Reverse culture shock experiences

[adsr]

I never got the whole 'happy thai' thing. Surely if you are travelling around Thailand of course you are going to meet friendly people since the majority of the people you do meet are someway involved in the tourist industry. I'm sure if you walked into an average Bangkok office block and tried to be 'friendly' to some administrator you'd probably get the same response as here in England.

I agree with Queenofgoths in that it is easy to paint a grim picture of England with stressed out workers and the cold. Come summer though, the parks will be full and merry people messing about and having fun.

As for being materialistic and buying massive TVs, people from from around the world do that. I'm from Indonesia and if you look in any middle class house it looks exactly the same as one here. The dad going a midlife crisis buying stupid gadgets he doesn't need. Teenagers saving up for Xbox games, bla bla bla.

I reckon the 'Reverse culture shock' you mention would happen if you put some well-to-do middle class person in some working class mining town in Wales for a couple of months. I don't think it has anything to do with being in another country or 'travelling'.

 

[Trufflepig]

Perhaps it is how people relate to one another - which is determined by many factors - wealth, the nature of labour, the weather, pervasiveness and quality of media especially. In the third world people rely on each other as individuals rather than the system, which means they have to be more friendly, but there is also greater nepotism and potential for corruption.

When things are uncertain people look out for one another because they have to. They, celebrate the good times because bad times may be around the corner. When times are easy people take things for granted, and are less resilient to discomfort.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Well, you can before you go there

There are places in China which have been every bit as ace as anything I saw in India, such as Yangshuo, Dali and Lijiang, all backpackers' favourites, and I'm pretty certain that if I ever get the chance to venture into remote Sichuan, Gansu, Tibet, Xinjiang, etc, I would find some pretty cracking places.

But eastern China just seems to have a big sign up saying "Look! This is China! We don't do exciting/fun/romantic/colourful/pleasurable here!".

If the world is a supermarket, Han China is definitely the No Frills section.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

As for being materialistic and buying massive TVs, people from from around the world do that. I'm from Indonesia and if you look in any middle class house it looks exactly the same as one here. The dad going a midlife crisis buying stupid gadgets he doesn't need. Teenagers saving up for Xbox games, bla bla bla.

Indeed the same is true in China. All people care about is how huge a telly they can fit into their front room, the outside environment and civic values don't seem to matter to them at all.

In fact I went to China still having the whole 'eastern promises' delusions of the OP, believing that, being on a low ESL salary, by standard of living would be lower than I was used to, but that it would be made up for by a better quality of life. If anything it's the opposite. I live better than I could afford to in Britain, but miss the parks/recreation/things to do/nightlife/friends/company of back home...

 

[adsr]

Perhaps it is how people relate to one another - which is determined by many factors - wealth, the nature of labour, the weather, pervasiveness and quality of media especially. In the third world people rely on each other as individuals rather than the system, which means they have to be more friendly, but there is also greater nepotism and potential for corruption.

When things are uncertain people look out for one another because they have to. They, celebrate the good times because bad times may be around the corner. When times are easy people take things for granted, and are less resilient to discomfort.

I still think this is quite a sweeping generalisation. Yes, the poorest villages in Asia do rely on each other and there is a sense of community. But no more so than some isolated village in the Outer Hebrides (sp?).

When you go travelling you never see most normal people, and so people's view tends to be polarised. When my ex girlfriend first went to Jakarta she was suprised by the extremes of poverty. The high rise glass buildings and the terrible slums. She immeadiately noticed the solidarity in the slums and communal feeling vs the cash grabbing city types. But then we spent a couple of days hanging out in shopping malls and doing really boring normal things and saw the middles classes, just like us saving and buying the same shiny gadgety crap we all want and buy, trudging to work each morning with ipods stuffed in their ears looking miserable, waiting for the weekend to come.

 

[jbob]

Perhaps it is how people relate to one another - which is determined by many factors - wealth, the nature of labour, the weather, pervasiveness and quality of media especially. In the third world people rely on each other as individuals rather than the system, which means they have to be more friendly, but there is also greater nepotism and potential for corruption.

Evidence would suggest that all this highly speculative generalising would be substituted at an instant for a free health care system, free education systen until 18 and a social security network that offers some sort of housing provision for all.

When things are uncertain people look out for one another because they have to. They, celebrate the good times because bad times may be around the corner. When times are easy people take things for granted, and are less resilient to discomfort.

And this is different from the western perspective? People look out for each other here; hedonism? something the UK specialises at; and the last bit seems bleeding obvious - presumably when things are 'comfortable' there is no discomfort

 

[Trufflepig]

Evidence would suggest that all this highly speculative generalising would be substituted at an instant for a free health care system, free education systen until 18 and a social security network that offers some sort of housing provision for all.

