Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Many aspects of individual personality and experience
profoundly affect this basic formula. Your 'cycle' may be
quite different, but few people will be able to learn much
about their new culture without experiencing troughs of
negative feelings and discouragement. Cultural stress can
have profound negative effects on people, but it need not
be treated as a disease.
Bochner has developed a culture-learning model to deal
with culture shock that looks for solutions by learning
cultural characteristics that apply. Appropriate cultural skills
are survival skills, in a way. Without them, the international
attracts attention to himself as an outsider. Proper awareness,
preparation and attitude can help the international
accumulate these skills.
Is It Really Possible to be Multicultural?
Yes! More and more work is being done in the field
of multicultural life. Marriages, children, work and
retirement are increasingly multicultural. There is a common
comparison between learning a culture and learning a
language, with as many stages of 'l uency' along the way.
Multicultural expertise takes practice, but people can
speak and act in more ways than one. They eventually do
it subconsciously.
The biggest pitfall to multicultural understanding is
assuming that cultural differences don't matter. The mediums
of TV and cinema can change dress codes and language in
an instant, but real cultural values change remarkably slowly.
Businesses within the European Union are far more aware
of this now than they were i ve years ago.
The ability to l y about the planet quickly and cheaply
does not diminish the cultural differences into which we
debark. It is much easier to get there, but it still takes time
and effort to become culturally functional and years to feel
truly 'at home'. But a multicultural life is hugely, wonderfully
possible. We are all cultural chameleons, eager to 'i t in'
wherever we are.
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