If you've lived in another country besides the one you were born in, even if it was a visit for a few weeks, then you have experienced Culture Shock. This book has fantastic stories of people's comings and goings in all parts of the world, all types of people, for all sorts of reasons. They are written by some of the world's best authors including Joseph Conrad, Hermann Hesse, Paul Theroux and Rudyard Kipling. Additionally the book has reader analysis intros to each section along with "Questions for Discussion" and bibliographies, which may all sound rather pedantic however if you find the concept of culture shock as fascinating as I do then you'll be happy for these leads to more stories.

On Being Foreign has an introduction which clearly explains the five phases of culture shock as follows: Preliminary Phase, Spectator Phase, Increasing Participation Phase, Shock Phase, and Adaptation Phase. With this sociological clinical explanation the stories in the book have been put into sections accordingly. Interestingly they claim that the phases of culture shock expand and contract with the amount of time one spends in the foreign culture, whether a three week vacation or a ten year ex-pat sojourn.

Despite the fact that these are fictional tales, the characters experiences and emotions are true to life, and somehow demonstrate the tragedy of culture shock. I say tragedy because rarely does someone come out of the experience without lasting effect, and somehow it’s never a purely positive adventure either. My favorite story is “An Outpost of Progress” by Joseph Conrad. It takes place at an obscure African trading post in Sierre Leone. Two white men are left to manage the station, not to be visited again, or have any contact, by their “Great Trading Company” for some months. The local African tribesmen attempt to communicate, have some type of relationship, but the individuals dropped off in this alien land can never quite relax, or begin to understand what is going on around them. By virtue of this shortcoming their lives cascade into a disaster of indigenous disease, albeit beyond their control, and their own trigger fingers.

There are more subtle stories than the “An Outpost of Progress” which demonstrate subtle shifts of consciousness in a foreign land. They explore how one’s mind imagined a place, and how the reality is an awakening to something totally different. It is rare in our global world today to not either have experienced culture shock oneself, or to be involved in some way with people who are experiencing it around you. For this reason you should expand your mind, embrace our multi-cultural world and read this book.
MAT08-09 ( )