This month I am involved with an orientation program for a group of new arrivals to China. I’m responsible for content related to cross-cultural adjustment and for providing an overview of Chinese culture and society.
Yesterday I used material from a great book “The Art of Crossing Cultures” , by Craig Storti. He defines cross cultural adjustment as
“the process of learning the new culture and its behaviors and language in an effort to understand and empathize with people of the culture.”
The key point there is that it’s a process. There isn’t going to come a time when you wake up one morning, whether a week from now, a month from now, a year from now, or 28 years from now) and say, “there, I’ve adjusted.”
As long as we are living cross-culturally we are in the process of adjusting.
Might as well get used to it.
(Note: the book is also available on Kindle. You can download it here.)
So true! And once you’ve spent any length of time living overseas, you will always be living cross-culturally – because what was once home has changed (as have you) and is now also a cross-cultural experience. And so the learning continues…
One of the greatest lessons I learned cross-culturally was learning to become an acceptable outsider rather than the unending effort to become an insider.