My Culture Shock

The first day of our class we talked about culture shock and did a worksheet about intercultural skills. My top three skills were “to learn from interacting,” “to listen and observe” and “to be able to communicate.” I thought those were the most important for me when it comes to intercultural skills.

I came to Montana for high school when I was fifteen years old and I for sure had culture shock. Pretty much in most of Asian countries, like Japan, China and Korea, the children had to learn English at a very young age. I think I started when I was third grade. But now kids start in first grade or even in kindergarten. So I knew some English before I came. However, I remembered myself struggle with communicating with others. Not because of the language (yes a little for sure but not mostly) but caused by the cultural differences. I remembered myself being quite, depressed at first. I have always see myself as an outgoing person, at least when I was in China. But since I got here I didn't like to talk with others. I found it hard to communicate with other people, the culture different and language just made it even harder. I became quite and depressed. I liked to be by myself and do things on my own. The longer I have been here, my culture shock gets less. I mean, culture shock is a very complicated thing. Sometimes it gets you and you become depressed and sad all of the sudden. But more often, you don't feel anything and you try hard to have fun and enjoy the new environment.