Five stages of culture shock

Le Nguyen Bao Ngoc

Niels Brock
 Culture Shock

Culture shock is a common phenomenon of what happens to people when they enter

unfamiliar conditions and environments. They might experience many kinds of emotions from

interest and excitement to depression and fear of the strange things. There are five stages of

culture shock, they are: The honeymoon stage, confusion stage, adaption, continued adaption and

bi-culturalism.

First of all, the honeymoon stage is the beginning of culture shock. In this stage, people

tend to immerse themselves in all the exciting and novel aspects of the new environment.

Moreover, people can identify similarities between the new culture and their own. They find

breathtaking view of sights, vivid cities and the hospitable and friendly locals. They even see

some annoying things such as a traffic jam, crowded streets or so on. However, the honeymoon

stage just can last for several weeks or even months, then it has to always come to an end.

The next stage is confusion, that may be the most difficult stage in culture shock. When

the excitement fades away, people have to cope with tough times or situations that makes them

be confuse. They start being tired of not understanding the different gestures, signs and language.

These small things in their life become worse and worse, being confuse and disappointed is a

natural reaction for people who spending extended time in new countries.

The third stage is adaption, this is the stage where the new life gradually starts to get

better and routine sets in. At this time, they need to develop a change in their attitude in order to

adjust to the issues and they begin to get used to the new way of life, food and customs. Besides

that, although people know what they everybody mean, but they think everybody are wrong

because they are still following their own basic assumptions as the ‘correct’ direction. Adaption

stage depends on people’s characters and the time of their stay is short or long.
 After the adaption stage is the continued adaption, the final stage in people’s

transformation of the new life. People will be satisfied in their new home, everything in their

daily life become easier, especially language barriers are not a problem anymore. The new

friends, new family, and something around them come to be a part of their life. May be

sometimes they still face with difficulties but they are also able to handle these problems in

efficient ways.

The final stage is about biculturalism. In this stage, people have ability to cope with their

own and new cultures comfortably. They have a huge knowledge of each culture, analyze good

and bad aspects in norms and values. Furthermore, people no longer feel unpleasant, they can

relax and enjoy the life, there is nothing more difficult for them.

In conclusion, these five stages describe clearly culture shock from honeymoon stage to

biculturalism, and when people enter the new environment, they cannot avoid culture shock, it is

an indispensable part of life.

 References

Lauren, M. (20/1/2020), Culture shock stage: Everything you need to know, retrieved

from: https://www.now-health.com/en/blog/culture-shock-stages/