectation that they
will be an instrument of change, of progress in their native land” (p. 155).
They hoped to “move Saudi Arabia into industrial utopia and
out of cultural backwardness. Yet, so far, each young man has been confronted
with the same cruel dilemma: if he wishes to assume a role in the challenging
and prospering area of technological development, he must give up any plans to
tamper directly with the cultural life of the country…Cultural traditions that
he never questioned as a boy growing up in a squatty brown village now dismay him
by their barbarity and their irrationality. He is shocked by the backwardness.
His mother and sisters still cannot go out in the streets without abyah
(burkah) his sisters have no choice of whom or when they marry. He himself will
marry a girl he has probably never spoken to or seen. Women he knows will die
because their men will not allow male doctors to examine and treat them” (pp. 155-156).
“In business, paying off men of influence is the accepted
mode of operation. And the legal system is inadequate to cope with the
corruption…The problems of corruption and incompetence are the most devastating
ills of a developing country, but the returning PHD is almost powerless to do
anything about them. He is paralyzed by time-honored cultural patterns. Direct
criticism is culturally taboo” (p. 156).
“Can They Go Home
Again?” Richard
Brislin and H. Van Buren IV
6. Feeling isolated
“People who have adjusted well overseas and can accept new
ideas find it difficult to go home ‘since his new ideas conflict with tradition’…He
can find no internationally minded people and finds no stimulation in the
country he already knows so well” (p. 220).
One returnee said, “I’m afraid to go back to my old self. It
is so easy to return to your old self. It is so easy to return to your old
shell and adjust yourself to other people’s expectations. The hardest thing is
to keep and develop what I have learned here” (in the foreign culture) (p. 222).
7. Short term adjustments
“Adjust to short-term problems first, i.e., remembering the custom
of which sex walks through the door first. For returnees who want to change
their old culture,…try to change small or more manageable aspects, rather than
the culture as a whole. One returnee said, ‘I want to put the new math, from my
curriculum studies in the States, into my school. But before I can even plan
any new curriculum, I must convince my principal and the staff of the school
that this is a worthwhile change. There is strong resistance, especially from
older teachers…I believe it may take me two years before I can convince the
staff to let me try my new ideas. But I think it’s very important that I not
give up, but keep trying” (p.
223).
8. Unexpected
situations
“Unexpected
situations and special concerns” Campus Crusade for Christ, Training Department of
International Resources
a. “Did not expect to arrive (back
in one’s home country) feeling so physically and emotionally drained. Suggestion:
Schedule in several transition days of rest and relaxation between departure
and home arrival…
b. Did not
expect to feel so foreign upon return. Suggestion: make yourself aware
of changes at home before you return…
c. Did not
expect readjustment to take so long (more than a few days). Suggestion:
It is natural for readjustment to take some time – more for some than others...
d. Did not
expect to be a “third culture person” upon return – not able to re-identify
fully with one’s own culture. Suggestion:
Once you have absorbed some of the host culture, you will never be able to
fully return to the past way of life. See this as a positive benefit…
e. Expected
things to be pretty much the same back home. Suggestion: Actively look
for changes instead of allowing them to take you by surprise…
f. Did not
expect my own personal values to have changed so much. Suggestion: The
extent of change can only be truly measured against the standard of being back
in one’s own culture. Attempt to define
the changes that have taken place…
g. Did not
expect to feel so uncertain in interpersonal relationships Suggestion:
You will need to relearn certain cultural bases for relationships, different
levels of commitment etc….
h. Did not
expect others to see or understand things in a different way than you do. Suggestion:
Remember it is your perspective which has changed, not theirs…
i. Did not
expect others to show such a lack of interest in hearing about your
experiences. Suggestion: Take it as a fact that others are usually not
able to relate to your experiences as you would wish. Some are just NOT
interested…
j. Did not
expect to be so appalled at the values of society. Suggestion: Be
prepared for the possibility of a greater gap between your moral values and
those of your own culture…
k. Did not
expect family to be so possessive after initial return. Suggestion: Be
sure to assure them that you are not ‘lost’ to them and love them. Avoid coming on too heavy about your
experience overseas…
l. Did not
expect to feel so lonely. Suggestion: Especially if you have established
deep relationships overseas, it is natural that you feel the loss of these
friendships. Actively seek out new relationships
at home.” (pp. 239-246).
II. Other Recommendations
for Successful Reentry
1. “Students should adapt their studies abroad to their
native cultural context, not bring American answers that don’t work back home” (Corey, Ibid., p. 158).
2. “The findings of a number of studies (Borus 1973b; Hamburg and Adams, 1967; Silber, Coelho,
Murphey, Hamburg, Pearlin and Rosenberg, 1961; Werkman, 1977) have
agreed that the following attitudes and strategies are central to the
achievement of successful transitions:
The person who
makes life transitions successfully seeks out advance information about the new
situation to be mastered
Finds ways to
try out the new behaviors and attitudes required
Utilizes
peer-group interactions to gain support
Tests out new
behaviors
And learns about values needed in a
new situation.
He recalls successful experiences
in the past when confronted with new challenges” (Werkman,
Ibid, p. 14).
“Rules for Reentry” Dick Irish
4. Six suggestions
1. Take time to get readjusted. “The shock of reentry often clouds good judgment…and results in poor decision-making” (p. 231).2. If looking for a job, spend money. It takes money to find a job. Budget enough money to live comfortable for a year while you transition (p. 232).3. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself” (p. 232).4. “Translate overseas experiences into marketable domestic qualifications” (p. 233).5. Focus on your resume on ‘accomplishments and results abroad and how they translate into needs in your home country’ (p. 234).6. Network. “Use other people to help you think through what to do next” (p. 235). “The two important predictors on success on a job are motivation and ability” (p. 237).7. “When returning home, be sure to remain tied with the people you met overseas and discover where, in your home culture, you can meet others with similar international orientations” (Brislin, Ibid., p. 226).