Stranger in your own land

There comes a phase in every long-term expatriate’s life when he or she realizes that they no longer entirely fit in back home. While abroad, you expect to feel foreign; you certainly don’t expect to feel that way when you come home. This is an unsettling experience, for one realizes then that there really is no going home again. At least, not without a certain amount of unease. This unwelcome feeling – typically referred to as reverse culture shock - can be triggered by any number of things that the normal citizen no longer even considers.

Take my English friend, who recently moved his family back to the UK after years of living abroad. Why is it, he fumed, that in the UK there are separate hot and cold taps at wash basins, and not a single, integrated tap? Instead, one has to wash their hands or face in either scalding hot water or freezing cold water. This inconvenience is simply beyond his comprehension.

Another English acquaintance was taken aback to discover that while she was living abroad the size of money had changed. “I recall idly musing to a friend that I remembered 50p pieces being bigger,” she said. Her friend responded by looking at her funny and saying, “Uh… yeah, they were changed years ago.”

These two examples may seem trifling, but it is exactly such observations that tend to make one’s return to their country of origin unsettling.

The last time we visited America, for example, my wife and I stayed at a reputable hotel chain that provided breakfast in the price of the room. Perfect, we thought, imagining the plentiful spreads that the typical European hotel would offer. But come morning, we were scandalized to discover that our fare was to be individually-packaged muffins, miniature boxes of cereal, and the odd bruised apple. To top it off, the plates were made of paper, and the utensils were plastic. We felt like refugees, not paying customers, and wondered aloud how Americans could stand for such nonsense.

These issues aside, perhaps the most difficult part of returning home – even for short trips – is re-connecting with the people that you left behind.

“So how is it over there,” friends typically ask. Years ago I would wax poetic, go into great detail, and more often than not speak until their faces went blank. Was this because my stories were boring? Possibly. But more likely is that the level of attention is small for stories of the expatriate life. Do people really want to hear how great it is abroad and how terrible it is at home? Of course not. So nowadays I respond to the question a touch differently: I ask them whether they want the short, medium, or long version. Mostly I’m asked for the short version, and in this way we can get to more important topics like sports or lawn care more quickly.

But this is assuming that people even show interest in the expatriate lifestyle. Many times the traveler will return home and feel alienated, even from long-time friends, because areas of interest are no longer shared.

Particularly challenging for my wife and I is finding internationally-oriented people in the rural areas where each of us grew up and which therefore tend to be the focal points of our trips home. For example, when we meet with my old friends, the men talk with the men, the women talk with the women, and my wife, accustomed to serious discussion, instead gets drawn into conversations about children, clothes, and hair.

At any rate, a great deal of literature dealing with culture shock exists, but the bulk of the articles tend to treat it as merely a phase to be worked through. Plenty of advice, such as cultivating new friendships, getting involved with international organizations and keeping up with foreign language skills, are offered.

But for the long-term expatriate, reverse culture shock isn’t simply a phase. It’s a very real and very high wall of discouragement that stands between them and the decision of whether or not to move back to their home country.