I never said they wouldn't - but given we have only one world, and human nature I cannot see that ever happening

Sorry if I did not make myself clear, what i'm saying is if you get too get too comfortable even trivial things upset you.
I'm not talking about hedonism - but being grateful for the food on your plate or the roof over your head.

 

[jbob]

I think your guilty of unconscious orientalism. You're fetishising poverty and your perception of different cultures is loaded with unqualified assumptions.

 

[pinkmonkey]

There are places in China which have been every bit as ace as anything I saw in India, such as Yangshuo, Dali and Lijiang, all backpackers' favourites, and I'm pretty certain that if I ever get the chance to venture into remote Sichuan, Gansu, Tibet, Xinjiang, etc, I would find some pretty cracking places.

But eastern China just seems to have a big sign up saying "Look! This is China! We don't do exciting/fun/romantic/colourful/pleasurable here!".

If the world is a supermarket, Han China is definitely the No Frills section.

You can add to that Dongguan and Shenzen. Anyone who wants to know what it's like, it's just like the Park Royal Industrial Estate in North London but about the size of England.

To adsr - you're absolutely right, I worked for a company that had an office in Bangkok, I would work there for weeks at a time, the boss was a wanker, I would go out clubbing with the girls on a night, we would go to aerobics etc. etc. it wasn't really any different to being in the UK and absolutely nothing like the lifestyle the workers have in Koh Lanta where I was last month.

 

[gnoriac]

By way of contrast at the start of the 80s I worked briefly for Havana International Bank, Stalinist Cuba's outpost in the City. The General Secretary, a Cuban, had wanted to be a tenor when he was younger but ended up in banking instead, and some days would burst into the staff rest room while we were at coffee break booming out songs like "Que Sera Sera" at the top of his voice.

His 14 year old daughter ran away from home back to Cuba because she couldn't stand it in London. Apparently if she felt like dancing on her way to school, people shot her a frown.

 

[DotCommunist]

This thread is so totally Max Gogarty

 

[Belushi]

I think your guilty of unconscious orientalism. You're fetishising poverty and your perception of different cultures is loaded with unqualified assumptions.

Spot on.

 

[jbob]

When you go travelling you never see most normal people, and so people's view tends to be polarised. When my ex girlfriend first went to Jakarta she was suprised by the extremes of poverty. The high rise glass buildings and the terrible slums. She immeadiately noticed the solidarity in the slums and communal feeling vs the cash grabbing city types. But then we spent a couple of days hanging out in shopping malls and doing really boring normal things and saw the middles classes, just like us saving and buying the same shiny gadgety crap we all want and buy, trudging to work each morning with ipods stuffed in their ears looking miserable, waiting for the weekend to come.

Last part, yes; there does appear to be an ignorance that asian countries have fast growing, highly sophisticated market economies, with a middle class that works in the same jobs as anywhere else in the world. The obvious point is that countries such as Thailand and Indonesia are really at the sharp end of global capitalism, as, in addition to a growing - but still relatively small - middle class, there is a huge layer of extreme poverty. It is this latter part of the economy, which appears to be all too readily fetishised by the returning backpacker, that is decontextualised from these individual country's economic and cultural background (the mechanisms that maintain this state of affairs), that leads to this fantasy that living in poverty is somehow desirable or preferable to their own upbringing.

Perhaps as a test they should try living in Thailand on an average Thai wage and see how they get on?

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Although my experience, in China at any rate, indicates that westerners overstate how low paid the locals are in these countries. I know China is different, but our friend is a cleaner. Her and her husband bring in about 5000 RMB a month between them, which is about the same as most Western ESL teachers in China get paid - enough to live about the same out here as a lower-middle-class westerner would back in the west.

Mind you that's China and I think the situation in terms of poverty is much better than in Indonesia say.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

For all that people are attacking the OP, don't people think that there are aspects of other cultures which are sadly lacking in the UK, like hospitality, family, etc? It's not all just rose-tinted teenage idealism

 

[selamlar]

I think your guilty of unconscious orientalism. You're fetishising poverty and your perception of different cultures is loaded with unqualified assumptions.

You see, thats so much more coherant than my little rant earlier. Couldn't agree more.

 

[jæd]

For all that people are attacking the OP, don't people think that there are aspects of other cultures which are sadly lacking in the UK, like hospitality, family, etc? It's not all just rose-tinted teenage idealism

And that doesn't occur in the UK...? Too much "Grass-is-greener" on this thread...

