{"id":2636,"date":"2014-02-05T20:21:40","date_gmt":"2014-02-05T20:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/?p=2636"},"modified":"2014-02-12T08:41:59","modified_gmt":"2014-02-12T08:41:59","slug":"culture-shock-misplaced-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/culture-shock-misplaced-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture Shock and Misplaced Normal (An int’l school teacher’s experience in Tanzania)"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s an element of visiting home while living abroad that I call Misplaced Normal<\/i>.\u00a0 It gives you a taste of the culture shock that everyone else that is just visiting your country feels when the norms that they carry with them don\u2019t apply to their new surroundings.<\/p>\n

\"1240232_10152188433337589_1867444700_n\"<\/a>When people first move to a new place, many things about our everyday life seem exotic and fascinating.\u00a0 It\u2019s amazing how quickly we can adapt to change, though, and the exotic can very quickly become normal.\u00a0 So what does that do to us when we go home for a brief visit?\u00a0 As we move from one version of normal to the next, our behaviors change in subtle ways that we don\u2019t always notice, and that sometimes make us do really dumb stuff.<\/p>\n

I moved from the southeastern United States to Barcelona, Spain in 2008, and I quickly got used to lengthy lunches, going grocery shopping on foot, not owning a car, and living in a small apartment, all pieces of the Spanish lifestyle.\u00a0 When I visited my parents during the Christmas holiday, I couldn\u2019t believe how quickly everyone ate, how much of a hassle it was to have to get in a car to go anywhere, and how pointlessly huge every department store, supermarket and home seemed.\u00a0 I had never noticed any of those things before moving overseas, but now they were blaringly obvious.\u00a0 I was carrying over the norms of my new home, and the place where I grew up had become strange.<\/p>\n

I also found myself doing really stupid things, things that made sense in one setting, but not in another, and I did it all over again when I went back to work.<\/p>\n

Misplaced normal while living in Spain had me talking a lot more loudly than anyone else when I visited the U.S., and not being hungry until restaurants were ready to close.<\/p>\n

Misplaced normal while living in England had me driving in the wrong lane in parking lots and carrying an umbrella with me at all times.<\/p>\n

Here is a recent example from my current home, Tanzania, on the eastern coast of Africa.\u00a0 I visited home for Christmas after only five months in Tanzania, yet I still took subconscious Tanzanian norms home with me.<\/p>\n

In Tanzania the tastes of Christmas are golden mangos and papayas, because they are at their best around Christmas time.\u00a0 These are tropical \"1240318_10152188436592589_1742188044_n\"<\/a>fruits that grow in Tanzania\u2019s tropical climate.\u00a0 That means December is hot in Tanzania.\u00a0 For my northern European friends, though, December means drinking hot mulled wine, simply because that was the taste of Christmas for them.\u00a0 It was what they had always drunk at Christmas time since, because it\u2019s really cold in northern Europe in December.\u00a0 That\u2019s what was normal.\u00a0 Two friends from England invited friends over for mulled wine shortly before the December break.\u00a0 We drank some very good mulled wine and did a lot of sweating.\u00a0 Why would we do such a silly thing?\u00a0 It was our misplaced normal.<\/p>\n

In Tanzania there isn\u2019t enough money on the local level for the police force to have their own cars, or even radar guns to keep people from speeding.\u00a0 Instead, huge speed bumps are put in at seemingly random places, marked by paint on the road.\u00a0 Within a few weeks, the paint wears off and isn\u2019t replaced, so driving slowly to avoid flying over an unnoticed bump and losing pieces from the bottom of your car keeps your speed down.\u00a0 Where there aren\u2019t any speed bumps there are huge potholes and wildly driven buses that pull over at seemingly any intersection to squeeze in more passengers, often not really coming to a full stop before swerving back onto the road again.<\/p>\n

Visiting my family in the U.S. my misplaced Tanzanian version of normal driving had me going down a local highway at 20 miles per hour above the speed limit.\u00a0 I had grown used to driving at the fastest speed that was physically possible while avoiding reasonable danger in Tanzania, but that version of normal makes you go really, really fast on a smooth, well-maintained highway in the United States.<\/p>\n

\"1186006_10152188434617589_262902529_n\"<\/a>Water is not safe to drink out of the tap in Tanzania, because of bacteria, so clean water is carried around the city in huge tanker trucks and everyone I know has a water dispenser with the big five-gallon bottles on them.\u00a0 Visiting my family in the U.S., I kept getting a glass out of the cabinet and looking around for a water dispenser. \u00a0My parents have had the same house for over 30 years, and have never had a water dispenser.\u00a0 Why was I looking for one now?\u00a0 It was misplaced normal yet again.<\/p>\n

When I came back to Tanzania for work after a mere two weeks back home I nearly wrecked my car because I had forgotten where those large, unpainted speed bumps were.\u00a0 I also nearly drank a glass full of water straight from the bathroom tap, a mistake that I never came close to making before my visit home.\u00a0 Why would I do those stupid things?\u00a0 The norms of home had so quickly taken root again that I had to go through yet another round of adjusting my normal, and even though I am fully aware of it, I know that every time I visit home I will still misplace my contradictory versions of normal all over again.<\/p>\n

