Visiting and living in another culture can be a very exciting and rewarding experience. It can also be quite challenging and difficult at times too. This web site has been created to help explain the cultural adaptation process that often occurs when one lives in a foreign culture.
While living in our own home environment, we rarely think about our own culture.
-
"Culture to humans is like water to fish - the fish never stops to reflect on what it means
to live in the water. It just swims and goes about its normal routine. But if you take the
fish and throw it on a patch of sand, water takes on a whole new meaning. The fish flops
around desperately looking for the water it never knew it had! The experience of culture
shock is similar. When you encounter a new environment, all the habits and behaviors that
allowed you to get around and survive at home suddenly no longer work." [1]
