Way back in the summer of ‘68, I met an elderly woman who had never been outside of my hometown of 20,000 souls in Southern New Jersey. I hadn’t thought of myself as a traveler, but at the age of 13 I’d already been to Florida, the Midwest, various places in the Northeast, and as far as the West Coast.
A group of YWAM[1] volunteers had come to our town to do door-to-door canvassing and, although a thirteen-year-old, I had been invited to join them. We spent a busy week meeting people all over town.
I have no idea why this woman had never been more than five miles from her front door, but she said she hadn’t even been to Vineland, a mere two miles away from her house. To this adolescent, her world was exceedingly small.
Public Domain: nature_of_latvia_DSCF2943_-_flickr_-_davispuh
Just because she had never gotten around much does not necessarily mean she was an introvert; she could have chatted all day long with her neighbors for all I knew. Her never going anywhere didn’t make her an introvert any more than the fact that I have traveled the world and have spoken in all kinds of settings, vast and intimate, makes me an extrovert.
Actually, I classify myself as an extroverted introvert.
Give me a choice between sitting at home reading or going to a loud party? Home.
Going on a cruise or hiking with my wife? Hiking with my wife.
Being a part of a large group discussion or speaking to hundreds of people? Speaking to hundreds.
Surprisingly, up front speaking to strangers is something introverts are known to handle better than mingling with strangers. Ask all those introverted preachers.
However, while I can spend hours alone writing, doing research, or working in my garden, I also love interacting with people and am known to make connections everywhere. But put me at a table filled with people and I’ll likely strike up a conversation with one other person so we can get beyond soundbites, someone who is preferably sitting next to me so I can hear them better.
As much as I have learned to engage new cultures, I must confess that even in seemingly familiar settings I can experience cultural dissonance, sometimes overwhelmingly. And if I must be in new settings, I want to have time to adjust to room temperature.
Recently I spoke at a type of church I’d never been in before to people I’d never met. I worked hard to pick up on social cues, understand lingo, identify points of connectivity. It was difficult work. By the end of my visit, I was exhausted and ready to be a homebody.
Sociologists and intercultural experts describe cultural dissonance as a sense of discomfort when facing an unfamiliar environment. People may look like people you are used to and even speak the same language, but the communications are off. The way things operate is different. Expectations are not readily understandable.
You can find cultural dissonance almost anywhere in life. I sensed it when I first moved to Texas, a place where I’ve claimed to have first experienced cultural shock. In reality, any time I’ve gone someplace new, I’ve experienced some level of cultural adjustment. We all do.
A former coworker was not accustomed to church, having never been to one. He didn’t realize he was working around church folk all day in our emergency food program in the basement of a church. When I suggested he visit a church service to get to know his volunteers better, he freaked out. He said he had no idea how to relate to them having never been around church in his life.
Naturally, he had no idea how a formal church gathering worked – all the social cues would be unfamiliar. But I kept reminding him that the people in the crowd at church on Sunday were the same people he was distributing groceries with on Saturday. Slowly he overcame his anxiety, some of it at least.
We expect to experience cultural dissonance in a country where we don’t know the language, but different settings with the same language can also be disconcerting. A friend, a U.S. citizen, spent some time in the U.K. and was struck by how much he struggled with the British culture. Although he’d traveled all over the U.S., England was a bridge too far. Sure, lingo and accents played a role, but their ways of doing things were quite foreign to him.
Walk into a new job and process all the details you need to understand and the people you have to get to know. Move into a new neighborhood and get used to the ways of these strangers. Attend a new church and feel lost. Even if the new setting seems to match so much of what you knew of your old environment, there is a lot to get accustomed to.
When my kids were young, they watched the edutainment cartoon, Magic School Bus. One of the student characters, Phoebe, was a new arrival in Ms. Frizzle’s class. “At my old school,” she’d often say, referencing where she’d come from. She was adjusting, making comparisons, checking out the temperature of the new space. Comparing was her way of coping and trying to master a new world as an outsider.
Cultures are found at all levels. Whole sections of our world make up various layers of cultures. Malaysian culture may be different than Korean, but they share Asian characteristics that are quite distinct from cultures in East Africa or Western Europe.
At the other end of the scale, small family groups have their own unique cultures. Though my wife and I grew up three thousand miles apart, we identified similarities in our backgrounds as we were processing our courtship – both our families loved to go camping and were from similar socioeconomic settings, for example. She and I spent lots of time getting to know each other, including our own personal histories and family stories. But even with all that preparation, meeting each other’s extended families was a whole new adjustment. These were vast new cultures to absorb.
Having lived in diverse cultures and worked with hundreds of people adjusting to those cultures, I’ve discovered that extroverts do not necessarily have an easier time getting over cultural dissonance. It does help that they are freer to get out and mix it up with “locals.” But introverts can be much more observant about subtle cues. Adjusting is as much about observing and listening as it is about talking. You do need to talk to learn a language and meet people. But to really get to know people, you have to absorb the unspoken as well.
When crossing into obviously new cultural territory, people talk about culture shock. But unlike getting zapped by sticking your finger in an electric socket, cultural adjustments are often about struggling to discern undercurrents beyond what you sense is hitting you in the face. What can overwhelm is the accumulation of differences – to the point that you just want to curl up and find your comfort zone.
Whether you are moving to a new continent or embracing a new job, here are a few tips for working through cultural dissonance. I go into these and more in my book, Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom.
- Don’t expect the new culture to love you back or adapt your ways. You are the newcomer moving into their territory. In time, they may pick up some new tricks from you, especially if it is a smaller group, but your expectations will be as meaningless to them as Phoebe’s comparisons were to Ms. Frizzle’s class.
- Know yourself. The more you understand yourself and your values going in, the more you can find ways to adjust and adapt. Some things are core, but not everything is a hill to die on. When Kim and I moved to Taiwan, we often said to each other, It’s not necessarily wrong; it’s just different.
- Remember that you don’t have to know everything. The desire to have something to say about every situation, a la Phoebe, comes out of our own insecurities. Take the posture of a student and let the new culture teach you.
- Take time to let the new culture grow on you. Take it step by step; anticipate it being more like a dance: two steps forward, one step back. If your goal is to engage that new setting – even if you are on a mission bring change – allow yourself to listen to its rhythms and learn its seasons, to feel its unspoken core.
Like that elderly woman in my hometown, we don’t necessarily have to move out of our comfort zone. She may well have lived a full and meaningful life without having traveled those two miles. However, I can testify that being stretched by new cultures and experiences does much to help us grow. New relationships, new towns, new cultures help us become someone much richer than we would have ever been otherwise.
To keep stretching your horizons, be sure to subscribe to this blog. Guaranteed to make you think – or your money back. Besides, it’s free! For an in-depth study on stretching your horizons, check out Night Shift: Crossing the Cultural Line for the Kingdom – not free, but worth the price.
[1] Youth With A Mission