Creating My Own Culture Shock

SHANGHAI — As I prepared to travel to China for the first time, I thought that bracing myself for the culture shock was the best way to ease the transition into my ten week stint in Shanghai. Since my Mandarin language skills barely extend past ni hao, I came to Shanghai expecting only additional culture shock. But as I used my first lunch hour to explore Shanghai’s sleek Pudong area—a special economic region that the city transformed from farmland into a breathtaking skyline in only 20 years—I quickly discovered that grabbing Subway, feeding my daily Starbucks addiction, or strolling through the “Super-Brand” mall was actually easier than finding local food.

When I soon discovered the local restaurants and tried using the taxis, the anxiety caused by my very-limited Chinese started to subside, and I learned that pointing or flashing numbers often got my message across the language barrier. But relief at my improvisational skills soon turned into bewilderment: Where was this culture shock for which I had braced? As I walked the streets unable to verbally communicate and trying to observe human behavior as much as possible, it dawned on me that this linguistic bubble shielded me from the types of personal encounters and social perceptions that can cause culture shock in the first place. Instead of learning about the worldviews and daily lives of China’s people in their own language, I worried that my China experience might not include having the type of thought-provoking conversation that might help me get to the culture on personal terms.

Luckily, two experiences in the heart of China showed me how rewarding it is to risk an episode of culture shock. At dinner in a small restaurant in the city of Xi'an, which my friends and I found only by deliberating avoiding the shopping mall, we discovered that a dish printed as “chickenfish” on the menu was actually a deep-fried fish covered in multicolored sprinkles and served with a large cherry in its mouth. Following that memorable dinner, we visited a school in a rural farming village, where farmers harvest crops by hand and still make arts and crafts using the same techniques they have employed for more than 40 years. The experience reminded me that lunch at Subway followed by a subway ride back to work is still as foreign to the majority of China’s citizens as it is typical to me.


While I am sometimes thankful for all the conveniences of home whenever I want to eat quickly, part of me feels guilty for failing to take full advantage of my trip to China—even if my version of China is dominated by futuristic Pudong—when my own inertia overcomes the thrill of living and working in a country hurtling towards the future and trying to preserve its traditions. As eating chickenfish and visiting rural China taught me, uncomfortable encounters in a foreign culture, even if sometimes incredibly awkward, push you to question what motivates people to live life the way they do. Even if I will never understand what is so appetizing about eating a fish head, staring at one, instead of pizza or fried chicken, is worth more than just a few laughs or a good story.

—Robert T. Hamlin, a Crimson sports editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Mather House.