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Ending up disliking a TL and its culture | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4667 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 9 of 84 17 February 2012 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
Culture shock is diferent. Culture shock is more like a temporary emotional state of mind while you are just getting used to the foreign culture of the host country. I never really felt culture shock there. Just after beeing there some time I started to reflect on my experiences there and came to realize that I really don't like it there as much as a thought I did. Being there did help me grow and become more open-minded. I started to appreciate much more the liberty and individual assertion which we take for granted in the west. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5962 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 10 of 84 17 February 2012 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Many of us have experienced extraordinary acts of unselfish friendship from Japanese people. If you can't make friends with Japanese people, the problem lies with you. I've found that very outgoing people (even those born and raised in Japan) often have the hardest time with Japanese culture. Perhaps there is something about your personality that clashes with Japanese culture.
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| benzionisrael Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4667 days ago 79 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, SpanishB2 | Message 11 of 84 17 February 2012 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
Me, outgoing? Hardly! I used to be very introverted and unsociable. But since then I have been constantly improving. By the time I arrived in Japan I was already much more socially normal. The "extraordinary acts" of unselfish friendship seem unbelievable from my perspective. I have mostly encountered cold and distant people. Anyway I have never witnessed "extraordinary acts of unselfish friendship"! That is just going too far! I wont deny the possibility of having personality problems. If I really do have a problem I would rather man-up and face it than make excuses and pretend to be perfect. But now I don't really care if I have a personality which clashes with Japanese customs. I have loads of Latino friends and now am super happy! It is true what you say about even outgoing Japanese being rejected in there own country. But not necessarily just the outgoing ones. It seems that there are quite a lot of Japanese people living abroad who cannot stand living in their own country. I have known a few of them, both in person and on the internet. It seems that since Japanese people tend to value collective thinking and expect their compatriots to accept the nation's norms and values as the only way, the only means of refuge for those who don't fit into that one-track Japanese mold is to run for the hills and find a new life abroad. Edited by benzionisrael on 17 February 2012 at 4:13pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5058 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 12 of 84 17 February 2012 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well policemen are often not very pleasant. But not everyone treats customers badly. Most time I get normal service. I don't know what you have against the older generation in Russia. They are as diverse as young people and there are plenty of kind helpful and generous people among them. They can also be nice and good friends. As well as not all the young people are nice. That's for sure. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4670 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 13 of 84 17 February 2012 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Languages spoken in more countries are less prone to this.
If you end up disliking the USA, you still may like Australia, or Canada. So, your language learning efforts are not in vain. I used to like Spain, but not anymore. Now I like Argentina better, and finally I can dedicate myself to the most beautiful dialect of Spanish 100%. Everytime I was in Spain, I was afraid to use an Argentinian word (like lindo or vos) for fear of being corrected by the Spaniards. Argentine people are so relaxed, and no one gives a damn about the Royal Academia of the language. ;) But it was the total disrespect toward Galician, Basque and Catalan language which made me go away from Spain. Spanish-speaking Spaniards consider thesese languages inferior to the Spanish language which is very, very sad. :( Edited by Medulin on 17 February 2012 at 6:32pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6951 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 14 of 84 17 February 2012 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Normal social interactions in Japan can be superficial, but friendships are not. I
agree 100% with what lichtrausch said, and I'm sure other long-term residents of Japan on this forum will also agree. Japanese people (and other East Asians, I'm told) are known to be selfless toward those they consider their friends, sometimes shockingly so.
This is probably what most people think when they use the term "culture shock" in everyday usage, but the reality is that it's a process that typically lasts through several stages, each lasting up to several months. What you're probably referring to in the quoted text is known as the "honeymoon phase". After that there's typically a phase where the person criticizes everything about the host culture and judges it against the home culture. I've been there, so have several of my friends and acquaintances, and it really seems to me like this is where you are now. Your sweeping (and kind of insulting) generalizations about Japan show a limited understanding about the culture. Of course people have a right to decide that Japan is not for them, and I totally understand that if they do (I don't want to be here the rest of my life, either), but in your case I think your conclusion was not based on understanding: I think you've reached it prematurely based on culture shock, and maybe a few bad experiences. I know you probably don't believe me and probably won't care since you've moved on with your life now, but I'm writing this mainly for the benefit of people who may visit this thread and leave with misleading and negative ideas about Japanese culture. Edited by Lucky Charms on 17 February 2012 at 6:52pm 16 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4717 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 15 of 84 17 February 2012 at 8:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, about 85% of the time I was not well treated. But I have a question, have you ever been to North or South America, Марк? Or maybe Italy, Spain? Maybe you consider it "normal" service because you're used to it, you grew up with it... but where I grew up things are quite different, at least in this area of customer service. I told my Russian wife and her Russian friends who live in Brazil about this, and they all agreed with me that the treatment is indeed VERY different.
I have nothing whatsoever against old generation in Russia! Maybe you misread what I wrote or I said it in a wrong way, but older people were less nice in comparison to younger people. As an example, I went to some stores at ТЦ Европейский (and some other malls, and also banks, supermarkets, etc.) and usually the younger people were less rude (but usually also not very nice). If you read the last post I updated to my personal Log, you'll see that I spent last night talking to a war veteran for СССР, he's father of my wife's friend and we like each other very much! We always spend some time talking in Russian when we go to their house, while he's around here. I didn't mean to offend, and certainly they can be good friends if you get to know them, but I'm just stating a fact that happened to me a lot while in Russia. Edited by fabriciocarraro on 17 February 2012 at 8:35pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Everything Diglot Groupie France Joined 4703 days ago 87 posts - 167 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 84 17 February 2012 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
Could you tell us more about it ? Do you mean you first disliked French attitude then you finally changed your mind or something like that ? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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