All posts tagged: culture shock

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Amy Zhao

“North Korea is one of the most mysterious places on earth right now. The experience of going to North Korea has already been the best pick-up line of mine for months. Not only because it sounds intriguing in conversation, but also, it taught me a lot because I would never have believed there is still a country like this without actually getting into it. As a student who majors in politics, the concept of third wave democratization is deeply rooted in my mind. But, North Korea changed my idea and my whole concept of the world. The concept of political culture didn’t actually exist in North Korea because there is basically zero citizens’ participation in politics. Citizens accept the political facts and they are living under a relatively stable situation apart from the outside world. What they care about are their daily lives instead of political issues. As far as I could see, the life standards in North Korea are like those of the Chinese in the 1960s/1970s. But changes to their lifestyles and political systems …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Martin Brusewitz

“I was walking down a dusty road in the town of Harar in eastern Ethiopia. It was one of the main roads and full of people and traffic. I’m really tall and most Ethiopians aren’t so I was drawing some attention. At this point I was used to it though. I had travelled for months through Ethiopia and everywhere my height drew attention. Understandably so. Even in my home country of Sweden, I sometimes feel like I’m from another planet. In Ethiopia people were staring, laughing and yelling jokes at me all the time. Anyway… All of a sudden further down the street, I see something. A head is floating way above the crowds, just like mine. Could it be? A few moments pass by and I realize it’s not my lonely mind playing a trick on me. It’s a brother. A tall Ethiopian. Our eyes meet. Everything goes quiet. We start smiling. We walk straight towards each other. Our smiles growing. Around us, the daily life of Harar goes on like it was just …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ David L. Merin

“Five years old I sat on a plane wondering aloud “Mom… can we still talk to each other in English when we get there?” The true honesty of a boy torn between a Filipino father and a New Yorker mother, born in Hawaii and now in transit to Nepal, a country unmatched in its ethnic diversity. My childhood was truly fit for a movie… In the many years to follow, my mother would try to comfort my confusion by giving me an identity. “You’re a Third Culture Kid,” she would say, dismissing my doubts, but I couldn’t understand what it meant. I was one of a large number of TCKs growing up overseas who didn’t identify with any one culture. Unable to relate to the country they once called home, TCKs are forced to adapt and survive an international adolescence separating them further from both their family and nationality. Though each of us has an original story, we all share a common experience, which we live every day. As for my friends and I, we …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Matthew Rodriguez

“Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine someone putting a plate of food in front of you. You don’t recognize what it is. You swear you’ve never seen anything like it before in your life. You take a bite with slight trepidation. A tingling occurs. Your pupils dilate. It’s delicious. You register a shock: You’ve eaten this before at one point in your life. You don’t remember when you ate it, but with equal certainty that you expressed about not having ever seen anything like this prior to the first bite, you now are unequivocally certain you’ve had this before. The taste triggers vague, nebulous recollections of your childhood from the quiet corners of your mind and then just as quickly they disappear. No other documentation exists that validate those memories other than your own conviction of your thoughts. This plate of unfamiliar food is suddenly the only thing that tells you, “Yes, those memories exist.”  This occurred to me on one of my most memorable trips and experiences when I returned to a place that was …

Steve Cohen

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Steve Cohen

“I was in Bajawa, Indonesia, looking to explore the indigenous interior of Flores. I met a local who knew of a harvest festival at a remote village. We picked up a German tourist en route, then spent three hours trekking by motorbike past the jungle covered valleys, looming volcanoes, and wild rivers of Flores… We arrived to find the young men in a field surrounded by an enthralled crowd, but we immediately became the main attraction. I learned through my guide that we were the first westerners to visit the town. The men were boxing with a sacred object made from a sharply notched rope block dipped in sacrificed pigs blood, one blow from which easily broke skin… While I opted not to partake in this passage of manhood, enough rounds of palm “wine” and prodding by the locals was beginning to work up my courage. Fortunately, the festival wound down and I was invited by the chief to feast with the men on the rare delicacy of pork stew…” – Steve Cohen   053/100 …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Elektra Carras

“The energy of Haiti makes you feel more real with yourself and others. It makes you feel like you’ve been stripped down to your core being, and naturally show your character that you’ve been building throughout the course of your life. A country with such a strong sense of culture, a harsh and violent past that demonstrates the determination of the country to be the first Black nation to win their independence, presents an energy that gives you force…though naturally presents challenges at times. You think about what it means to be in survival mode, and find yourself sometimes relating to this term, but in the best way possible.  The people are far from being passive, robotic, autonomous, and quiet. If you are working here, you question why you are doing what you do, what it is bringing to people, how are people responding to it, and this makes you want to do the best you can. At the end of the day, you know that as a foreigner, you will never go unnoticed, and …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Jessica Scott

“When I was 26, I traveled to the African continent for the first time. Since then, I have lived, studied, and worked in different African countries for varying amounts of time and though I have spent time on many continents, it is the only place I consider a second “home” outside of Appalachia. My first time, I landed in Freetown, Sierra Leone, which was a place I loved for many different reasons, though the evidence of recent conflict was palpable and heartbreakingly visible in the shattered infrastructure of the city. As someone who lives in a country where “wars” have not been fought on our soil for many generations, I had to keep reminding myself that almost every person in the country had lived through conflict because it was just that recent… All of the travel books at the time said that women traveling to Sierra Leone should bring tampons with them since they were not readily available and, when available, were very expensive. So, I had stuffed a bunch of tampons into my suitcase. …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Mike Schultz

“When I am traveling, drawing helps me to see what is right in front of me. Not only is drawing a grounding, peaceful activity for me, but it truly helps me digest what is happening wherever I am. It slows me down, makes me really look, and connects me to the situation at hand. Living in South East Asia, drawing has helped me work through my culture shock many times. Also, because I am an art teacher, drawing has proved to be an incredible mode of communication between myself and my Burmese students, even when there is a language barrier…”   – Mike Schultz AKA @mike_schultz_studio   016/100 of #100DaysofConfessions Instagram Project