Culture stress and language

Culture shock is a misleading term in that it seems to describe a sudden impact. In my experience, the reality is much more likely to be a slow buildup of stress over time. Though once in a while there is a definitive episode, a kind of "critical incident" as such a cultural crossroads is called in intercultural communication, most of the time the sources of culture shock are more fluid and evasive.

So that's why I titled this post "culture stress." I'm writing as an means of psychological excavation, to dig into the stress that has piled up onto me slowly and see where it's coming from. This is much more of a journal entry and more self-indulgent than other posts so far, so if you're here for news and fun facts, skip this one.

Where is my stress coming from right now? There are many little things, tiny things, that increase stress incrementally simply by contradicting my expectations. When I go into the bathroom in the middle of the day, it has been washed and the floor is totally wet. Someone has to ask me to move from their seat on a long-distance bus, because I don't know that they are assigned here, like airplane seats. Old men piss at the side of the road, and I'm too embarrassed to walk by until they finish. People can spit on the ground anywhere, but I mustn't fart audibly. To edit this blog, I have to guess which button is which because the browser is in Korean. I go to a shoe store without socks, and they don't have little socks for trying shoes on; I try them on barefoot. There are few 3-ringed binders here, and fewer 3-hole-punches; there are just lots of document cases with no dividers. (How do teachers stay organized?) Even if I say "No meat", they still put meat in my food--such as my "lasagne" last night, which turned out to be a bowl of spaghetti and meat sauce baked with cheese on top. Big pieces of ham.

These little things add up and increase my feelings of being overwhelmed. But overall, there is one main source of stress, and that is not speaking Korean.

I went to a locksmith to try to get a key copied today, and for the first time, someone was really annoyed and impatient with me not speaking Korean. (Can you imagine how immigrants and visitors to the U.S. feel who get that all the time?!!) She told me impatiently (I surmised) that they did not copy that type of key there. I stood there for 10 seconds feeling crushed and running through a battery of phrases I didn't know how to say: "another store", "where can I ..." "is it possible..." I could have said these three phrases even in ARABIC, but not yet in Korean.

Instead, I stood there looking and feeling like a complete idiot, and also unable to accomplish the goal I had come there for. I had no alternative; I gave up and left. I walked on down the street, and then I said loudly to myself in English, "I HATE not speaking Korean. I HATE IT!"

But that is entirely my responsibility. Right?

First, I chose this experience: I had always wanted to try going somewhere where I literally didn't speak ANY of the language. Well, now I have--and the novelty has worn off! Second, I learned more Korean from the tapes I listened to before my departure than I have so far in the three weeks since. I think subconsciously I stopped studying on my own because now I'm enrolled in a class. As a language teacher, I'm ashamed of myself. Why was I expecting to get everything I need from a twice-a-week language class? Hasn't being a teacher ruined the mystique of those classes for me yet? But apparently it hasn't. I don't remember HOW I started speaking Chinese or Danish, I just know that I went to class every day and then sooner or later, I was speaking.

To be fair, perhaps I just shut down because I was trying to assimilate too much newness too quickly, and the language was something I could refuse to deal with. I'm not sure why learning Korean fills me with such dread. Perhaps it's just daunting to start again from scratch, or perhaps it's the fact that after 3 weeks of not understanding it all around me, I'm starting to build up a mental block already. Krashen (an alternately much-loved and much-mocked researcher in second language acquisition) talked about the importance to language learners of having linguistic input just slightly above their level of competence. When I hear Korean, I don't even try to understand: I freeze up. NONE of the words sound familiar. When I hear a language that I have studied, even if I don't speak it well, I can usually stay open by listening for words or grammatical forms that I recognize. But to Korean, I have built up a barrier; and unless I want to spend a year in frustration, I will need to break through it.

Me, with my 2 degrees in linguistics, natural aptitude for languages, and elementary levels of 6 foreign tongues under my belt, resistant to learning a language. Can you imagine how people feel who are thrust into a second language environment for reasons other than prior knowledge of or interest in that culture, and lack my linguistic skills? All I'm saying is, if I can panic and shut down at the sound of Korean, having chosen to come here of my own free will, knowing how to deal with language learning, then just imagine how immigrants must feel. Imagine refugees.

Or maybe I have it all backwards. Maybe, knowing so much about language, I'm just hyper aware of my own shortcomings when it comes to Korean. Maybe I have unusually high expectations of myself because I'm so used to being competent. I cannot presume to know what refugees' experiences are like; but I do hope that, some day in the future, if I'm teaching a refugee class, I remember back to when I was walking down the street, and my hatred of not being able to speak began to blend into a hatred of the language itself. Please let me remember this and let it someday become a source of compassion.