Reverse culture shock
By Ramesh Deshar
One can expect that life in Nepal and America is completely different and is therefore, incomparable. So, when I came back to Nepal two months ago, after completing my graduation from the US, I was scared that I would get reverse culture shock in my homeland. Nevertheless, I did not experience any remarkable culture shock as I had expected before. Instead, to my dismay, I found strange kinds of changes with the people I met and talked after my return home.
The first change I noticed among our young generation is that no one is satisfied with what they are doing at present. Everyone is expecting miracles to shower in their lives with great pessimism and faint hopes. Almost all the youths want to get out of this country in one way or the other, may be being students or overseas employees. No matter what they do in foreign countries, they just want to be in the land of opportunities inhabited by the rich. After hearing such remarks, it feels like every nook and corner of the village echo with frustration and uncertainty.
For many, our country is no more a right place to live anymore and therefore, people do not hesitate to connote it with a cursed land. The idea that stepping into foreign nation is the only panacea for those living in a cursed-land with cursed lives has engulfed the mind of present generation of our country. That may be one of the reasons why many of my friends had curious questions to ask me after my return from the land of opportunities. I could easily read in their faces that they have high expectations from me as if I have landed from heaven to earth and that I possess some magical powers. After a brief greeeting, almost everyone put forward the same questions to me.
‘When did you come back?’
‘When are you going back?’
‘How long will you be staying here in Nepal?’
‘How will you adjust here?’
Besides, I was also assured by many that there will not be shortage of jobs with handsome salaries and beautiful girls. When my friends came to know that I am not going back to US, they have something different to say.
‘If I were you, I would not be returning Nepal and do not even care being illegal there in the US.’
‘Why didn't you try to stay there forever?’
‘You are stupid to dare to come back Nepal.’
‘What will you do here in this war-ravaged country?’
Given above are some of the questions I have been answering and the bitter remarks thatI have been hearing since I came back to Nepal. These reactions from my relatives and friends make me feel that I did something wrong by returning to my own country. Such remarks penetrate right through my heart and give me acute pain. Consequently, this has given rise to some questions that always haunt my mind, ‘Is Nepal really a wasteland?’ ‘Did I really do a mistake in coming back to my own motherland from a foreign country?’ People crack jokes about me when they hear that I came back to Nepal even though it is my motherland.
There is another group of people that I have met who only want to have some sort of knowledge about money. They shot questions of this type:
‘Is it easy to earn money in the US?’
"How much does a normal person earn?’
And then finally, their query ends with, ‘How much did you earn?’ I would not be hesitating to tell what I earned during my stay in the US for two and half years if at least they try to believe me. I don't want to answer these questions anymore because none of my friends believe me when I tell them I did not earn money except a university degree and experiences within these two and a half years. I know that I am a big liar in the eyes of the people who question me when I tell them that I did not work and earn money in the U.S.
The most shocking thing is that I have not met any person, either educated and uneducated, who at least would say that it was not a wrong decision to return to my country and that one day it will pay me back. I know I would also be thinking in the same stereotypical way if I have not had first hand experience of being in a foreign land.
Nonetheless, I expect to meet some one who at least would warmly welcome me for my decision to come back to Nepal and would inspire me to do something. Otherwise I would be asking myself, "Did I really do a mistake coming back to Nepal?" I am looking forward to reading the book named "The Art of Coming Home" by Craig Storti.
(I graduated from the University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama, USA in May 2007)
Posted on: 2007-08-25 19:39:08 (Server Time)
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