Quotes & Sayings About Culture Shock

Our culture has filled our heads but emptied our hearts, stuffed our wallets but starved our wonder. It has fed our thirst for facts but not for meaning or mystery. It produces "nice" people, not heroes. — Peter Kreeft

There is a difference between arrival and entrance. Arrival is physical and happens all at once. The train pulls in, the plan touches down, you get out of the taxi with all your luggage. You can arrive a place and never really enter it; you get there, look around, take a few pictures, make a few notes, send postcards home. When you travel like this, you think you know where you are, but, in fact, you have never left home. Entering takes longer. You cross over, slowly, in bits and pieces. [ ... ] It is like awakening slowly, over a period of weeks. And then one morning, you open your eyes and you are finally here, really and truly here. You are just beginning to know where you are. — Jamie Zeppa

one is that you attain the goal and realize the shocking realization that attaining the goal does not complete or redeem you, does not make everything for your life "OK " as you are, in the culture, educated to assume it will do this, the goal. And then you face this fact that what you had thought would have the meaning does not have the meaning when you get it, and you are impaled by shock. — David Foster Wallace

My biggest fear was public speaking, and then having everyone know who I was, it was definitely weird at first. When I first won, it was definitely a culture shock, it was something I wasn't quite ready for. — Chris Moneymaker

Such techniques, including meta-discursive stuff, self-reference, irony, black humor, cynicism, grotesquerie and shock, it would be safe to say that television or televisual values rule the culture. Television is successfully using a lot of those same techniques but using them for a very different agenda, which is to sort of create an ethos and please people and to sell products to consumers. — David Foster Wallace

When I was 24 I went to Nigeria and it was such a culture shock, growing up in Australia and suddenly being the only white man in this unit full of black men. — Bruce Beresford

My own preference, as a reader, for this sort of book, is to experience the closest possible equivalent to culture shock. I want to go to new, strange places, feel lost, and then (probably with quite a few subtle nudges on the author's part) gradually figure out where I am and what the heck's going on. As a reader, I enjoy few things more. From feedback, I know that I'm not alone in that, but also that some readers find it too demanding. But it's impossible to take care of both sides of that particular aisle at once. If you make it through the book, though, then go back and reread the beginning, you may find that you actually enjoy it this time, because everything's as coherent as I was able to make it, and you already know where you are. — William Gibson

We moved to Gambia from Sweden when I was six years old because my dad was from there. It was definitely a culture shock. — Seinabo Sey

Who said anything about panicking?' snapped Arthur. 'This is still just the culture shock. You wait till I've settled down into the situation and found my bearings. Then I'll start panicking! — Douglas Adams

The culture is just so coarse that you have to take it to that level and people will be like, 'Whoa!' And then you can make people think about stuff. It's kind of like shock therapy. — Matt Stone

If I'd grown up in Atlanta and then gone to Ottumwa, Iowa it may have been culture shock, but I was used to being in a small town and used to seeing the same people all the time and going to the same grocery store every day, so it wasn't that big of a deal for me. I was just excited to be on TV. I was just jumping for joy when I got there. I wasn't making any money, but I was sure happy. — Todd Grisham

Negotiating these expectations as female-socialized men, transmen can develop a gender "double consciousness" (Du Bois 1903).3 They simultaneously inhabit social space as men and maintain, to varying degrees, an internal repertoire of female-socialized interactional strategies. This double consciousness can generate culture shock as they struggle to synthesize two identities-a female history and a male social identity-that natural differences schemas position as opposing. To gain gender competency, transmen study the idealized qualities that make up a hegemonic understanding of masculinity. As — Kristen Schilt

I love travelling, but I have to admit I didn't initially take to Agra in India. As soon as you arrive, someone wants to show you around, take your bags or sell you something - and it's just a bit of a culture shock. You just have to make the necessary mental adjustment to the setting. — Dexter Fletcher

Places like India can give you a real culture shock because of the poverty you see, and it brings you up sharply. — Terry Wogan

