Processing Amidst the Process

My apologies for my absence… I’ve got some pretty intense writer’s block so I’ve been writing, deleting, re-writing, getting frustrated, then attempting to write again. All fruitless attempts, I must say; I decided I just needed to sit down and do something. So after hours, here is what I’ve come up with. A few reflections, thoughts, and a bit of a recap on the past week!

We’re in Thailand now! Two weeks in Malaysia came and went. At the same time though, these past two weeks have felt like some of the longest in my life. They say time flies when you’re having fun, so it makes sense that it moved quickly but I’ve been thinking about why, even though those days were fast paced, they were simultaneously moving at snail speed. If I’m being honest, each day in and of itself felt never-ending. The clock ticked at a turtle pace whether we were in class, lesson planning, resting, or at dinner. At the same time, each moment was full of something new. Something interesting. Something funny. Something random. Something frustrating. But always something. I learned so much - so many lessons - in these past 2 weeks. One of the biggest lessons had to do with culture shock.

If I am being completely honest, culture shock is something I thought that, at this point in my travel experience, I was immune to. If I had done enough reading about the country - its food, people, religion, and language, if I had talked to enough people that had been there, if I had opened up my mind enough to the new culture I would be immersed into, then I would be fine. There would just be culture, rather than culture shock. But time and time again, I have underestimated the level of culture shock. Culture shock doesn’t have to be a bad thing (albeit sometimes it can be the hardest thing) - in some ways I think it is such an important thing. It sort of shocks you out of this ethnocentric mindset and forces you to realize there are cultures different from your own. For me, there’s culture shock on a minor and major scale. Minor things such as no toilet paper in the bathrooms, squatting to pee, the weather, the amount of spice in foods, the smell of durian EVERYWHERE etc. are pretty prominent, but not mentally exhausting. On the “major” scale, the language barrier, feeling lost, lonely, jet-lagged, incompetent, different foods, different customs… those are all so difficult. Through all of that culture shock however, I learned so much. They say there are 5 stages of culture shock people typically experience:

1. The Honeymoon Stage

2. Irritability and Hostility Gradual

3. Adjustment/Understanding

4. Integration

5. Re-entry shock

Just like with anything that has “stages” different people experience each stage differently. I don’t really know if I had the honeymoon stage in Malaysia. That 14 hour plane ride, 3 hour layover, a few hours in a hotel, then another flight kind of sucked the life out of me a bit. I never really “honey-mooned” with Malaysia, but I didn’t jump straight into and irritability either - I was kind of just there. I went straight from Malaysia to Thailand so I was immersed into a whole new culture almost immediately.

We are staying in a small city in Thailand with around 3,000 people. I’ve never been a small town person so this has definitely been an aspect of culture shock. We walk everywhere, everyone knows everyone, I see the kids I teach walking in the streets, and we ride in the back of pick-up trucks. I love it but simultaneously it’s incredibly out of my comfort zone. I’m a city person. My dream is to live in LA or New York or somewhere with hustle and bustle and skyscrapers and horns honking, and weird architecture, and museums… I love big cities. But this place has been such a nice break. We went to the beach yesterday and I was so happy I could cry. This place was so beautiful and I realized in the midst of all of this jumble in my brain, I’ve never really allowed myself to have moments of rest. I don’t really like rest because when I rest anxiety creeps in and well, that’s not ideal. But despite the anxiety that I’ve been having recently (about what, I don’t really know!), this period of rest scattered throughout the day has been shockingly wonderful. Being immersed in a culture that with a completely different view of time, I’ve learned so much about patience. I’ve had to be more relaxed because, well that’s how the culture is here. I can’t be fast paced with a to do list and an agenda in a place that doesn’t operate that way. I’m sure my parents will be appreciate of my newfound levels of patience. I have come to appreciate, while I still don’t fully understand, this view of life and living.

That leads me to perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned (and tying all 5000 of these different thoughts together) Being immersed into a culture drastically different from my own, is one of the best things that you can do for yourself. I’ve grown so much in how I see myself, others, and life in general. Rest is actually important. My parents, therapists, friends, teachers, self-help gurus and basically the entire world has been telling me this for as long as I can remember. But because I’m stubborn and think I know everything - I actively chose to ignore all of that advice. But here, the culture shock has kind of shocked me awake. I don’t know if my appreciation for calm and the “slow-paced life” will continue at home, but now I know that there is value in it.

My thoughts may seem a bit jumbled… probably because they are. I’ve been trying to pick apart and analyze and understand the past 2 weeks. It’s hard to process when you’re still in the midst of the process. Maybe I’ve been forcing myself to understand when I really need more time to process, which is ok. Part of me wants to get EVERYTHING out on the page and share it with you all, but then there’s this huge part of me that feels like it wouldn’t be fair to myself or to anyone who reads this to BS my way through and not really mean what I’m saying. But I still know what I’ve learned.

Thank you for reading - thank you for taking the time to break down all of this stuff with me! This was my first real brain dump and I definitely dumped it all on the page!