In July I moved back to California after living in Taiwan for over three years, Switzerland for four years, and Denmark for three and a half. More than two thirds of my life were spent abroad, and now I was home. But did I really know my home?
When I was first told I was going to be moving back to California, I thought it would be easy to adjust. That everything would be a smooth transition. While that was partly true, as it certainly wasn’t my first move, there were still a lot of cultural differences that I wasn’t expecting.
My first culture shock was when I was going through the border control at the airport; I hadn’t even stepped into the country yet. The officer asked me where I was previously living, but the language he used was not the English I was used to speaking, instead it had a lot of slang and was pronounced so quickly I had difficulty understanding what he was even saying. After the interaction my mom told me that is standard in the US (and that I would have to get used to it).
My second culture shock was hearing English being spoken on the street all around me. I was so used to listening to unintelligible Danish that it was quite surprising being able to hear people speak on the street around me and that I was able to eavesdrop on people’s conversations with ease.
My next culture shock was the extent to which Americans seemed to rely on cars. It seemed like you needed a car to go pretty much anywhere and there was a lot more traffic than what I was used to. Want to get a doughnut from Krispy Kreme? That’s a seven mile drive, or a 2 hour and 30 minute walk for the adventurous. Want to go to In-n-Out? Enjoy yet another seven mile drive. Sometimes there were no buses or trains that would travel to places you would want to go to. In Denmark there were metros, buses, and ferries that could take you around the entire country and even into other countries like Sweden.
My next culture shock happened a bit later. I was in the grocery store and when I first got inside there was a distinct aroma of all the foods they were selling. It smelled a lot more sweet (and probably processed) than what I was used to in Denmark. I was still used to the dollar, so no longer having to divide by seven, divide by 30, or multiply by 1.1 to figure out the value of a product was nice. What also surprised me, though, was how cheap everything was. A packet of gum in Denmark could cost 50 Danish kroner (about $7), whereas gum only costs $3 maximum here.
While all of this probably seems very normal to you, and you are probably laughing about how I think groceries in America are “cheap”, it wasn’t quite as normal for me as you might have expected. There are, most definitely, a lot of cultural differences between the US and the rest of the world.
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