I studied abroad in Japan for a year back 10-15 years ago. I definitely experienced “reverse culture shock” when I came back, the feeling when you’ve had all kinds of new experiences and have seen the world from a completely different perspective, but then everything’s just… the same. The people you left behind are just a year older, the roads and the stores are all just like they were when you left, maybe a new fast food joint opened up and that’s the biggest thing that’s changed. It’s pretty maddening. Of course, you can talk and talk about all these stories and people and all that - and in fact it was pretty good for me in that I was able to overcome some shyness and social anxiety because I had something interesting to talk about - but there’s a lot of stuff that you’ll never really be able to explain, things that just can’t be put into words. Especially with language, I feel like we’re losing something as people rely more on AI translations (useful as they are) because my experience is that speaking a different language can really shift your whole perspective in subtle ways. Translation is metaphor, it is inherently an approximation of meaning. It is, however, a lot of work.
In time, my experience of living in Japan and the unique perspective it gave me has become one of many perspectives that I can draw on, and I have other shared or relatable experiences with the people around me. Granted, my experience abroad was a relatively short time, not like actually immigrating. But ultimately, everyone has different experiences that can seem very alien to others, even within the same country or culture. When we see these differences not as barriers but as providing valuable and distinctive insight, well, that’s the dream, isn’t it?
I studied abroad in Japan for a year back 10-15 years ago. I definitely experienced “reverse culture shock” when I came back, the feeling when you’ve had all kinds of new experiences and have seen the world from a completely different perspective, but then everything’s just… the same. The people you left behind are just a year older, the roads and the stores are all just like they were when you left, maybe a new fast food joint opened up and that’s the biggest thing that’s changed. It’s pretty maddening. Of course, you can talk and talk about all these stories and people and all that - and in fact it was pretty good for me in that I was able to overcome some shyness and social anxiety because I had something interesting to talk about - but there’s a lot of stuff that you’ll never really be able to explain, things that just can’t be put into words. Especially with language, I feel like we’re losing something as people rely more on AI translations (useful as they are) because my experience is that speaking a different language can really shift your whole perspective in subtle ways. Translation is metaphor, it is inherently an approximation of meaning. It is, however, a lot of work.
In time, my experience of living in Japan and the unique perspective it gave me has become one of many perspectives that I can draw on, and I have other shared or relatable experiences with the people around me. Granted, my experience abroad was a relatively short time, not like actually immigrating. But ultimately, everyone has different experiences that can seem very alien to others, even within the same country or culture. When we see these differences not as barriers but as providing valuable and distinctive insight, well, that’s the dream, isn’t it?