Care of Wikipedia:
"Culture shock is a term used to describe the anxiety and feelings (of surprise, disorientation, confusion, etc.) felt when people have to operate within an entirely different cultural or social environment, such as a foreign country. It grows out of the difficulties in assimilating the new culture, causing difficulty in knowing what is appropriate and what is not. Often this is combined with strong disgust (moral or aesthetical) about certain aspects of the new or different culture.
Recently, some researchers claim that culture shock does have many positive effects on intercultural sojourners, like increasing self-efficacy and helping improve self-motivation"
So, I didn't anticipate it, because I mistakenly thought I was a pro, but it hit me like a speeding train. It all started one fateful day whilst searching for an apartment in Kandy. An overly eager tuk-tuk driver agreed to take us to our first apartment, which we had found online, and lucky for us on the condition that we let him show us the apartments that he knew about.
When moving to a place like Sri Lanka or to any other foreign country, it just happens that there is a constant battle with one's judgment. Do I "go for it" and pet the porcupine? Do I put that strange berry in my mouth that the village man just picked from the tree? Or do I politely decline the fish-smelling salad, although culturally risky, to safeguard my future health? You get the idea. So with an adventurous spirit we let this pushy driver show us the "apartments".
One after another we were shown uninhabitable dwellings and each time we had to convince the tuk-tuk driver that it was not for us. And when I say convince, I mean "beg and plea with him to take us away from the place" convince. It seemed our driver was moonlighting as a real estate agent of sorts, no doubt to collect what ever commission he would require from the landlord of our choosing. When we refused the apartments he then tried to charge us a ridiculous amount of money for his "services". So, the 2-hour "adventure" turned into the beginning of the above-mentioned "strong disgust" of culture shock. This combined with a stomach bug led to several blurred and unaccounted for days of my trip.
But, despite the difficulties in navigating a country whose citizens rely on tourism at times thankfully and at times with deep spite, the process of assimilation takes time and in our case woke us up to the obvious.....Kandy is NOT for us! And as a bonus, my self-efficacy is off the charts!
Here are some nice things we experienced that reminded me to lighten up!
After our disaster with the real estate tuk-tuk driver, we stuck with a driver we like named Samaricon. These are his adorable kids who had just visited Temple.
This is Mr. Kasir. He invited us to the yearly meeting of the Hill Country Malay Association of which he is the President.
Next stop Ancient Cities......
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