Svetlana tells us her story about living and loving abroad and how her personal experience nearly tarnished her perception of a whole country forever. When I first came to Paris, one late summer over 6 years ago, I had no idea what a major impact this would have on my life. In fact, it all [...]
Filed under: Culture Shock, Expat Families & Relationships, Intercultural Differences on February 20th, 2012 | 2 Comments »
InterNations member Philip moved from Europe to Iran to work with a cultural company only to find a country quite different to his earlier understanding and not at all what he imagined. Here is the first instalment of his story on dealing with a situation that no one could have predicted! Being an indigenous British [...]
Filed under: Culture Shock, Guest Author, Moving to Another Country on February 15th, 2012 | No Comments »
InterNations member and guest blogger Juanita Kwarteng, a Ghanian-Canadian who grew up in the Middle East, is a true advocate of open-mindedness and cross-cultural communication who has dedicated her life to celebrating diversity. Here she gives us her very personal take on culture shock. For me, culture shock is the closest way to feel like [...]
Filed under: Culture Shock, Expat Advice, Guest Author, Intercultural Differences on February 9th, 2012 | No Comments »
We interviewed Justine, originally from Montréal Canada, who is now living in Lyon, and tells us how her initial expectations of life in France were completely up the wrong alley. Tell us a bit about yourself: How did you end up in Lyon? Was there any culture shock being a French-Canadian and going to France? [...]
Filed under: Adventures Abroad, Culture Shock, Expat Interviews, Intercultural Differences, Languages, Moving to Another Country on January 31st, 2012 | No Comments »
Gisele from Switzerland moves to Uganda for work and ends up falling in love with one of her colleagues. Here is her story on dealing with the cultural differences, especially between men and women, in Africa. I never expected to fall in love during my two year assignment in Uganda. I went there with the [...]
Filed under: Adventures Abroad, Culture Shock, Expat Families & Relationships, Expat Women, Intercultural Differences on January 28th, 2012 | No Comments »
Expat Maris tells us about his experience of feeling strangely at home in his country of origin, Latvia, despite not having lived there longer than 10 months of his life. I was born in Latvia, yet spent most of my childhood and adolescence in Denmark and was living in the United States for the past [...]
Filed under: Adventures Abroad, Culture Shock, Intercultural Differences, Moving to Another Country, Repatriation on January 25th, 2012 | No Comments »
Lynette from Wales moved to Hong Kong for work and shares her initial impression and surprise upon arriving in the “fragrant harbor”. When I initially moved to Hong Kong I thought I was going to be living in a completely different country. I expected different architecture, obviously different food, different nature, basically everything to be [...]
Filed under: Adventures Abroad, Culture Shock, Intercultural Differences on December 9th, 2011 | No Comments »
Anzal tells his story of how he grew up in a diplomat family and moved from country to country very frequently throughout his childhood. Despite these moves, he is grateful to his parents for creating a stable home for him and his sister. I was born in Lebanon into a diplomat family. My father was [...]
Filed under: Adventures Abroad, Culture Shock, Intercultural Differences, Third Culture Kids on December 8th, 2011 | No Comments »
Josef from Germany moved to Kolkata (Calcutta), India to work at a software company and is amazed at how incredibly chaotic things are at his new job! I have to be honest and say that I was not too excited about moving to India for a two year expat assignment. A colleague of mine was [...]
Filed under: Culture Shock, Intercultural Differences, International Workdays on November 22nd, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Emilia from Rome moved to Vietnam for work and discovered that her version of traffic was anything but! In Vietnam the amount of cars and other modes of transportation completely overwhelmed her at first, but eventually she caught the vibe and now loves going from A to B in Ho Chi Minh City. When in [...]
Filed under: Culture Shock, Intercultural Differences on November 17th, 2011 | No Comments »