across the wire

"Spinster and Lunatic" recently had an impassioned post about "culture shock" in the city of Winnipeg between her (and her usual group) and those that she works with. Honestly, I had thought that culture shock existed only when we remove ourselves from our country, but perhaps that is a limiting and short sighted view. Perhaps with in our small groups, we create microcosms of the national status quo, or for a lack of a better word, "micro-cultures." Leaving our "micro-cultures" and entering into another might just lead to the same symptoms or culture shock (albeit dramatically less severe) as leaving our home country.

Cluture shock is the emotional reaction to the removal of familiar social cues and symbols in our life and interactions. This is usually assumed to be experienced when we are immersed in a completely new culture such as that as moving to another country, or province/territory. But given the diversity of a city like Winnipeg, it is easy to see the dramatic differences in these "micro-cultures" by simply looking at geographical areas of the city and how they are perceived: the "granola crunching hippies" in Wolseley, the "red necks" of Transcona, the "rich conservatives" in Tuxedo and the infamous North End usually conjures up images of gang cultures.

In his article "Culture Shock and the Problem of Adjusting to a New Environment" Dr. Kalervo Oberg talks about culture shock, speaking about the symptoms that we are likely to experience, the different phases and how it is generally overcome. Although a "symptom" might be that we feel the other culture or group is bad/wrong and our beliefs are good/right, it is not always a conscious thought, but rather an unconscious belief and reaction that can live relatively unchallenged. It is not just how we see the other group that Oberg cautions about, it is also how we see ourselves that changes. We tend to see ourselves and our group as "better" and we perceive the other group to be "at us" or "against us." It may be why a person who is vegetarian and whose group is mainly vegetarian might perceive the reactions of non-vegetarians views and ideas as hostile/aggressive/uneducated etc. It may be also why we give the other group "othering" names that play to what we perceive as the "bad side" of the group and using it to define a negative quality we see in them. The example of "granola crunching hippies" is not a compliment when describing those living the Wolseley area.

Living in a specific group of people who help establish our values and beliefs, I suppose something as familiar as pizza toppings (which could be loosely interpreted as a social cue of sorts) may cause a reaction when we find ourselves with out those similarities. The result? Symptoms much like those described in Kalervo Obergs article: rejection of the new, and a strong bond to the familiar - so if tomato feta is your thing, then a new "micro-culture" proclaiming that pep and bacon is the best is met with things like "that kind is gross!" or "you would eat that?"

Obviously, there is no right or wrong way to create pizza, yet most of us feel strongly about a certain way and have a group that can support us in what our norms are. Same goes with so many other aspects of our lives - our group helps us create social norms and cues that help us interact well with our own group, but perhaps create more problems when find ourselves in another country, province, town, or even other end of the city.

Is it bad to have culture shock? Probably not, almost all of us will experience it at some level, whether it is when we start a new job, move to another city, or go to another country - we are being taken out of our familiar environment and our cues and our understanding of *our* socially constructed status quo becomes obsolete.

What do we do about it? In the article, one suggestion that was stated was that part of the final adjustments "the visitor just accepts the other culture as a different way of live" and that it is simply a matter of time before we can truly learn that lesson. In the mean time, we will continue to experience the symptoms of culture shock, create stereotypes, pass judgment, discriminate, value our own social norms, dislike the others norms, and exhibit intolerance towards groups or "micro-cultures" different than our own. I for one am not exempt from these shortcomings.

A second theory could be that this is all just be meaningless late night ramblings in which case, the best pizza is ham and pineapple with garlic and sweet basil in the cheese!