41. Culture Shock Is Real!

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[00:00:00.24] - Oliver (Host)

Welcome back to another episode of English and Beyond, the Advanced Version. We have a transcript on our website, as well as flashcards to help you practise the most difficult vocabulary that is available at www.morethanalanguage.com. As always, well, not as always, but as often, I have César here with me, and we're just going to have a little bit of a chat, aren't we, César? Mm-hmm. No monologue today. Yeah. But this is something that we've both experienced; it's not something inherently British or English. It's just something really common and ordinary if you've ever lived abroad. What are we going to discuss today, César?

[00:00:40.48] - César (Guest)

I'm reading the topic on your computer, on your laptop. Culture shock.

[00:00:45.51] - Oliver (Host)

Culture shock. Should we read a definition of that? Culture shock refers to feelings of uncertainty, confusion, or anxiety that people may experience when moving to a new country or experiencing a new culture or surroundings. So straight off this, have you ever experienced culture shock?

[00:01:03.48] - César (Guest)

Of course I have.

[00:01:04.56] - Oliver (Host)

When and where?

[00:01:06.49] - César (Guest)

I did. I think my first memory of a culture shock was when I visited Dominican Republic with my dad. I was like 12 or so. So it was my first time crossing the pond, crossing the Atlantic. It was my first time in Central America, in America, full stop. And, it's obviously a very different country from Spain. The thing that really blew my mind was seeing the butchers and seeing the meat on the street without any health and safety in place. Because my whole family comes from the meat industry and they are working in the abattoirs or they work as -

[00:01:56.49] - Oliver (Host)

- butchers -

[00:01:57.40] - César (Guest)

- as butchers, yeah. That really, really shocked me.

[00:02:00.10] - Oliver (Host)

We should say actually the Dominican Republic is a really big holiday destination for Spanish people.

[00:02:06.04] - César (Guest)

It is, yeah.

[00:02:06.47] - Oliver (Host)

I don't know anyone from the UK, for example, who's gone to the Dominican Republic, but it's somewhere where people go often from Spain.

[00:02:13.44] - César (Guest)

Yeah, they love, Spanish people love their resorts. Actually, most resorts in Dominican Republic are owned and run by Spanish people.

[00:02:23.14] - Oliver (Host)

By Spanish hotel chains.

[00:02:24.31] - César (Guest)

Spanish hotel chains, yeah.

[00:02:25.56] - Oliver (Host)

I was going to say, actually, I suppose you can have a temporary culture shock just by being there on holiday, but it's not the same. I think actually, I feel very strongly now that it is a very different feeling, the culture shock that I've got moving to Spain from just being on holiday because I would say that I've probably had the biggest culture shock of my life here in Spain, even though it's actually the country I probably knew the best, definitely the country that I knew the best before moving to it. And the country that I spoke the language the best in of all of the countries that I've lived in. And yet -

[00:03:06.02] - César (Guest)

And you've been dating a Spaniard for eight years.

[00:03:08.40] - Oliver (Host)

Exactly.

[00:03:09.44] - César (Guest)

Through me, you got to know the culture as well.

[00:03:11.42] - Oliver (Host)

I knew what I was getting, and yet I still have had a culture shock. You can have a culture shock, I suppose, from a holiday, but I don't think it's the same thing.

[00:03:24.29] - César (Guest)

But in that case, my first culture shock was when I first moved to the UK and things from like, kissing everyone or saying things that are completely normal in Spain, but they weren't in the UK.

[00:03:42.07] - Oliver (Host)

Aggressively rude in the UK. Yeah, exactly.

[00:03:44.58] - César (Guest)

Maybe, yeah.

[00:03:45.46] - Oliver (Host)

Like, "Oh, wow, you're looking pretty fat."

[00:03:49.47] - César (Guest)

Now I'm experiencing the opposite, the reverse culture shock when you move back to your country after leaving abroad for a few years.

[00:04:00.51] - Oliver (Host)

Because I think that we've hinted towards this, haven't we? That we have experienced some culture shock; maybe more in the Spanish podcast than in this one. But I don't think we've talked about it in detail, and I think it's quite an interesting topic, and people have asked me before to talk about my experiences of living in China, and I probably should do a whole episode on that. I'm going to do a whole episode on Germany. Definitely, I've written it already. But you also spent a little bit of time living in the US, or a month or two.

[00:04:31.11] - César (Guest)

Well, I got that grant, a scholarship from the Spanish government to study English in New York.