 

[jbob]

Although my experience, in China at any rate, indicates that westerners overstate how low paid the locals are in these countries. I know China is different, but our friend is a cleaner. Her and her husband bring in about 5000 RMB a month between them, which is about the same as most Western ESL teachers in China get paid - enough to live about the same out here as a lower-middle-class westerner would back in the west.

Mind you that's China and I think the situation in terms of poverty is much better than in Indonesia say.

Average wage? In the whole of China, the most heavily populated country in the world, where most of it is still an agricultural based economy (despite all the shiny images of office blocks in Shanghai and Bejing that dominate the media perception of China)? It's still a very poor country generally, although the market economy is improving the situation for a minority of urban dwellers.

Your example also misses out what the husband does for a living. And tbh, TEFL is not really the best gauge of relative pay discrepancies since it is not a particularly well paid occupation practically anywhere. Though, it has to be said, in somewhere like Thailand, your average TEFLer will still earn at least double of what a local teacher would. But teaching is hardly an 'average' profession in terms of the Thai economy.

 

[jbob]

For all that people are attacking the OP, don't people think that there are aspects of other cultures which are sadly lacking in the UK, like hospitality, family, etc? It's not all just rose-tinted teenage idealism

Got to agree with jaed. What of those people who have close and large family networks that still exist here. I think many parts of the UK are friendly, as long as, like anywhere else, you don't act like a cunt. The 'issue' is that the OP is on holiday, and when you're on holiday you're immediately more relaxed and probably more friendly yourself, which in turn will often get reciprocated.

It's like rude or unhelpful behaviour is unheard of in Asia! It happens, particularly if you act like a twat, and sometimes if you don't. Presumably the OP and others are familiar with all the languages that are being spoken in these countries? People take the piss as much as they do here, y'know, only you won't be able to understand when you're being mocked.

 

[Brainaddict]

For all that people are attacking the OP, don't people think that there are aspects of other cultures which are sadly lacking in the UK, like hospitality, family, etc? It's not all just rose-tinted teenage idealism

I think what the UK lacks that a lot of places have (though not necessarily urban China) is a sense of community, often rooted in family. This has a downside (oppressive patriarchal norms) but also some very good things about it. I think it's really worth talking about some of the problems of our culture in the light of other cultures - though it's good to do the same in reverse as well, to avoid the rose-tinted view.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

And that doesn't occur in the UK...? Too much "Grass-is-greener" on this thread...

Nah. The British are exceptionally crap at hospitality, as my wife found when she visited. In China if a new member of family visits, the hosts will go all out to wait on them hand and foot. In the UK it's "Make yerself a sandwich luv".

 

[Belushi]

Nah. The British are exceptionally crap at hospitality, as my wife found when she visited. In China if a new member of family visits, the hosts will go all out to wait on them hand and foot. In the UK it's "Make yerself a sandwich luv".

Why's that crap, I much prefer that approach than being made a fuss of!

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I think what the UK lacks that a lot of places have (though not necessarily urban China) is a sense of community, often rooted in family. This has a downside (oppressive patriarchal norms) but also some very good things about it. I think it's really worth talking about some of the problems of our culture in the light of other cultures - though it's good to do the same in reverse as well, to avoid the rose-tinted view.

I'm not seeing it rose-tintedly at all. I don't know where Jaed got that from. I've been in China nearly 5 years and as I said, in many ways it's very much a nofrills kind of place and I'm not really seeing it that way at all.

I've lived in two major Chinese conurbations, not rural idylls, and they've both been more friendly than London.

And the sense of family is stronger, that is incontrovertible. My wife is much closer with her (extended) family than anyone I can think of in the UK is, and she finds it appalling that, for instance, western families would allow their kids to finish education thousands of pounds in debt.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Why's that crap, I much prefer that approach than being made a fuss of!

Maybe it is just a cultural difference, but it did make things kind of tricky..

 

[jæd]

Nah. The British are exceptionally crap at hospitality, as my wife found when she visited. In China if a new member of family visits, the hosts will go all out to wait on them hand and foot. In the UK it's "Make yerself a sandwich luv".

Isn't that just how different culture's deal with hospitality...? If a mate comes over I'll remind him where the fridge is, rather than wait on him hand-and-foot. Same with most Brits I know...

 

[Trufflepig]

You see, thats so much more coherant than my little rant earlier. Couldn't agree more.

To be fair I started this thread about dificulties to relate to friends at home, who are pissed off with being here yet could afford to travel and get a new perspective if they made less OTT purchases. I was interested how others in the same position felt.

