Culture shock

Abstract

The author of the article wrote about her cultural shock when she had returned home to Austria after her month studying in Irkutsk. In 1995 she started learning Russian language in Salzburg Literacy University, where she and other 4 students were asked to spend a month in Siberia. In Irkutsk the author lived at the uncomfortable apartment. The infrastructure of the town was also poorly adjusted: no supermarkets and problems with goods.  There was only a big market in the center of the town, where Siberians sold Taiga gifts, vegetables and fruits.

But the author was impressed by the landscapes in the vicinity of Irkutsk, the beauty and grandeur of Lake Baikal. Life in Siberia became a trip into another culture.  The author noticed that people are kindhearted there. She spent lots of time with Masha, the owner of the apartment. Together they traveled to the country, preparing food from the crop collected in the garden and water from the fresh stream. She especially liked Masha's evenings in the kitchen. Friends came spontaneously. All had enough space. Although the author of the article was disgusted with alcohol and did not like drunk people, she said that her Russian friends drank a lot, but they were responsible.  Maybe she was just lucky with her family, because, in the family, where her classmates lived, the situation was much worse.

Step by step, she understood: to understand the situation you must be involved into it.

Gradually, the unknown became known, and strangers became friends. So she learned to have patience and understand the art of being happy on little.

Upon her return to Salzburg, the author felt uncomfortable in this pure cleanness and comfort, seemed to be so cold and stressful to her. Even then, she realized that she was experiencing culture shock. The author was ready for such kind of experience but she was surprised, why she felt this cultural shock in Austria, but not in Siberia. The culture shock was getting stronger. At her apartment in Salzburg, she felt lonely and suffered from the fact that she had lost a simple lifestyle of Siberia.

Ten years later, when the author began to forget about her cultural shock, she realized that she had that small part of Siberia in her heart. She decided to change her attitude to nature and to be much closer to it. She began to spend a lot of time in the mountains and realized that she had to use Nature Coaching primarily for herself in order to became a person.