[00:04:37.30] - Oliver (Host)

Was that before or after London? The first time?

[00:04:40.08] - César (Guest)

Before. I was 21. Yeah.

[00:04:41.33] - César (Guest)

Okay.

[00:04:41.34] - César (Guest)

And I spent only one month. So it's not like I settled that. You get to know or you get to have a routine in the city. I was in New York, in Manhattan. But I can't really remember any culture shock there, to be honest.

[00:05:00.10] - Oliver (Host)

I actually think that, for me, is part of the definition of culture shock, because I think part of moving to a place is getting that routine, as you said. So not being on holiday. A holiday, I think, for me, at least, you might have a holiday really mapped out, programmed down to the last minute, but it's still a holiday if you're doing things which are not normally the things that you would do, or you're not doing the same thing every day, or you're or you're doing nothing at all. You're just totally relaxed. For me, that's almost part of the definition of a holiday. Whereas being in a place for a longer term period of time, plus you are just doing ordinary life or you've got a stable routine that you're doing without being that exciting, for me, that's closer to moving to a place. Obviously, you didn't move to USA if you lived there for only a month, but you're not on holiday either.

[00:06:00.02] - César (Guest)

No, it was something in between. That's true.

[00:06:02.33] - Oliver (Host)

But I think that knowing that you're going to stay for a longer time then has a much bigger impact on your mentality, and also that can cause a culture shock. Because I was saying to you earlier, I today that when I went to live in Beijing, I was only there for six months, and I knew I was never going to stay in Beijing, at least then. I suppose I thought it was possible I would come back to the country, but I knew at that point I wasn't going to go to Beijing and stay in Beijing I knew that I had my flight booked home. And so I don't think I ever actually had a culture shock in Beijing. I was like, Oh, wow, that's interesting. That's different. I even had to set up a bank account, get a phone contract, do all of those things, go and visit the police station for my immigration visa, all sorts of different things like that. But it always just felt so temporary. Whereas in Spain, I think that I've had a much more significant one because I could be here forever. I could die in Valencia, whereas I never really expected to die in Beijing.

[00:07:09.20] - Oliver (Host)

Did you feel that way about London? Did you feel, when you went to London, "Okay, I might be here forever," or did you always think you would come back to Spain?

[00:07:18.29] - César (Guest)

I guess I never felt I was going to stay forever, but now that I moved back to Spain, I don't feel I'm going to stay here forever either. I feel like I'm I feel quite young to only live in one place for the rest of my life. I mean, you never know, but I'm quite open. I don't have that sense of belonging either. I didn't have it in the UK after living there for 10 years. But it's not an unpleasant feeling. It's not like I'm feeling disconnected from the world or anything like that. It's just like I feel I'm quite lucky that I got to experience living in different places within Spain and the UK, because I had lived in Barcelona as well, which is a really good place to live for a while.

[00:08:08.58] - Oliver (Host)

Did you get any culture shock moving from Valencia to Barcelona? So even within the same country, was it sufficiently different?

[00:08:17.32] - César (Guest)

Well, yeah, I guess some things are done differently than in Valencia. I was living in a place, because you visited me many times, in a very touristic area in Barcelona. So at times I felt I was living inside an amusement park rather than in a European city.

[00:08:39.34] - Oliver (Host)

Was it you spraying on all the walls, tourists go home?

[00:08:43.13] - César (Guest)

No, I'm not Tourist-phobic. No. But yeah, I think the most weird thing is coming back to your country. Coming back or going back? Or either way, it depends on the perspective.

[00:08:59.20] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, where are you? You're in Spain. So it's coming back.

[00:09:03.13] - César (Guest)

Coming back. And realising, firstly, noticing all the things that have changed in your country, positively and negatively. Mostly, I feel quite positive about the changes that Spain has gone through. Getting used to the things that remain the same and you had forgotten.

[00:09:31.50] - Oliver (Host)

I really agree with that because I would say twice going back to London after living abroad, I was shocked by what I found when I got back. One was after coming back from Beijing, and incredibly, I thought, Wow, London is so empty. London is so tranquil. It's so calm.

[00:09:50.57] - César (Guest)

No people. Only 10 million people.