This article was submitted by a veteran international school teacher and International School Community member, Jonathan Park<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s an element of visiting home while living abroad that I call Misplaced Normal.\u00a0 It gives you a taste of the culture shock that everyone else that is just visiting your country feels when the norms that they carry with them don\u2019t apply to their new surroundings. When people first move to a new place, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[131,38,39,40,41,42,29,43,33,44,45,46,1853,47,1828,48,1297],"class_list":["post-2636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discussion-topics","tag-africa","tag-cultural","tag-culture-misunderstanding","tag-culture-shock","tag-cultures","tag-expat-life","tag-international-school","tag-international-school-educators","tag-international-teaching","tag-laugh-at-yourself","tag-life-overseas","tag-living-abroad","tag-misplaced-normal","tag-relocating-overseas","tag-reverse-culture-shock","tag-sense-of-humor","tag-tanzania"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/1240232_10152188433337589_1867444700_n.jpg?fit=315%2C471&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2flVT-Gw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3384,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/blogs-international-school-teachers-ddsdf\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":0},"title":"Blogs for international school teachers: \u201cCliff Jumping: Risk-taking and New Beginnings\u201d (From a retired international educator)","author":"ISCommunity","date":"June 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Our 37th blog that we would like to highlight is called \"Cliff Jumping: Risk-taking and New Beginnings\"\u00a0 Check out the blog entries of this retired international school teacher\u00a0that currently is back living in her home country (United States). A few entries that we would like to highlight: Cracked \u201cI\u2019ve slowly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogs of International Teachers"","block_context":{"text":"Blogs of International Teachers","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/category\/blogs-of-international-teachers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Screen Shot 2014-06-03 at 9.59.04 PM","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Screen-Shot-2014-06-03-at-9.59.04-PM-300x84.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8865,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/ten-commandments-of-relocating-overseas-2-anticipate-a-challenging-adjustment-period-of\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":1},"title":"Ten Commandments of Relocating Overseas #2: Anticipate a challenging adjustment period of\u2026","author":"ISCommunity","date":"September 4, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Anticipate a challenging adjustment period of at least SIX months. Do not decide if you like it until these six months have passed. How important is this time frame when you first move to a new country, from the first month to the sixth?\u00a0 It is VERY important.\u00a0 Some international\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ten Commandments of Relocating Overseas"","block_context":{"text":"Ten Commandments of Relocating Overseas","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/category\/ten-commandments-of-relocating-overseas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-04-at-11.22.12.png?fit=720%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-04-at-11.22.12.png?fit=720%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-04-at-11.22.12.png?fit=720%2C720&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Screen-Shot-2022-09-04-at-11.22.12.png?fit=720%2C720&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8934,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/ten-commandments-of-relocating-overseas-4-develop-tolerance-for-ambiguity-and-frustration\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":2},"title":"Ten Commandments of Relocating Overseas #4: Develop tolerance for ambiguity and frustration","author":"ISCommunity","date":"November 6, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Develop tolerance for ambiguity and frustration by being flexible and open toward the new culture. Effects of Culture Shock \u2022 A sense of uprootedness\u2022 Feeling of disorientation\u2022 Not knowing what is going on\u2022 Behaviors and attitudes which were necessary for obtaining goals in the culture we learned are no longer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ten Commandments of Relocating Overseas"","block_context":{"text":"Ten Commandments of Relocating Overseas","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/category\/ten-commandments-of-relocating-overseas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/asian-gee89085a0_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/asian-gee89085a0_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/asian-gee89085a0_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/asian-gee89085a0_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/asian-gee89085a0_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8800,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/going-home-for-the-summer-no-one-cares-about-your-international-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":3},"title":"Going home for the summer: No one cares about your international life!","author":"ISCommunity","date":"June 27, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I always hope that somebody will care every year I go home, but every year most of them don't.\u00a0(Ha ha!) It is not because they really don't care though, it is mostly because they just don't fully understand or connect to the international\/expat life you are living. \u00a0When visiting family\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Highlighted Articles"","block_context":{"text":"Highlighted Articles","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/category\/highlighted-articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/birds-gee72d321f_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/birds-gee72d321f_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/birds-gee72d321f_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/birds-gee72d321f_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/birds-gee72d321f_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":483,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/discussion-topic-things-i-an-international-school-teacher-have-not-done-in-a-year\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":4},"title":"Discussion Topic: Things I (an international school teacher) Have Not Done in a Year","author":"ISCommunity","date":"February 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"After living abroad for so many years, I have forgotten all the things that you don\u2019t do anymore.\u00a0 We used to have a different life, didn\u2019t we?\u00a0 But now that you are living abroad, many of your routines have changed. Being that these changes have now become your new routines,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Discussion Topics"","block_context":{"text":"Discussion Topics","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/category\/discussion-topics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/02\/screen-shot-2012-02-28-at-6-58-54-pm.png?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9898,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/ten-commandments-of-relocating-overseas-10-do-not-allow-negative-comments-and-attitudes-to-darken-your-outlook-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":5},"title":"#10 Rule of Relocating Abroad: Protect your mind from negative influence","author":"ISCommunity","date":"February 4, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Surround yourself with positive people. Do not allow negative comments and attitudes to darken your outlook. Image by \ud83d\udc40 Mabel Amber, who will one day from Pixabay It is hard to stay positive, but when culture shock is at its worst, it is very easy to slip.\u00a0 Sure the other\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ten Commandments of Relocating Overseas"","block_context":{"text":"Ten Commandments of Relocating Overseas","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/category\/ten-commandments-of-relocating-overseas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/people-1540749_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/people-1540749_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/people-1540749_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/people-1540749_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/people-1540749_1280.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}