With courage of adventure, you can overcome the culture shock in a visit to a new country. — Lailah Gifty Akita

When i've done camera test, after we've shot and I've seen the monitor with the glasses (wearing a Kimono) and looking by myself in 3D. Oh my god. Especially for a Samurai film. I've never seen that. It's kind of a culture shock. — Hiroyuki Sanada

Once you get over the culture shock, Filey is a pleasant spot, particularly at the beginning or end of the summer, when the hotels are half full. The brave go in winter, when the wind can be bitter and biting and Filey resumes its real life as a tiny, introverted fishing community. — David Hewson

When I made 'Who Needs Pictures,' my first album, I had been west of the Mississippi River one time in my life, and that was in fourth grade. We traveled to California for vacation and stayed with some friends of my parents. It was culture shock, and it was different. — Brad Paisley

Hereditary monarchy offers numerous advantages for America. It is the only form of government able to unify a heterogeneous people. Thanks to centuries of dynastic marriage, the family tree of every royal house is an ethnic grab bag with something for everybody. We need this badly; America is the only country in the world where you can suffer culture shock without leaving home. We can't go on much longer depending upon disasters like Pearl Harbor and the Iranian hostage-taking to bring us together. — Florence King

It was a huge mistake," Chris recalls. "I had a real case of culture shock. I was a crew-cut kid who had been working as a ranch hand in the summers in Montana, and there I was, with a whole bunch of long-haired city kids, most of them from New York. And these kids had a whole different style than I was used to. I couldn't get a word in edgewise at class. They were very inquisitive. Asking questions all the time. I was crammed into a dorm room. There were four of us, and the other three guys had a whole different other lifestyle. They were smoking pot. They would bring their girlfriends into the room. I had never smoked pot before. So basically I took to hiding in the library. — Malcolm Gladwell

But these gains in freedom for both men and women often seem like a triumph of subtraction rather than addition. Over time, writes Coontz, Americans have come to define liberty "negatively, as lack of dependence, the right not to be obligated to others. Independence came to mean immunity from social claims on one's wealth or time." If this is how you conceive of liberty - as freedom from obligation - then the transition to parenthood is a dizzying shock. Most Americans are free to choose or change spouses, and the middle class has at least a modicum of freedom to choose or change careers. But we can never choose or change our children. They are the last binding obligation in a culture that asks for almost no other permanent commitments at all. — Jennifer Senior

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, she became a butterfly. — Barbara Haines Howett

One, one is that you attain the goal and realize the shocking realization that attaining the goal does not complete or redeem
you, does not make everything for your life "OK " as you are, in the culture, educated to assume it will do this, the goal. And then you face this fact that what you had
thought would have the meaning does not have the meaning when you get it, and you are impaled by shock. We see suicides in
history by people at these pinnacles; the children here are versed in what is called the saga of Eric Clipperton — David Foster Wallace

Ruby clapped her hands in glee and gave a comedic wiggle of her head, Bollywood style.

I know the song now, can even sing it, but back then all I heard was the verdant Punjabi, the striking primary colours of the five rivers, the intricate history of a complex land. — Ruth Ahmed

You experience other cultures to give you a kind of shock that makes you look at your own culture. You appreciate it more as a result of being out of it, but you also realise there are some things lacking in your culture. — Mem Fox

We live in a culture where the one who shouts the loudest gets the most attention. It's not in the vulgar, it's not in the shock that one finds art. And it's not the excessively beautiful. It's in between; it's in nuance. — Duane Michals

Moving to London was a culture shock, but in a really good way. I'm more aware now, and I'm less trusting of people in the music industry. — Nina Nesbitt