[00:09:52.47] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, exactly. Getting on the tube in London was so much easier than getting on the tube in Beijing. Because in Beijing, at my tube station, at least, and I think it was true everywhere, you had to queue to get into the tube station. You had to go through security to get onto the tube. You had to have your bag scanned. Then at certain times, the tube stations were so busy, or the metro stations were so busy that the queue to get into them was absolutely massive. Where I lived in Beijing was also just quite chaotically fun. There was a train track back right through the middle of the neighbourhood, like a national train. And so you just felt like things were happening all the time, all around you. There were so many people in the streets, so many people in the metro, so many people everywhere. And that was one extreme. And then the other extreme of the big cities that I've lived in, "big cities", Frankfurt, where theoretically, it's the financial hub of Germany. It is a very modern city. I really I liked Frankfurt. I thought it was a really cool city. But going back to London from Frankfurt, I thought London just was so buzzing and too many people, and I almost got run over several times. Whereas in Germany, in Frankfurt, everything was so much more sedate, so much calmer. I did so many weekend walks, that kind of thing, as opposed to just the hustle and bustle of London as a capital city.

[00:11:28.32] - César (Guest)

What is the biggest culture shock you've experienced so far in Valencia? We've been here for six months now.

[00:11:37.36] - Oliver (Host)

I don't know whether I'm going to sound like a broken record, whether we've discussed it in this podcast. That's true, actually - I meant to say that next week is our six-month anniversary of moving to Valencia. It's going to be really unsurprising, and I'm sure you can guess already the word that I'm going to use. What is that word: for the culture shock -

[00:12:03.48] - César (Guest)

Well, it's difficult for me to pronounce, so you can correct me. Because I'm sure many people will have the same trouble.

[00:12:09.29] - Oliver (Host)

Well, we definitely have said this right then. We've talked about this topic because-

[00:12:14.34] - César (Guest)

Bureaucracy?

[00:12:14.34] - Oliver (Host)

Bureaucracy. Did I get it right? Yeah. Bureaucracy. Definitely the Bureaucracy.

[00:12:22.46] - César (Guest)

Paperwork.

[00:12:23.25] - Oliver (Host)

The paperwork. I have to say, though, in fairness to Spain, when you start the bureaucratic process for anything, they say to you, This says three months, but it's going to be six or seven. Then it's actually every time I've had to do anything, it's been much less than the time that they're supposed to do it. It's really hard to get started, but once you've handed everything over, it's turned out to be okay. I would say that, really. But walking around Valencia, living here, I feel pretty much at home now.

[00:13:05.17] - César (Guest)

You're used to supermarkets. Do you miss anything food-wise?

[00:13:08.55] - Oliver (Host)

Well, this is shocking on many levels. I actually really miss the UK supermarkets, but I miss it for reasons that Spanish people will find ridiculous, which is that I miss all of the processed ready meals. I say processed, but it's not even processed in a bad way, and it's very wasteful and everything. But I love the fact that in the UK, you can go whatever vegetable you want, whatever potato mix or rice mix or whatever. There are so many different versions that you can have. You can have absolutely no culinary skill. You can have no interest in cooking, and you can, in the UK, throw together a meal pretty quickly with things that you heat in the oven or in the microwave that are actually healthy, if you choose carefully, and quite tasty. And there's so much variety, whereas in Spain, you actually really have to cook.

[00:14:09.55] - César (Guest)

Yeah, or buy the already cooked meals, you know, like pasta or paella, things like that.

[00:14:18.07] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, but there's a way smaller choice here than in the UK. I feel also for the things that we eat, a lot of the vegetarian stuff, I feel like there is less of a choice. So I do miss that.

[00:14:29.58] - César (Guest)

Do you know what is the thing I miss the most, food-wise? Old milk. The brands that I used to buy.

[00:14:37.23] - Oliver (Host)

I would say oatmilk because it sounded a little bit like old milk.

[00:14:42.03] - César (Guest)

Oatmilk. Yeah. How do you say... Because basically, the ones I get to buy here in Spain, every time I mix them with a hot coffee, in Spanish, the milk gets cut. The cream of the milk gets separated from the water. It's like custard. It's quite disgusting. I don't know why they can't get it right here in Spain with the oat milk.

[00:15:13.03] - Oliver (Host)

So to ensure that there's no separation.

[00:15:16.06] - César (Guest)

Speaking about Germany, for me, it was quite shocking when I first put my first foot in Germany.

[00:15:26.00] - Oliver (Host)

Well, you had a culture shock despite never being there for longer than two days.

[00:15:29.12] - César (Guest)

Yeah, a bit, the reality is in Frankfurt, when I stepped out from the bus, I saw a needle exchange. I saw a street full of brothels, and I was like, "Wow, this is not the Germany I was expecting." Then I saw more and I liked it and everything, but I was really, really shocked by that.

