Oh no, I have let it happen, I have let German become a barrier. A barrier between me and Berlin. I love Berlin so much but now I feel stressed and lonely. My basic German has improved, but it is still just a basic grasp of the language. And only basic enough to ask people how they are, how much things cost (but my problems with numbers keeps me from understanding the answer to that most of the time) and to say sweet things to mein schnuckiputzi B. Conversations just fly over my head and could well be alien language. It put me down yesterday and I must have seemed like a grumpy partypooper… Yuk!
I remember when I first moved to London, a bit more than five years ago. We had an induction week for international students at my school and we were given this leaflet. The leaflet, and the international reps, explained to us that adapting to life in a new city will happen in different phases. There was a diagram that went first up (when everything is new and exciting), then down (when everything is new and exhausting) and then slowly working up again to a stable level – this is when you have adapted. I remember thinking that this was stupid, we can’t all, without failure, follow a specific pattern and what do they know, I love London, I won’t have my curve go down because ofsome culture shock. And I don’t think it happened. At least not noticeably enough for me to be affected much or remember it now. Maybe I wasn’t shocked. But I think this curve applies to me here.
This has got me curious about this process of assimilation (or failure to assimilate) with a new country/city/culture. The term Culture Shock was coined in 1954 by Kalervo Oberg. There are actually four stages:
- Honeymoon Phase: Oh how wonderful, fun and great this new place is. So much to explore, so much to discover and learn about. 2008 was my Berlin honeymoon phase. I was so crazy about this city I wanted to move here asap and even marry it – I do have strange thoughts. There is actually a Swedish woman who married a bit of the Berlin wall. And some German man who married a tree. Why not a whole city? If you get bored of a part of the tree, well you can’t really seek elsewhere, a tree is a tree, leaves may be unique but not drastically different from one another. And a wall… If I married a whole city I can get bored of a part but still easily find excitment in another. I know I babble silly.
- Negation Phase: Oops, moods swings and maybe even depression. I have to be careful. I am mood swinging like a jazz band from the 1940s and I can’t even blame it on my monthly period… Minor reasons can set off mood swings in this phase; for me it can be something as stupid as not understanding what the cashier in the bookshop repeated four times in German (despite the fact that I was buying a Berlin guide in English on a main shopping + tourist Strasse and mumbled in English and broken German). I need to pull myself together, I love this city, I love Berliners, I love a Berliner and I will learn this difficult language.
- Adjustment Phase: Routines and stability; I will feel like I belong here soon, once I master some of the language. You start caring about small things, regular concerns (going to the bank, buying milk, fixing your bike, …) and life becomes common, fun an happy if you love the place. Home, Sweet Home.
- Reverse Culture Shock: When going home seems like a drag, when you feel like a foreigner where you once belonged. I am not too worried, I have moved so much, I am used to feeling like a stranger in a place I have once called home. I am not so good with rooting anyway.
Culture shock, I believe, can only have a positive outcome. I know from my own experiences that it has made me more independent. Only time can tell, oh that bloody but yet so true expression. I am an impatient person…
