Cultural Shock at China

"Culture shock is the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration or a visit to a new country, a move between social environments, or simply travel to another type of life" ( Macionis and Linda, 2010)(1)

On 2012 I went on an exange year to China. Actually it was not a year but 10 months that I lived with two chinese families, attending regularly to school, eating their food, celebrating their festivals, learning about their culture and speaking their language.

China is a way too different country from ours and that was exactly why I chose to go there. It was a great experience for me, though it was very very difficult to get used to live like them. 

At the begginning I was very amazed seeing all the differences between my way to do things, and the "chinse way". The differences goes from the way to eat dinner, to the way to be polite to elders; from the way to say hi to your friends, to the way of walking on the streets. Through time passing it became more difficult. Things were not that amazing since they were becoming an habit. Also the language was a huge barrier when I wanted to express myself and have a conversation with someone. 

I remember once that I got really impressed because my host-mother didn't let me to go out wearing shorts. Outside the temperature was up to 39º degrees. But she told that shorts where inapropiated, so I was only allowed to wear them inside home, and die of hot outside with long-legs pants the whole summer. 

Learning the language was the most frustating part of this. It took it's time and eventually I could comunicate without many problems, and people frequently told me that I act just like an authentical chinese. 

(1) Macionis, John, and Linda Gerber. "Chapter 3 - Culture." Sociology. 7th edition ed. Toronto, ON: Pearson Canada Inc., 2010. 54. Print.