[00:15:50.53] - Oliver (Host)

The thing you might expect in Berlin instead of Frankfurt.

[00:15:53.17] - César (Guest)

Yeah, probably. I mean, I, I, I - they dropped me off by the station, by the train station. Always the neighbourhoods near train stations in big cities are like that, right? How was Frankfurt? Because you love Germany, you love German people, the German language. I don't know how to say, someone who loves Germany and German people. Is there a word for that?

[00:16:19.07] - Oliver (Host)

I don't know. Deutsch-phile? But it sounds very weird.

[00:16:24.41] - César (Guest)

Anyway, you got to live there for a while. You weren't super happy about your job, but you like the people you met there, you made some German friends. I guess the culture in Germany is closer to the culture in the UK, but you can tell me about it. Do you get many culture shocks?

[00:16:45.25] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, I, so, it's interesting. I was very happy in Frankfurt, and it's actually remarkable how happy in Frankfurt I was, considering how unhappy I was with certain aspects of the job.

[00:17:00.01] - César (Guest)

I thought you were going to see compared to how unhappy I am now.

[00:17:05.51] - Oliver (Host)

That would be very intense and profound for this episode. But I don't think that that happiness that I had in Germany was because I felt at home with the German people more than I do than I did in Italy or in China or in Spain. I know everyone says and everyone expects that and British people are very similar, but I actually don't think that we are that similar. I think there are lots of differences, and so I never felt German.

[00:17:36.07] - César (Guest)

The sense of human is completely different, that's for sure.

[00:17:39.22] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah, I think so. Although I know a lot of Germans say that they like the British sense humour, but no, I think it is very different. I think that ours is more meta, more sarcastic and more, kind of, darker, and more self-effacing than what I've seen in Germany so far. But any German listeners can tell me, can recommend great German comedy. Actually, I think lots of the German comedies that go international are British in their style, like that film about Hitler coming back from the dead in modern Germany. I think that that, to me, seems like a very British concept as well. That's the thing that we would find very funny for a comedy film. But the question was, did I have any culture shock in Germany?

[00:18:35.11] - César (Guest)

I found really weird that you could smoke in some clubs, bars in Germany, for example.

[00:18:43.58] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah. Do you know I suppose actually my culture shock in Germany, and I'm going to talk about this in my German episode, is probably that what I expected of the Germans is not what they're actually like. Because before going to Germany, before moving to Germany, I think I'd spent one weekend in Berlin. I knew nothing about Germany. I had, I think, a very British point of view on Germany because I thought, very stereotypically, that Germans would follow the law to the letter. In some respects, they do. I was always really struck by the fact that you cannot cross the road unless there is a green light to do so. That is one of my standout memories of Germany, how closely everyone stuck to that rule. But then clearly, there must be a rule that allows them to all-smoking bars because basically all of the bars that I went to allowed smoking.

[00:19:35.39] - César (Guest)

I'm sure.

[00:19:36.36] - Oliver (Host)

I think that for me does describe the contradictions of German culture, which I didn't expect there to be those contradictions. But I suppose it makes sense when you think of the reputation that Berlin has internationally for being such a far-out, no-holds-barred partying destination.

[00:20:01.04] - César (Guest)

Say that again.

[00:20:01.42] - Oliver (Host)

No holds barred. It's like no limits. You can do what you like. It's just basically something without restrictions and limits, restrictions. So I think that I think Germany clearly has two faces, two identities like every country. But I think naively before I got to know Germany at all, I think that I thought Germany wouldn't be like that, essentially. Yeah. That was probably my culture shock.

[00:20:31.08] - César (Guest)

Thank you.

[00:20:32.25] - Oliver (Host)

Well, thank you, César. Thank you. Coming to the living room to do this episode with me. And please, it'd be nice if we could thank you, too, listener. Thank you for listening, but also for sharing and rating.

[00:20:48.19] - César (Guest)

Can I make a suggestion?

[00:20:50.19] - Oliver (Host)

Yeah.

[00:20:50.57] - César (Guest)

Maybe the listeners could leave a comment, write a comment to practise their advanced English. Telling us If they've experienced any culture shock.

[00:21:03.59] - Oliver (Host)

Telling us how wrong we are about all of our opinions. Please do, as long as it's in good English. So thank you very much for listening, and until next time. Goodbye.