“Culture shock is rarely terminal.”
Twelve years ago we pasted this Paul Hiebert quote on our concrete wall in Cambodia, right next to silly photos of each member of our family. We did it to remind ourselves to keep a sense of humor when cross-cultural living grew unmanageable.
If you’ve lived overseas any length of time, you probably have a lot of stories from your early days abroad. Or perhaps you’ve just arrived, and you’re right in the middle of culture shock, and nothing seems funny yet. Either way, welcome! Welcome to this ragamuffin group of people who have both suffered and inflicted cultural injuries.
The following culture-shock story was excerpted from our book, Serving Well: Help for the Wannabe, Newbie, or Weary Cross-Cultural Christian Worker. I’d love to hear your funny culture-shock stories in the comments!
C’est la Vie
Sometimes life surprises me. Like that time when Jonathan was sick with typhoid fever, and I was in the school room, and suddenly the light bulb burst into flame. Literal two-inch orange flames.
That never happened to me in America.
Or that time when Jonathan was recovering from middle and outer ear infections, and he went up to our beloved roof, with its three square meters of peace and tranquility (and several potted plants), only to discover that someone had painted those pots. And the rocks in the pots. And even the plants themselves.
That never happened to me in America either.
Don’t get me wrong—plenty of surprising things did happen to me in America. Like the time a Canadian goose blew itself up when its wings touched two nearby power lines in our yard. Or the time a different Canadian goose attacked my leg while a dog the size of a pony jumped on my back. (That was in my neighbor’s yard, by the way.)
But back to surprises in Cambodia.
Our boys wailed about our painted plants. I was at the end of myself. That week I had dealt with more sickness in the family and fought off more discouragement than is usual for me, and now, my roof, my precious stronghold of sanity, had been vandalized.
But with Otto Koning’s Pineapple Story* at the front of my mind, we set out to solve the mystery of who, and more importantly, why. Next door to us is an orphanage, and there is an old man who lives there. All day long he lounges on a hammock on the roof, watching television and smoking cigarettes. Occasionally he does some odd jobs around the place.
The neighbor children told us that this man painted our pots and plants and rocks, but none of them seemed to know why. The adults were a bit more helpful, laughing embarrassedly at our questions. This man is apparently bored and likes to make things look nicer. While we were at the seaside with my parents, he took the opportunity to improve our rooftop view.
I thought it would be common courtesy to ask before forcing home improvement projects on someone else. But it wasn’t very long until I could see the humor. “My neighbor painted my plants,” I’ll say. And when you ask me why my neighbor painted my plants, I’ll say, “Oh, because he thought it would look better.” You might ask if it did look any better, and I’ll say, “No, not at all.”
The neighbors asked us if we wanted him to paint them again, perhaps all one color? (He originally painted them yellow and white.) We said yes, white is best. (Actually, unpainted is best, but. . . .) And I did have some hope that our pots would get better when we saw him outside this week, painting three tables white.
We played badminton and frisbee on our roof today. And those pots, they were one color, all right. They were one hundred percent yellow. (Surprise! A darker shade of yellow.) But we enjoyed our roof just as much as we did before our neighbor painted our plants.
*Otto Koning was a cross-cultural worker who planted pineapples in his yard. They took three years to grow, but before he could eat any of them, the nationals stole them all. This happened several times, and he was always angry about it. Only when he gave up his “right” to eat those pineapples to God could he stop being angry. The nationals noticed his change in behavior, and he started to have success in ministry.
2 Responses
Our best friends worked in Chile with us. We were quite a large team at one point. The team owned a large house we used as an office where about a dozen Chileans worked as well as several Gringos. The old kitchen in that house was so big, someone decided the missionary wives could take turns fixing lunches for all who worked in the office. We all got a different meal. Mine was meat loaf. Carol’s was stuffed squash.
Carol and I decided to head down to the large outdoor market to see if we could find ground meat at a lower price. So we wandered up one row and down another. We saw hanging chickens, pig’s heads and a shop with all colors and smells of spices. Many were eating steaming bowls of stew for lunch. The smells made us hungry.
We turned into another row of shops and saw a sign which had the price of ground meat at a much lower cost than any we had seen. So we both ordered several kilos and watched as the grinder machine spit out the red meat which fell on already read newspapers which was quickly covered in flies. They wrapped our purchases and we put them in our net “bolsas” and paid. We were so excited to get home and tell our husbands. We had already planned to return on Saturday with the boys to buy some meat for us!!!
On Saturday, we rode the bus down to the market, and jumped off, anxious to show off our find to Phil and Chris. As we walked into the aisle we were looking for, Chris, who towers over all of us, at 6’5,” began a low rumble of laughter. We all looked at him, wondering what the joke was. He was pointing at a sign hanging much higher than the sign with the price. It wasn’t what it said, rather the shape of the sign he was noticing. The shape of a horse’s head.
Yep! We had both bought several kilos of raw horse meat for our office meals. Our lips were sealed. We used the meat for our stuffed squash and meatloaf and never told anyone. We didn’t eat our lunches. In fact, it was years before I ate meatloaf again. Lesson learned!!
I can just imagine the scene! Especially the last part with Phil and Chris. Thank you for sharing!