Category Archives: Family

“Reverse” Culture Shock

By Stephen Kim

“Home.”

This simple word has always been tough for me to understand. For the first 12 years of my life, “home” was right here in Southern California. I was born here in Los Angeles in a Korean-American household and grew up in a small suburban city for most of my childhood. Then everything changed in 2006 when our family decided to move to Indonesia, a distant country halfway around the world. In leaving America, I was leaving my “home,” my friends, my extended family, American culture, American food, and an American lifestyle.

By this time I was just about to start seventh grade in a completely new surrounding. I was completely unaware of the language, culture, geography, and lifestyle of this new environment. But in almost no time at all, I quickly adjusted to my new life in Indonesia. Our international school required us to take Indonesian language classes and after two years of language courses, I could say that I was comfortable speaking the language and could get around the city and partake in everyday conversational dialogue. I also met some amazing people there who would become some of my closest friends. Interestingly enough, I wasn’t a big fan of the food at first, but a few years into it, I learned to love it. We also got to know our local neighbors who taught us Indonesian manners and way of life. In no time at all, Indonesia had become my “home” away from “home.”

In 2012, I graduated from my international school and came back to the States for college. After finally feeling like Indonesia had become my home, I had to leave. I had to leave all my best friends, the food that I had begun to love, and the slow-paced lifestyle that living in Indonesia had to offer. I got on the plane and a couple days later landed at LAX. I was finally “home” again. But it felt so unfamiliar, like I was in a new place. It didn’t feel like the same place I grew up in for the first 12 years of my life. Trying to re-adjust, I realized that my old friends all changed. The trends were all different. Everything about the life I remembered was vastly different. Just when I could comfortably call Indonesia “home,” I had to come back to America, to a place where my original “home” didn’t feel like it.

And this is what I like to call “reverse” culture shock. It was culture shock in the sense that it was this feeling of disorientation that I experienced when I was suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture or way of life. It was “reverse” in the sense that “home” didn’t feel like “home” again. It should have been a place of security, familiarity, and comfort, but I felt confused and lost. The hardest part of it all was that no one could relate to the things I was feeling. It was hard to find people who could empathize with me.

After much reflection, a revelation hit me. Rather than always asking, “Where is home?” a more appropriate question is “How can I feel at home?” or “How can I make this place my home?” If home indeed is where the heart is, then how can I put my heart into the situation I’m in now? How can I devote my time learning its way of life and its culture? How can I invest my life into the relationships I have here? As Maya Angelou so eloquently puts it, “I long, as every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”

Featured image by Heni Tanseri on Pexels

Graduated from USC and was a one-on-one conversation partner while he was a student.

Language and Identity

By Sara Malik

Recently, I was asked about my ability to speak my parent’s language and the conversation led to a discussion about my relationship to my parent’s culture. I immediately wanted to explain all of the layers, the reasons why I do not speak my parent’s native language fluently and how it is not born out of embarrassment or dislike, but mostly out of lack of confidence and practice. My parents are from Pakistan, a country born out of a split from India with a religious foundation in Islam. I was born in the United States of America, a country with no singular identity, with core values of individuality and freedom.

My parents speak Urdu and Punjabi, two languages with their own cultural contexts and attitudes, but both spoken in Pakistan. While I was growing up, my parents would speak to me in Urdu at home, but would not expect me to respond in the same language, so I responded in English instead. I grew up learning words and phrases from both Urdu and Punjabi, being able to understand the language when spoken to, but being unable to respond with confidence in my pronunciation. Even around my Pakistani-American friends in our local community, I would be told that I had an American accent when speaking Urdu, or that I was the “least Desi” out of the bunch. “Desi” is a term used by people from the Indian subcontinent, from countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc., as a means of collectively identifying via our similar cultures. “Desi” should be an inclusive term, but somehow, I was not “cultured” enough, or did not speak the language well enough to feel as though I was a part of that community.

Growing up with this feeling of being too American to fit into my parent’s culture, but not American enough to fit into the culture of my peers at school, resulted in a sort of blurred and unclear identity. There are parts that fit and parts that don’t. In America, children of immigrants navigate these complex layers of our identity as we develop our own beliefs and values while also remaining connected to our parents heritage. We want to be able to connect with those with similar backgrounds, but also want to belong as Americans. We want to participate in normal American pastimes like school dances and sports games, but we also want to retain the traditions, food, clothing and culture of our parents. It is a balancing act that we do not realize is happening until we are older and able to reflect. 

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The Power in Listening

By Ellen Yamaguchi

            As a person who enjoys a good, deep conversation, I always put the focus on what I can say or share in a dialogue; however, this past year has taught me the power and the importance of simply listening. As a sophomore this year, I have noticed that I have been the person that my roommates, friends, and even my conversation partners come to whenever they are confronted with a problem. Whether it be a late-night phone call, a spontaneous lunch, or a conversation at Leavey Library, they will begin to talk about what has been bothering them and, through that process, they find peace within themselves. In one of my first sessions with a 1-1 conversation partner, the student was telling me about the difficulties she had within the classroom and speaking up because she did not want to feel the shame of people not understanding what she was saying. I started to sense that the conversation was going to be tough for her, so I asked if she wanted me to give advice or to just listen. She was shocked that I had even asked that because one of the reasons why she was having trouble speaking was because no one would even attempt to just listen to her. People would immediately tell her what she is saying is wrong and correct her as a default response. I then realized that something I thought was natural was actually extremely rare to find in people. A trait that I thought did not carry a lot of meaning actually has a large impact on others. From a single conversation with this student, I decided to strengthen my listening skills and to be engaged with any conversation that I have, whether it is trivial or not. You really do not know the impact that you have on someone’s day, and their single interaction with you might be the turning point of making a bad day into a good one.

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