I’m getting lazy with upating this, will eventually get around to sorting out the whole website again…

Want to add some of my thoughts on the reverse culture shock thing that happens when you come back to your home country after a while outside. I’m in a weird stage at the moment, past the initial moments but yet to fully assimilate everything.
I found this breakdown of the stages to RCS and have added a few personal thought to them:
STAGE 1: Disengagement

While you are still abroad, you begin to start thinking about moving back home and moving away from your overseas experience and friends.

Yes, very true – especially in the last few weeks/months, start to look forward to getting back home and seeing family/freinds again.

STAGE 2: Euphoria

You may be very excited to be back in your own country and others may be equally delighted to have you back. After people express their pleasure at seeing you again, and listen politely to your stories for a while, you may suddenly and/or painfully realize that they are not particularly interested in what happened to you and would much rather prefer to talk about their own affairs.

Yes true to an extent, though depends on whom you’re talking to. Do notice that most people I know have absolutly no idea what my life was like in China. Really no idea at all. I think It’s very hard for them to imagine what it was like and so perhaps they are more interested in talking about things here in the UK. I know that relating to people is hard, especially if you talk about thing they can’t imagine and they talk about things you don’t know anything of – i.e. anything to do with popluar culture etc!

I just try to keep as busy and occupied as possible, always doing something or other. Whether its work, or visting people or places or just walking somewhere, I find it makes things much easier.

STAGE 3: Alienation

In this stage, you experience dampened euphoria with feelings of alienation, frustration and anger. You may even feel like an outsider – a foreigner in your own country. It will be different from how you remembered it (The pollution may be worse. The pace may be more hurried and hectic, etc.) Suddenly you feel irritated with others and impatient with your own inability to do things as well or as quickly as you hoped. Resentment, loneliness, disorientation and even a sense of helplessness may per vade.

I think I’m in this stage at the moment, I agree things are different from before (It’s not just me 😀 ) and generally I would say they are for the worse. Yes, It’s very easy to get annoyed at other peoples behaviour but for me it’s more of the whole culture of everything that annoys me most – The general way people think and act.
I often see this as myopic and ignorant a general narrow view of life. However, I also see many many positive, great aspects to life here – people are so comfortable, there is no poverty, no food shortages, the police actually do their job, there is much legislation to protect individuals interests, – you can easily live a very comfortable life. So I see why people are like this but on the other hand it really makes me wonder – can I live my life like this?

For most people this is a no-brainer, and the answer is I think is if you live here all your life, in the same area, surrounded by the same influences then you know nothing else. It is comfortable so why risk change!

STAGE 4: Gradual Readjustment

The fourth stage of reentry includes a gradual readjustment to life at home. During this stage, you will no longer be shocked by the variety you find on the supermarket shelves and be able to contain your comments about differences between cultures that come to your attention. If you have difficulty filtering out the foreign words in your conversation, you will find that your English-only conversational skills will improve during stage four.

I’m sure ´Culture Shock´ and ´Reverse Culture Shock´ are real issues and should be considered carefully by anyone who travels overseas for long periods of time. There is no doubt that travelling is an extremely healthy thing to do, it is not only adventurous but we gains insight into our own lives from people and their traditions of Countries we visit. It is also a helpful way to be objective about where we are from, our own lives and a slow process of building more trust in the world as we share more and more of our own native lands with people we historically have deemed to be outsiders.

I’m not at this stage yet, guess it will take more time. I believe there is a part of me that thinks by re-adjusting totally I would be losing things that I have gained from living In China. Also I have this horrible fear that once I’ve ‘readjusted’ I will become like most other people who live here and become stuck in my cocoon, narrow minded, even not wanting to go back to China again. I know many people who, once settled and into this mindset have changed their views on life and have assimilated back into the grind of everyday life. I do not want that to happen to me, but I don’t want to be an outsider. It’s difficult.
I have a theory, I think that perhaps it is not such a good thing to assimilate into everything here, I may live, work,eat, breathe here but I will keep my mind open. However, when you are subjected to living in a culture, you take in thoughts subconsciously- whether this through media or whatever- and I think this has an impact on the way you act/think/do things whether you like it or not!

Extremely busy! Gradually adjusting to life here, still is going to take months not weeks -if ever- to get fully back into things!

Also, there really isn’t much to write about, things just aren’t that interesting!

Trying to re-adjust not just to the surroundings, but to the way I’m doing things myself. I have picked up Chinese ways of doing things and here they can sometimes not be so useful!

