Culture Shock Cues

When I first arrived in the Netherlands, I did hefty research on culture shock—which I had experienced before—then duly ignored it, stumbling on that rocky path towards acculturation. Looking back now, the stages seem both predictable and cyclical. I’ve become stuck in the loop, waltzing between the initial Honeymoon Stage and final Adjustment.

The first stage, of course, is the Honeymoon, when you find yourself fascinated by the new culture. I’m still waiting for that to happen. Having visited Amsterdam dozens of times over decades, spending one debauch holiday after the next playing backgammon in smoky vice dens (and that’s the edited version,) I can’t say I was honestly captivated when I finally moved here. I did dig the canals, though.

Immediately following the Honeymoon phase, you evidently reject the Groom, banding together with fellow nationals to criticize the neighbors. This is the Stereotype Stage. Having been tagged a "dollar grasping American" by the Brits when I lived in the UK during Maggie Thatcher’s reign I am no stranger to stereotyping. Yet, curiously, I found myself being pigeonholed more frequently by the Dutch—as a “Jew” no less—than actually returning the favor. Although I do remember once labeling them “insular, provincial folk with a penchant for vulgarity.” Or simply put, herring lickers.

At the tail end of this phase, the visitor begins to regain his/her humor and joke about the locals or their own difficulties. Guess I’m still there—I’ll never stop stereotyping, never, never! Then in the final Adjustment Phase, the newcomer learns to accept the customs of their new country as just another way of living. While I can get used to the Dutch custom of chasing the waitress down, begging her to take my order, the weather is a different matter altogether. Some things take much, much longer.