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CULTURE SHOCK (part 1)
Let's see what my cat's curiosity and my wild cat's patience revealed. Culture shock is described in the Wikipedia as "the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration".... The immigrants go through one or more cultural stages, this is what the internet claims. What I write about sheds some light on my individual and my family's cultural experiences. By "my family," I mean my family at the time. I have the same daughter, but a new husband, who truly did not know what marrying a Bulgarian woman means. It means you are in Heaven and Hell at the same time, until you forget the difference between the two. Ha,ha,ha.
The first stage of the culture shock is described as the "Honeymoon stage." Well, who does not like a honeymoon, unless you are getting married because your parents want you to be married, or you are 3-months pregnant and just about to make it clear to everyone you have been having too much fun around.
In good families, the honeymoon stage lasts "till death do us part." It was not like that in my case, but let's stay focused. We had no friends speaking our language in America, we jumped right into the new world having no clue how deep the water was, not to mention the fact that my daughter and I didn't know how to swim.... I just knew what Forest Gump's mama told him: "Life is like a box of chocolates, Forest. You never know what you are gonna get."
With this mindset, I liked what I saw in America. I knew it was new and maybe always would be new to me; it was vibrant, colorful, beautiful houses with small yards and flowers. Don't get me started on the cars. Yes, God forgive me, I was jealous of the guy who had the Porche and had left it right in front on the street. In Georgetown, one of the rich areas of Washington, D.C., there were many beautiful cars I stared at. But the Porche, I still remember. What I knew about cars was squeezed in between The Russian Lada and The Eastern German plastic Trabant.
Once I immigrated, I was not looking back. I was not feeling sad or exulted. I knew exactly where I was. I wanted to be there. You can not psychoanalyze feelings, personalities, reactions of the rest of the population. If you want to do something and you did it, no one cares about your complaints after that. You just suck it up (sorry for my language.) "Fresh off the boat", I had to march into the world of "Just do whatever it takes to make it within the limits of the law."
Somehow in the midst of it all, I felt relaxed. I felt totally in control of my life. In this chaos of babysitting, poverty, eating noodle soup - 5 cents/piece; hot dogs - 25 cents a package, I believed a new life is coming - new family relations, new friends, everything new. I did not foresee anything negative.
In communist times, the government was making plans all the time. Planning about 5 years ahead. I am still into the habit of planning all the time, but only for tomorrow.
My family unit at the time was shaky, to say the least, friends had taken their own path in life. Many nights were spent crying from exhaustion, but I knew I have a lot to build.
What I did not know was that American houses are built from wood, not bricks. You build them fast and destroy them even faster. But this did not happen in the "Honeymoon stage."
To be continued....
Are the immigrants shocked, or are we all living in the world of a shocking culture? Since I am discussing the early '90s, I will take bravely the subject of "culture shock," as well as the "shocking culture" the immigrant from Eastern Europe finds in America. Yes, I will talk bravely - afterall, I am brave enough to get into your living room and you - the Americans, were brave enough not to take out a gun and point it at me. You offered me a chair to sit, I sat down and looked around for what else you would offer me. You did not know me. I came out of nowhere. I knew you from the books and the literature. I knew about democracy and slavery (what a comparison); I knew about your education system and hey, rock 'n' roll.
Let's see what my cat's curiosity and my wild cat's patience revealed. Culture shock is described in the Wikipedia as "the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration".... The immigrants go through one or more cultural stages, this is what the internet claims. What I write about sheds some light on my individual and my family's cultural experiences. By "my family," I mean my family at the time. I have the same daughter, but a new husband, who truly did not know what marrying a Bulgarian woman means. It means you are in Heaven and Hell at the same time, until you forget the difference between the two. Ha,ha,ha.
The first stage of the culture shock is described as the "Honeymoon stage." Well, who does not like a honeymoon, unless you are getting married because your parents want you to be married, or you are 3-months pregnant and just about to make it clear to everyone you have been having too much fun around.
In good families, the honeymoon stage lasts "till death do us part." It was not like that in my case, but let's stay focused. We had no friends speaking our language in America, we jumped right into the new world having no clue how deep the water was, not to mention the fact that my daughter and I didn't know how to swim.... I just knew what Forest Gump's mama told him: "Life is like a box of chocolates, Forest. You never know what you are gonna get."
With this mindset, I liked what I saw in America. I knew it was new and maybe always would be new to me; it was vibrant, colorful, beautiful houses with small yards and flowers. Don't get me started on the cars. Yes, God forgive me, I was jealous of the guy who had the Porche and had left it right in front on the street. In Georgetown, one of the rich areas of Washington, D.C., there were many beautiful cars I stared at. But the Porche, I still remember. What I knew about cars was squeezed in between The Russian Lada and The Eastern German plastic Trabant.
Once I immigrated, I was not looking back. I was not feeling sad or exulted. I knew exactly where I was. I wanted to be there. You can not psychoanalyze feelings, personalities, reactions of the rest of the population. If you want to do something and you did it, no one cares about your complaints after that. You just suck it up (sorry for my language.) "Fresh off the boat", I had to march into the world of "Just do whatever it takes to make it within the limits of the law."
Somehow in the midst of it all, I felt relaxed. I felt totally in control of my life. In this chaos of babysitting, poverty, eating noodle soup - 5 cents/piece; hot dogs - 25 cents a package, I believed a new life is coming - new family relations, new friends, everything new. I did not foresee anything negative.
In communist times, the government was making plans all the time. Planning about 5 years ahead. I am still into the habit of planning all the time, but only for tomorrow.
My family unit at the time was shaky, to say the least, friends had taken their own path in life. Many nights were spent crying from exhaustion, but I knew I have a lot to build.
What I did not know was that American houses are built from wood, not bricks. You build them fast and destroy them even faster. But this did not happen in the "Honeymoon stage."
To be continued....
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