Reverse Culture Shock

In NL, it's a world designed around bikes

Culture Shock. That’s something you go through when you arrive in a new place, typically a foreign country, right? Yes. And no. I found myself having the strange and confusing experience of feeling the uncomfortable weight of Culture Shock this past month. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t while I was in Indonesia - I’ve gone through the most major parts of adjusting to my new residence by now - but rather it was visiting places that used to be a part of home.

This last month I was able to take a much-needed and highly-anticipated vacation. I’d been looking forward to taking my annual leave for a while, but with numerous factors up in the air, I didn’t know when it would happen, or even where I’d be traveling to. Typically, I’d be going back to my home base in California. But wedding bells were in the air for my sister, and it was looking more and more likely that I’d be taking a trip to her wedding in the Netherlands instead! And so, mid-August, I began the rather long pilgrimage to the place our family had gone so many times before in years past.

After a taxi ride, 4 flights, a night in Jakarta and a night in Doha, I was finally on the train speeding toward the Dutch town where we were all meeting up. I was going to be the first one to arrive so I felt rather grown-up, having the responsibility of getting the key and doing the shopping and keeping house for a whole night by myself. I guess one really does become a grown-up at some point in life, ha!

Everything about the journey was familiar. The crisp European air. The neatly rowed houses and tidy streets. The trains that ran like clockwork, and the green, cow-dotted pasturelands flashing by outside the window. But it was strange at the same time. There was a certain distaste about it all, something that’s hard to put into words, except that I almost felt as if I didn’t belong. That this place that I knew so well in my memories had suddenly assumed a foreign air and wasn’t mine anymore.

It was unsettling, and the sense persisted for a few days. It gradually disappeared, though, as I got in the swing of things with the family and got used to everyday life in the Netherlands again. And we had a blast—sightseeing, biking on the legendary Dutch bicycle system, and food shopping. Oh the food shopping!

Now don’t get me wrong; I eat well here in Indonesia. But when someone with European blood goes from a place that has basically one variety of bread to a country where people eat multiple kinds of bread three times a day—! I was like a kid in a…bakery. It was so much fun seeing and trying all the other interesting foods as well that I can’t get here: vegan mayonnaise, vegan cheese slices, soy yoghurt, Tartex, cheap bell peppers, lettuce, olives, the all-essential Stroopwafels, etc, etc, etc.

By the time the trip was coming to a close, I’d made the emotional progression from feeling lost in a home country to almost wishing I could settle down in Holland (if it weren’t for the miserably dreary weather the Dutch have—for 300+ days a year, I'm sure!). I gained an insight in the process, one that would help smooth the second part of my journey as I headed off for Beirut, Lebanon.

What can I say?

In reality, Beirut is even more home than Europe ever was because I actually lived in Lebanon as a child, while our family only visited Europe once a year on annual leave. The emotional dynamic of going back to that part of my previous life is complex, though. I’d already been able to visit Lebanon several times on service trips with classmates while I was in college, so it wasn’t an extremely far-removed place for me anymore. I was wondering how it would feel this time around, though.

Given what I’d just seen about how I experience reverse Culture Shock, I wasn’t surprised as I started through the same cycle again of feeling out of place and disoriented in a place I thought I was in love with. But this time I didn’t have to feel worried. Because I knew I would fall in love with the place once again. And I did.

Yes, I hate the pollution, the incessant traffic, the trash washing up on the coast. But there’s something irresistible about this country next to the sparkling Mediterranean, with its its sloping city-covered mountains twinkling with ten thousand lights at night, and the savors of its unique foods wafting through the air as you walk through its bustling streets. I find myself missing it even more as I write.

I had one more taste of Culture Shock when my vacation time ended, and that was coming back to where I currently live. It hasn’t been overwhelmingly strong. And I know it will get better. But there are some aspects about this whole global lifestyle thing I don’t think I’ll ever get used to. As I stepped inside the house, the first thing to hit me was a sense of loneliness, the realization I was on my own again, my family spread out across the world.

I think one thing I’m going to love the most about Heaven is that we won’t ever have to say goodbye again. To me, life is the fullest when you’re with the people you love the most. I am so much looking forward to being back together with everyone, and this time for good. There’s Someone else who feels the same way too. “I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” “I desire that they…may be with Me where I am…” John 14:3, 17:24.