I'd hoped the language might come on its own, the way it comes to babies, but people don't talk to foreigners the way they talk to babies. They don't hypnotize you with bright objects and repeat the same words over and over, handing out little treats when you finally say "potty" or "wawa." It got to the point where I'd see a baby in the bakery or grocery store and instinctively ball up my fists, jealous over how easy he had it. I wanted to lie in a French crib and start from scratch, learning the language from the ground floor up. I wanted to be a baby, but instead, I was an adult who talked like one, a spooky man-child demanding more than his fair share of attention.
Rather than admit defeat, I decided to change my goals. I told myself that I'd never really cared about learning the language. My main priority was to get the house in shape. The verbs would come in due time, but until then I needed a comfortable place to hide. — David Sedaris

The NBA is a culture shock for college kids, and even more so for kids from another country. The NBA is a unique environment, so there is going to be transition for any young kid, but I think coming from another country and culture is even harder. It does take a special toughness and confidence to deal with that, especially since a lot of times you don't play a lot as a young player. — Austin Ainge

Must have been quite the culture shock, going there."
"Yes it was." Idris doesn't say that the real culture shock has been in coming back. — Khaled Hosseini

When that truth of alien intervention in our planet's affairs and our ongoing contact with an alien culture is finally revealed, it won't be frightening even though it will be a shock. — Philip J. Corso

When I was younger, living in an all-black neighborhood the other kids thought I was better than them because of my light skin and straight hair. Then we moved to an all-white neighborhood and that was a culture shock ... I'd been used to being around all black kids. — Halle Berry

I find, on my own travels, that the most depressing form of culture shock is experienced when you go into a country that is under the thumb of a dictator. — Arthur Frommer

After the stretch of weather we've had, this is going to be a culture shock for some people. We always end up crashing back to reality. — Paul Gross

The next stage, culture shock or cultural fatigue, may follow as the newcomer is increasingly frustrated by disorienting cultural cues. Deprivation of the familiar may cause a loss of self-esteem, depression, anger, or withdrawal. The severity of this shock will vary as a function of the personality of the individual, the emotional support available, and the perceived or actual differences between the two cultures. — Lynne T. Diaz-Rico

I moved from Italy to Oregon in the '80s - sort of like moving to the middle of a "Duck Dynasty" episode, which was massive culture shock to say the least. — Rose McGowan

I foresee death by culture shock. — Woody Allen

The whole culture of wearing flags on our lapel and saying 'we' when referring to the United States and, even the 'shock and awe' of the initial stages, it was just too jubilant and just a little uncomfortable. — Katie Couric

Every fact of science was once damned. Every invention was considered impossible. Every discovery was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy. Every artistic innovation was denounced as fraud and folly. The entire web of culture and 'progress,' everything on earth that is man-made and not given to us by nature, is the concrete manifestation of some man's refusal to bow to Authority. We would own no more, know no more, and be no more than the first apelike hominids if it were not for the rebellious, the recalcitrant, and the intransigent. As Oscar Wilde truly said, 'Disobedience was man's Original Virtue. — Robert Anton Wilson

One of the things I tend to do is open myself up to a variety of voices. I try to expose myself to the kind of culture shock that occurs when you talk to people who speak a different language. — Pierre Omidyar

I call on the Iranian people: it is not too late to replace the corrupt regime and return to your glorious Persian heritage, a heritage of culture and values and not of bombs and missiles ... How can a nation allow a regime to instill fear, take away the people's freedom and shock the young generation that seeks its way out of the dictatorial Iran. — Shimon Peres

In 2001, I moved from Philly to Atlanta, where I lived for six years. I had never lived anywhere but Philly, and you can imagine the culture shock; the Civil War seeps into daily life and conversation down South in a way it never does up North. — Karen Abbott

When I was in Taiwan, we were there for about 8 months, and I was 11 at the time, so it was definitely a culture shock. But it was a really interesting time to be there. I didn't entirely realize how different it is from the States. I just accepted it because I was there and my parents needed to be there. — David Lambert

When I arrived in America, I experienced serious culture shock. For someone with a religious upbringing, the 1960s were an extremely difficult time. Even though religion was a big part of the civil rights and peace movements, in my college religion was treated as irrelevant, hopelessly stodgy, and behind the times. — Feisal Abdul Rauf

