The Secret Phase of Culture Shock

Normal life has been moving along here in Seoul. I finished teaching my normal semester classes, I turned all of my grades in, I planned all of my summer English camps. These are all normal things that normal teachers do all over the world. I've been doing my normal church activities, shopping at my normal grocery stores and going to normal restaurants and coffee shops with friends. Life is full, but relatively boring at the moment. I consider this to be quite an accomplishment.

Most places seem to agree that there are four stages of culture shock when you move to a new country. There is the honeymoon phase where everything seems wonderful and amazing. This can last anywhere between 2 weeks and 3-4 months.

One day, reality intrudes on the honeymoon phase, and you realize that you're living in a place where everything is different, and you don't really understand it. This is called the negotiation phase. It is often characterized by feelings of anxiety, frustration and sometimes anger. It can start anywhere between 3-6 months into your stay. This is usually the point where people get bitter and turn into haters. Unfortunately, some people never leave this stage. 

After the negotiation phase comes the adjustment phase. This is where you become more comfortable with life, and things start to seem more normal. Most people have figured out enough of the culture to know how to navigate basic situations and they start to rebuild some confidence and lose the anxiety and frustration. You don't go back to the honeymoon phase, but life becomes much easier to deal with. 

The last stage is for long-term expats, and it is the mastery phase. This is when you learn the host culture language and culture well enough to fully participate in it. You don't lose the aspects of your home culture, but you reach a stage where you are fully fluent in both cultures. 

My experience with culture shock wasn't exactly textbook. My honeymoon stage lasted about two hours. I kept switching back and forth between negotiation and adjustment for a really long time. I've been in Korea for a little over 10 months now. I'm doing a lot of things that are pretty normal. There are still plenty of things about Korea that I don't understand, and my Korean is still pretty terrible, but for now, this country is home. This giant, massive, sprawling metropolis has somehow turned into my city. 

However, there is one phase of this whole living abroad thing that wasn't covered by the traditional definitions of culture shock. That would be the phase where you are suddenly going out on your own to rent property in your own name and fill it with your own furniture without anyone from a school or employer looking over your  shoulder or providing basic things. Even though I've lived here for almost a year and navigated through a lot of culture shock, this still kinda freaks me out for some reason. It feels so much more permanent than moving into a school provided apartment furnished with school provided stuff.

This is when it hits me-- I really do have a life in a foreign country, and it really is a real, functioning, adult life. This isn't some extended vacation. It isn't a dream. This isn't even strange anymore. But at some level, it still feels like I'm on the outside looking in. 

It's also a bit crazy trying to navigate through the Korean rental system. I'm hoping to move sometime between July 25th and August 1st. That's 19 days away from today. I've been looking around online and talking with some realtors, and they are all telling me that it's simply too early to start looking for an apartment. I keep asking when it would be a good time to start looking, and they keep telling me that I should start looking maybe two weeks before I want to move. I think that finding an apartment and moving will be a grand adventure. Stay tuned for more updates on all of that!

In the meantime, life is kinda boring. It's kinda normal. Shortly after I move I'll be back in America for a few weeks to visit, then it's back to Seoul to start a new adventure at a new apartment and a new school - both as a professor and a student. Hopefully that doesn't mean I have to start the cultural transitions all over again ;)