I’ve been meaning to write about my move from America to Australia and my experience including, but not limited to, culture shock and the differences between these two countries. Have you ever really thought about culture shock though? What exactly is it? For me it’s always been one of those words that people use in conversations when they don’t know what else to talk about, and because of that I’ve never fully understood the concept. From what I’ve gathered culture shock is the “shock” of realising the difference between one’s native culture and a foreign culture. When you think of it in those terms, however, the concept of culture shock seems kind of like a trait of ignorance; why wouldn’t you expect a foreign culture to be different from your own?
“Culture shock.” It seems to become its own question when you’re moving to a different country. The months surrounding my move from America to Australia were full of those two words. It seems to be the first thing that anyone can think of when you mention moving to a new country. “So, Jacob, I hear you’re moving to Australia! Culture shock eh?”
“Culture shock.” It seems to become its own question when you’re moving to a different country. The months surrounding my move from America to Australia were full of those two words. It seems to be the first thing that anyone can think of when you mention moving to a new country. “So, Jacob, I hear you’re moving to Australia! Culture shock eh?”
After about a month of that I was a bit sick of those two words. I’m not saying that I anticipated every single difference between America and Australia, nor will I deny that there was a couple of differences that caught me off guard. But to say that I didn’t expect a cultural environment different to my native small town farming community, that’s stretching it a bit.
As far as cultural differences go, there are some obvious ones I need to get out of the way. These would be the accent, the money, the metric system, and all the marsupials. In the US, every note is pretty much the same size and colour, and our largest coin (in size) is no bigger than a 10-cent piece. On top of that, we’re all in the bad habit of using the imperial system of measurement, which definitely gets me strange looks when I talk about the temperature being 80-90 degrees in the summer. Aside from that there were a lot of words I didn’t understand when I first got here such as petrol (gas), rubber (eraser/not gonna say), jelly vs jello vs jam, etcetera, etcetera.
Other than the new vocabulary and measurement system (which I can’t find the time or patience to learn), Australia has not been a huge cultural change overall. When I really sit back and look at it, I would venture to say that Australia reminds me of America a couple years ago; similar clothes, tv shows, ideals…
Going back to culture shock, I haven’t been to more than three different countries, other than America, in my life (Mexico, Norway, Australia) but each one has offered a unique culture and experience. To date I have never been overtly surprised by the differences between America and any other country. To me, the whole idea of culture would be pointless if it were all the same. If anything could give me culture shock, it would probably be the experience of seeing westernisation in action. I am thoroughly unimpressed with the idea of other countries turning into America and scraping their own culture to do it. Personally, I enjoy the idea of cultures being different from each other, especially different from America. Variety makes life interesting and without it, life would suck.
As far as cultural differences go, there are some obvious ones I need to get out of the way. These would be the accent, the money, the metric system, and all the marsupials. In the US, every note is pretty much the same size and colour, and our largest coin (in size) is no bigger than a 10-cent piece. On top of that, we’re all in the bad habit of using the imperial system of measurement, which definitely gets me strange looks when I talk about the temperature being 80-90 degrees in the summer. Aside from that there were a lot of words I didn’t understand when I first got here such as petrol (gas), rubber (eraser/not gonna say), jelly vs jello vs jam, etcetera, etcetera.
Other than the new vocabulary and measurement system (which I can’t find the time or patience to learn), Australia has not been a huge cultural change overall. When I really sit back and look at it, I would venture to say that Australia reminds me of America a couple years ago; similar clothes, tv shows, ideals…
Going back to culture shock, I haven’t been to more than three different countries, other than America, in my life (Mexico, Norway, Australia) but each one has offered a unique culture and experience. To date I have never been overtly surprised by the differences between America and any other country. To me, the whole idea of culture would be pointless if it were all the same. If anything could give me culture shock, it would probably be the experience of seeing westernisation in action. I am thoroughly unimpressed with the idea of other countries turning into America and scraping their own culture to do it. Personally, I enjoy the idea of cultures being different from each other, especially different from America. Variety makes life interesting and without it, life would suck.
