Traveling & Reverse Culture Shock
Traveling is one of the most rich, enlightening, and exciting experiences a person can have. At the same time, it can be scary, confusing, shocking, and overwhelming if one's perception or mindset isn't ready to handle what and where they are stepping into. I've had the blessing and opportunity to travel many times out of the country and explore in rather safe environments with little expectations growing up mainly due to the nature of my dad's job as a pastor and going on missions trips as well as weddings.
This past May/June, I was able to travel to Singapore, Vietnam, and Taiwan to visit friends and family. In the past few travels, culture shock has not been too much of an adjustment for me due to the various places I've fortunately already been able to visit. For me, I think that overly luxurious places and immensely rich places are more shocking and slightly more uncomfortable because I feel like out of place or that I don’t belong (imposter syndrome). Perhaps also I fear falling into the lust for money and the luxurious life even though it is so comfortable and desirable oftentimes.
Living abroad in Bulgaria for about a year now I think has changed my perspective even though comparatively, my lifestyle here is very comfortable versus some other locations that other missionaries are in.
Where I faced the largest culture shock was in Vietnam. Even though Singapore was really really beautiful and clean, my expectations and assumptions were for the most part all aligned with what it actually was like, and being able to speak Chinese (even poorly) made me feel at home in some way. Now when I was in Ho Chih Minh, that all changed. I knew going in that it would be more "developing" and "dirty", so the streets of Ho Chih Minh were not shocking or surprising to me. What did get me was when we walked into a mall there. The mall just had so many options and smelled so good like Asian bread and had various Asian cuisine options whereas compared to Sofia and Bulgaria the variety of global options was limited. After being able to process a little more, I realized that although I had gotten comfortable in Sofia and living in Eastern Europe, I actually didn’t realize the disparity in economic highs that Bulgaria faced even though I knew it in as head knowledge being the poorest country in the EU. I love living here and Bulgaria for one does a great job of keeping their people having homes and for the most part not a dirty country. However, the city center, infrastructure of growth, and international commerce/business are simply not even close to somewhere like Ho Chih Minh.
Perhaps it wasn’t just this, but also some sort of reversed homesickness feeling. Knowing that my vacation time in Asia would come to an end, I didn’t want to allow myself to enjoy the moments as much because I was thinking of preparation to return back to a different culture. These are small internal battles that I think happen for many missionaries serving abroad. Although we move and are far from friends and family, there are also many other blessings God gives as a result of living abroad and doing His work somewhere else. I think one of the biggest lessons from serving here for just about a year is learning how to appreciate where God has placed me (in both long and short term scenarios) which includes opportunities to travel as well as times when I’m just in Sofia going at it to work and back and to the schools and towns. So I’ll end with a verse that reminds us of this: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” - 1 Thessalonians 5:18