We're going to be surprised when we discover that things in Heaven are normal and natural, much like this life. Of course, it will be better, much more beautiful and supernatural, without all the troubles, trials, tribulations, suffering, tears and pain we have here. However, it will still be enough like this life that we will survive the change and not suffer some sort of traumatic culture shock. It'll be life very much like we're living now, only without the bad and evil. — David Berg

A lot of people don't know the culture shock of how you can be in a rich area and then be in poverty. People don't know how different it is over there. — Wiz Khalifa

So desensitized to violence they've forgotten it's to have purpose. Violence is a tool. It is meant to shock. To change. Instead, they normalize and celebrate it. And create a culture of exploitation where they are so entitled to sex and power that when they are told no, they pull a sword and do as they like. — Pierce Brown

Olympia was a town crawling with music. I was new to the whole punk scene. The culture shock continued; Olympia had bagels! We didn't have bagels in Arkansas. You could order vegetarian food all over town! It was so crazy to me - a place with so many vegetarians, the restaurants made special dishes for them? — Beth Ditto

One of the sure signs that we have been co-opted by our culture is that, like frogs in the proverbial kettle, we have grown comfortable with things that should shock us and mobilize us to action. We no longer feel the heat of outrage against things that anger God. We have so embraced the American dream that we can no longer see or feel the world's nightmare of poverty, suffering, and hopelessness. — Richard Stearns

Amazing that you can get a cappuccino at a gas station in L.A. at four in the morning and you can't buy a stamp at the post office in Sofia. — Annie Ward

The idyllic mayhem of two cultures colliding just doesn't seem as funny anymore. — Kris Kidd

When I left the U.S. for the first time, I spent my first year abroad in Japan. That culture shock and abundance of new stimuli combined with a lack of guidance forced me to develop my own approaches to learning and juggling. — Timothy Ferriss

The thing that really struck me when I went to junior high was class. I grew up on a pretty poor street, but the school district I was in included some fine neighborhoods - so I got to know a couple of the kids from those places and went to their houses and experienced such culture shock. — Lynda Barry

Going through different places, I stopped through Dubai and stayed there overnight. There I had an ultra-culture shock. — Tequan Richmond

Actually, nothing hurts like hearing the word slut, unless it is hearing the word rape dropped about carelessly. Again, a word I wouldn't have thought much about, except that when I was in high school a girl gave her senior speech on her best friend's rape. She ended not with an appear for women's rights or self defense, but by begging us to consider our language. We use the word 'rape' so casually, for sports, for a failed test, to spice up jokes. 'The test raped me.' 'His smile went up to justifiable rape.' These references confer casualness upon the word, embedding it into our culture, stripping it of shock value, and ultimately numb us to the reality of rape. — Christine Stockton

The ways in which Oscar Wilde was attacking the Romantics that preceded him, and the Romantic ideas that preceded him, were very similar to what the glam-rockers, particularly Bowie and Bryan Ferry, were attacking in the earnestness of '60s culture. Trying to shock, but with wit, cleverness, and homosexuality. — Todd Haynes

I'm persuaded today that the only way you can get into another country with a different culture from your own is to find a local partner who knows the market. Discovering this felt like small children discovering that if you put a bobby pin into an electric plug you get a shock! — Roberto Civita

Culture shock is often felt sharply at the borders between countries, but sometimes it doesn't hit fully until you've been in a place for a long time. — Henri Cartier-Bresson

When you go apartment-hunting in the South, you encounter little old ladies who ask you if you use strong drink. In New York you encounter paranoids who wonder if you will commit suicide
not that they care; what they worry about is blood on their fresh paint, a dubious smell in the hallway, or a hole in the awning as you pass through on your way to the sidewalk. The Southerner who moves to any part of the country has problems, but the culture shock that attacks the Southerner who moves North is almost indescribable. — Florence King