I’m trying to store away the ‘China’ habits that are not so accepted here, like crossing roads whenever I see a small gap in the traffic, pointing and using lots of body language, using the Chinese hand gestures for numbers (totally useless here), not saying ‘please ‘and ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ all the time, standing too close to people in queues, always on my toes to get on the train before anyone else (much to the consternation of others).

And other things mostly related to language and being overly direct, that is, getting straight to the point perhaps sounding like an oaf to others…

Whilst at the same time, trying to keep those many good habits I’ve picked up. Like starting early, saving, cooking, walking, using public transport and wearing clothes for more than 1 day 😉 (Unfortunately others don’t understand this, and would assume I’m ‘dirty’ – so probably best not to do this :D)
There are other small things, take for example, not wearing slippers or sandals every time you enter a home. Just socks feels odd , there is definitely something missing! So I now wear sandals in the house despite it being carpeted, out of habit more than anything else!
It’s probably not surprising how being away alters your perception of things, especially things you previously did. There are some things that I previously never even considered or thought about, that I now have opinions on or I think about. I notice things that others do not, especially the more negative aspects to life.
I often find myself asking ‘why do people do things this way?‘ and their response is simply ‘that’s how its always been done!’ Knowing no other way.

I think once you’re used to doing something, you don’t think so much about why- just do it.

I think my being in China has caused me to develop this ‘rose-tinted vision’ of how things are back home, when the reality is, of course, quite different and so I notice things.

When I was in China, even though I lived there for almost 3 years, subconsciously I could always say to myself ‘This is China, if I don’t fully understand why things are like this then – so be it!’ I could accept that things are different. But being in your own country and not liking what you see, this doesn’t apply.

Ok, I’ve only been back 3 weeks or so, but I find the ‘culture’ -for want of a better word- a little backwards! Only now I fully understand the very good aspects to Chinese society that have been long dead in the UK.A good illustration of this is in the prices people pay for goods and services. The UK is so ‘developed’ that you throw things away, because financially speaking it’s not worth fixing. There isn’t the care paid to things, knowing that they can be replaced cheaply. Everything is disposable and short term. China is also short-term, but in other ways – at least there, anything can be fixed.
Take Fruit & veg. Healthy food is more expensive than pre-packed, ready-made junk food.

Indeed People pay a premium to eat ‘good’ food, so you have the bizarre situation where people who cant afford/don’t eat healthy food are fat, or often obese – whereas in China its the opposite of course.

There are so many other situations where I see other things like this, I think that as ‘developed’ the UK is, there are many aspects to life here that are worse than in a place like China. I think most of these issues stem from people having more money, less free time in their lives than they once had, and the commercialisation- instant society- that has developed.

In China I seldom watched the news because who wants to watch one-sided-broadcasting in a foreign language? Here I also don’t watch the news anymore, but for other reasons. It just annoys me listening to other people speak about irrelevant subjects and things in such narrow, insular ways. I also find myself correcting language mistakes (even though my English is also bad! ) – well it used to be my job! 🙂 – the way the English language is changing I won’t be surprised that in say 50 years, dialect will be so thick you’ll need interpreters from one English to the next!

So been back 5 days or so, still getting used to things around here. It’s exciting and different, Will take quite a while for it to all soak in, I think. Not really sure what to think, still processing it all…
But one thing is certain – It’s one thing going to a new country to live for the first time, quite another coming back to your home country after a period away.

I have begun to realise just how developed things are in the UK and also how comfortable people live their lives. It is very affluent here, people are less concerned with the harsh realities of life, things like TV and popular culture seem more important. I think It is very insular here. I believe there are many problems here caused by people generally having too much money.

I’m still not used to seeing green grass, breathing clean air, not used to walking down the road and not seeing any other people, not used to seeing so many vehicles on the road, not used to seeing everything in English – what no characters!

There are no real poor people here (In comparision to Changchun), signs are everywhere telling me what I can’t do, even though It’s plainly obvious… A total dependence on cars, pre-prepared meals, instant gratification, buy now pay later attitude – Certainly different from what I’m used to!

Other striking thing is, of course, language. Interesting use of words , interesting pronunciation, lots of dialect and slang – indeed I would say that even the best students that I had taught would find it very difficult to understand most people here.
I feel as if things have changed since I’ve been away, but It could just be me! I’m not sure.

Things are clean, ordered, regimented, and I think after a while this will be a little boring from my perspective!

Life may be better in many respects here, but it is I think it is duller because it is so much more predictable – which is probably a good thing in many ways.
I guess If you never leave here for a while, you’ll never have the chance to even see things from another perspective and that surely is a bad thing, just takes a while to get used to things again.