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, 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: Culture Shock, Moving to another country? Me?!!, The daily grind, abroad on January 31st, 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: Culture Shock, Moving to another country? Me?!!, The daily grind, abroad on January 25th, 2012 | No Comments »
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, The daily grind, abroad on November 17th, 2011 | No Comments »
Michael from San Francisco went on a 2 year expat assignment to Zurich Switzerland and recalls how incredibly unprepared he was for what awaited him in this foreign country. I had always wanted to go to Switzerland, I am a big fan of skiing and where can one ski better than in the Swiss Alps?! [...]
Filed under: Culture Shock, Moving to another country? Me?!!, The daily grind, abroad on November 4th, 2011 | No Comments »
Linda lived in Vienna for the past eight years and figured it was time to go back to her hometown of Bonn, Germany again. In an interview she tells us how it was to move back to Germany and how she found it so strange that even though Austrian and German culture are not so [...]
Filed under: Culture Shock, Intercultural Differences on October 17th, 2011 | No Comments »
Asari from Copenhagen, Denmark recounts her grandmother’s story of coming to Copenhagen in the 1920s from Ibadan, Nigeria and her initial experience of adjusting to being somewhat of a rarity in her new home. “I was very tall and very dark and had thick long curly hair which defied every attempt at containment by any [...]
Filed under: Culture Shock, The daily grind, abroad on October 14th, 2011 | No Comments »
John, a Manhattan lawyer fell in love with NYU Guest Lecturer Margarete and decided to move back to her hometown near Hanover Germany with her. He tells us about the culture shock he received upon being chucked from big city life into a jumble of small-town minds. I must say I was less than prepared [...]
Filed under: Culture Shock, Intercultural Differences on October 6th, 2011 | No Comments »
Joyce, a mother of two, moved from her hometown in Huntsville Alabama to the Cook Islands to join her husband at where he took on a permanent position at a marine research lab. She tells us how many things in her life have changed since moving to this sunny paradise. My friends considered me lucky, [...]
Filed under: Culture Shock, Intercultural Differences, The daily grind, abroad on September 30th, 2011 | No Comments »
Celine from France has decided to quit her job in Paris and work for a non-profit organization in Kyrgyzstan. The radical change from a vibrant metropolitan city to a small rural area was a lot for Celine to handle, and she tells us some of the hardships she endured in the beginning and the epiphanies [...]
Filed under: Culture Shock, The daily grind, abroad on September 19th, 2011 | 3 Comments »