It's not unfamiliar for exchange student alumni to hear the term "reverse culture shock". According to Investopedia, reverse culture shock is the emotional and psychological distress suffered by some people when they return home after a number of years overseas. As an Indonesian-born who went to the United States for one school year, I for sure have experienced this. But what happens if I tell you that it can take a longer time for some others at recovering from culture shock? What if I tell you that it took me around 5 years to finally make peace with myself and accept that everything that's happening around me right now should be embraced wholeheartedly?
Here are some things that I experienced that prolong my sufferings:
Dear younger fellow exchange student alumni, read this carefully so you won't experience the long-suffering I had been through
1. Being critical towards my environment
For exchange students, it took a lot of dedication to get used to things in the host community. But when we finally succeed and finally blend in a new environment, we have to go back to a place where you once called home and that might be the place where we were raised for many years. we might feel excited when we return home to finally meet our family and old friends. But "shoot, why don't everyone here say "thank you" as much as people in Illinois? Why aren't many people here bothered by this amount of pollution? Why is this city so full of people who are just too hesitant to take public transportation? Oh come on, we have too many vehicles in this city!" That's what I felt after two months living in Medan, Indonesia and two months after departing from the United States for my exchange study program. The honeymoon phase was all ended and I stopped feeling excited.
I know it's good to express distress as a teenager for emotional relief but does not mean we have to be dramatic and complaining all the time. All of the things that we dislike about our hometown comes from an improved way of thinking after we have travelled enough to learn about all the good stuff that's happening in our host community. With this new way of thinking, our presence would be very beneficial to our environment because we can spot the problem that people in our community didn't think existed. Practising critical thinking is good only if we have systemic thinking in finding solutions. There's always something wrong when we have an eye for something wrong. Why don't we take a rest and let the stress go? A lot of things in our environment are just something that we can't control or maybe it can only if we take revolutionary actions, which complaining is just not one of them.
2. Being critical towards the people around me
At some point, we all want to be understood. I, myself want to be understood too. Something that I didn't quite understand is while I was travelling the world, meet new people, and learning a new culture, my family and my old friends still live in the same city and doing similar activities. I didn't realize how my experience was shaping me into somebody who now has different values and beliefs about the world. It was really frustrating to witness how these people treating me in a way that they think I like it which I actually don't. It feels so isolating and lonely that people who were once very close to me aren't interested in a new topic that I like to discuss. It felt like I was losing some friends. But now I realized that it's not their job to understand me. I was seventeen when I experienced this for the first time. People come and go and it took some time to realize it's actually good. Your vibe will attract your tribe anyway, the more you showcase the new you, the more likely your new friends are coming.
Now that it's been more than 5 years since departing from the U.S., I have to accept that I still miss my exchange student life. It's the greatest achievement that I have ever done in my life. But the world keeps moving, and I should not feel stuck. It's time shift my focus towards what's happening and appreciate it instead of focusing on what's missing. Just because I wasn't talking about my exchange life that often, doesn't mean I already found closure in the past. The purpose of this writing is to solidify the feeling of closure that has been rising for a couple of days and for those who can relate to my story, and also for anybody willing to understand my story with an open heart.
I will forever miss America