My later point was not romanticising poverty, but that people here are a bit soft and whinge (ok the people I work with and encounter most often) because generally things are so stable, and there is a safety net to catch you.

I don't believe I've ever said asians or anyone else were less materialistic than the British.

 

[fela fan]

Last part, yes; there does appear to be an ignorance that asian countries have fast growing, highly sophisticated market economies, with a middle class that works in the same jobs as anywhere else in the world. The obvious point is that countries such as Thailand and Indonesia are really at the sharp end of global capitalism, as, in addition to a growing - but still relatively small - middle class, there is a huge layer of extreme poverty. It is this latter part of the economy, which appears to be all too readily fetishised by the returning backpacker, that is decontextualised from these individual country's economic and cultural background (the mechanisms that maintain this state of affairs), that leads to this fantasy that living in poverty is somehow desirable or preferable to their own upbringing.

Perhaps as a test they should try living in Thailand on an average Thai wage and see how they get on?

I wouldn't get too theoretical mate!

People go travelling to countries with a less overtly consumerist way of life, and naturally enough become positive towards this other way that they did not experience back in britain or wherever. It's appealing because all this nature and living day to day and day by day returns us more to ourselves rather than just being a cog/member of society.

When they return to their wealthier countries, they've seen new things, new ways, and obviously want to talk about it in the excited tones that reveal their positive experiences.

Trouble is their friends don't really want to hear about all these travel tales.

I doubt many people see poverty as a fantasy. But it does of course depend on what you say poverty entails. Because i've done a heck of a lot of provincial travelling in thailand, and apart from bits of bangkok, i just cannot find this huge layer of extreme poverty that others talk about from time to time.

For what it's worth, my long time living in thailand tells me the best thing in life is to live outside the main sphere of society, don't let it impact on you with its ridiculous demands. Travelling automatically takes one out of this influence, and it's one of the main causes of this heady sense of freedom.

 

[fela fan]

Isn't that just how different culture's deal with hospitality...?

Well this is the crux of the thread really isn't it. Different cultures have different ways of approaching the same thing. If one looks with sufficiently closed eyes, then it's easy to disparage this or that.

For example, it's easy to say that thais are really friendly when one comes across them as a traveller. But what about all the marital violence that is part of society here? What about a thai person's ability to smile sweetly at you while thinking you're a dirty pig?

What i've found is that all humans would like some basic things, like love and respect, and just find different organsing ways for their lives together.

I often see thais and their way of life being very similar to the british way, 40-50 years ago. They are being changed by the technology and obsesseion with security now.

Despite everything i've seen, i will say though that i really feel thailand has done a better job of its society than any country i've been to. When you get away from the politics, and just the every day living and getting on with your neighbours, they've got a pretty impressive system. For me, society is ugly anywhere, but the british one makes the thai ugliness attractive in the main.

 

[fela fan]

To be fair I started this thread about dificulties to relate to friends at home, who are pissed off with being here yet could afford to travel and get a new perspective if they made less OTT purchases. I was interested how others in the same position felt.

Britain is great in that it has huge numbers of travellers all over the world. Half a million come to thailand alone each year.

We can be the very best of travellers, and i know we can be pretty poor too.

But when we get back to england, conversation has to be carefully monitored, so as not to present oneself as having had too good a time, or too much happiness.

You look around you in britain: 'no' signs all over the place, telling you what you can and can't do. Perhaps britain is a miserable society with disarming ability to get on with things while being suspicious of happy people. Look, we've been invaded so many times, and we've had such crappy weather as our guide through life...

 

[jbob]

But when we get back to england, conversation has to be carefully monitored, so as not to present oneself as having had too good a time, or too much happiness.

You look around you in britain: 'no' signs all over the place, telling you what you can and can't do. Perhaps britain is a miserable society with disarming ability to get on with things while being suspicious of happy people.

I think you're on a bit of dodgy ground here, fela. Criticise the King in Thailand and you could be in big trouble! (different point, admittedly).

I'm not entriely sure I agree with you here, maybe it's your post-Thai experience has led you to this thinking. There's plenty of bubbly, upbeat people here, plenty. Many people here who are utterly miserable types get the piss taken out of them, as you know, British humour is particularly sarcastic, ironic and cutting. I don't think its use has got anything to do with a perception of someoone having 'too much happiness', it's got more to do with 'don't get too full of yourself, you twat/don't take yourself so seriously'.

I'd actually go as far to say it's a common trait in much of northern Europe; there's little tolerance for what is perceived as surface friendliness and falsity. You said yourself that friendliness in Thailand, pleasant though it is, is mere 'face' or surface.

I'm not sure I can decide what is better or worse, both have their merits.