I really enjoy coming back home to see my family and friends. I like reconnecting with people that I’m not very good at staying in touch with, and I love seeing people that I’ve grown up with.
Over the years, I have struggled with different aspects of reverse culture shock. Some years I have struggled with how slow life felt at home after working all day and a good part of the night at summer camps. I remember how hard it was to come home and not be surrounded by all my friends, planning and coordinating countless activities all day.
The first time I came back to Kansas after living in Guangzhou, I remember how weird it felt to be able to see so much of the sky. I felt a bit overwhelmed and exposed by the lack of tall buildings.
I usually try to adjust my expectations when I come home and make sure to make lots of plans so that I will be able to see all the people that I want to see without feeling like I’m just sitting around my parents’ apartment doing nothing.
This year, for the first time in twelve years—since I was in college—I came home for Christmas. Usually my university still has classes or exams until after Christmas, so I’ve never even tried to come home at Christmas time before. And since I’ve never been able to come home for Christmas, I’ve never come home in the winter because Kansas in the winter is cold and dreary.
Last summer, I didn’t come home, but I realized that my driver’s license expired last summer. I spent hours and days trying to figure out a way to renew it online, but eventually, every option was exhausted. They gave me a six-month extension, but my license expired on January 6th. Great, I thought, now I have to go back to Kansas in the winter. But then I found out that my classes finished the Friday before Christmas day on Wednesday. And this semester, none of my classes had final exams—I would finish all the final speeches and I could finish all of the final papers before the end of the semester. I decided to come back home for Christmas.
My last week of classes was crazy—as I knew it would be. I had lots of grading to do and extra classes since my part-time job went longer than my normal classes, so I had to teach extra classes for them during my last week. I finished classes on Friday, spent the afternoon and evening finalizing the grades, and met a student to help me enter the grades into the system on Saturday morning. On Saturday afternoon, I went to a Christmas women’s activity with church, and on Saturday evening, I went home and got sick.
Rather than packing and finishing grades and saying goodbye to my friends on Sunday, I spent the better part of the day in bed with a fever.
My roommate, who is the best roommate in the entire world, brought me food and helped me pack. My fever was gone sometime on Sunday afternoon, and I was feeling a bit better by Sunday night. Monday morning, a friend and colleague came over to help me carry my suitcase down the stairs and get to the airport. We were almost to the school gate when he suggested that maybe I shouldn’t go.
“I’ve already come this far—I don’t have the capacity to turn back now and figure out what I’m going to do about this non-refundable ticket!” I said. Actually, I didn’t have energy to say all of that, so I just mumbled something and kept walking, refusing to think about the apartment and my bed that I had left behind.
Twenty-four hours later, I arrived home—still alive and in one piece.
Reverse culture shock was a bit different this time. I expected Christmas to be a bit hard because I know that I’ve changed and my family has changed quite a bit since I was in college, but the holiday was enjoyable and relaxing.
The biggest struggle that I faced in the first week or so was jet lag. Usually, I have a few days that are hard, but then it gets better. This year, I fell asleep most days during the first week unless we had a lot going on and the adrenaline kept me going. I woke up at 3 a.m. or 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. most days.
On Christmas day, I woke up at 3 a.m. and sent messages to my friends back in China. I knew most of them were hanging out and celebrating Christmas together, and I missed them. I missed being with people who have become my family while I’m away from my family.
My feet were also cold, so I filled up the bathroom sink with warm water and tried to warm them up. So there I was at about 5 a.m. on Christmas morning, trying to warm up my feet and thinking about feeling like I was leading a double life.
So I wrote a poem. I usually write poems to work through things, and I’m not a poet, but I do what I can. I hope you enjoy it.
These Two Lives I Live
These two lives I live.
One holds my past,
The other my present.
One holds who I was,
The other, who I am becoming.
One holds friends and family I’ve known my whole life,
The other holds friends I’ve known for 1 or 5 or 10 years who feel like family.
These two lives I live,
So different, yet the same.
The same Savior.
The same goal.
The same love.
The same end.
Both hold love so deep,
I can’t imagine life without it.
Both hold pain so sharp,
My life changed completely.
Both hold people
Who have helped shape who I am today.
And so I live these two lives,
Separately, but together.
I endure the pain of countless goodbyes
I fight through long flights and sleepless nights.
I hurt when I’m far from people I love in pain.
I live these two lives
Because I love them both
I love the people in both lives
And I love the depth of knowing my Lord
Because He understands what it’s like to live two lives
And one day, both of these two lives
Will give way to a better one.
I made it home for Christmas this year. I got to see my family and especially my grandma who constantly asks me to come home. I made it through jet lag, and while I haven’t seen many friends, I’ve spent a lot of time with family.
Coming home for Christmas has been a bit different from coming home during the summer, but most of my methods of dealing with reverse culture shock are similar. Based on my years of experience living abroad and coming back home and dealing with reverse culture shock, I have a few suggestions.
1. Pray a lot about the trip and time with family and friends to be meaningful.
2. Expect things to be different from what you expect.
3. Make plans ahead of time so that your schedule is full for the first week or so. (I don’t know if this works for everyone, but for me, as an extrovert, I have found that being busy in the first week is really helpful to make me feel like I’m able to readjust to life at home.)
4. Remember that everyone changes, but people are probably going to see you as who you were, and it will take some effort to show them how you have changed. Friends and family may have changed as well, so be willing to get to know who they are now, and try not to trap them in your memory of who they were the last time you were home.
5. Write poetry. Or journal. Or find someone who will listen to you talk about your feelings and the things you’re struggling with.
6. Enjoy the time with people you love. I have learned that no matter where I am, I am going to miss someone. So I can spend my time missing the people that I am far away from, or I can spend my time enjoying life with the people around me.
If you have any other ideas or suggestions for dealing with reverse culture shock, I’d love to hear them! Feel free to write a comment below or send me an email on the contact page!