ELT World » culture shock Your local friendly TEFL blog Fri, 04 Jun 2010 05:32:55 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 The best place to live in the World? /2010/02/the-best-place-to-live-in-the-world/ /2010/02/the-best-place-to-live-in-the-world/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:40:46 +0000 david /?p=1027 You might be surprised. Click here to read the thread on the ELT World forums. Note that there is probably a difference between ‘live’ and ’scrape by on a TEFL wage’.

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]]> /2010/02/the-best-place-to-live-in-the-world/feed/ 2 How not to hate the natives by Alex Case /2007/08/how-not-to-hate-the-natives-by-alex-case/ /2007/08/how-not-to-hate-the-natives-by-alex-case/#comments Mon, 27 Aug 2007 08:29:00 +0000 david /2007/08/how-not-to-hate-the-natives-by-alex-case/ Living in foreign countries for extended periods of time, we’re bound to come up against aspects of other cultures which go beyond merely irritating us. For example, I’m constantly baffled as to how no one out of the estimated 15 million people living in Istanbul ever shows the slightest inclination towards driving properly. Alex Case also encounters such problems over in Japan, and suggests one way of overcoming this and how not to hate the natives:

When I said it was a quiet news day yesterday, of course I was forgetting the daily litany of stories about the Japanese ruling classes ripping off the general public for all they can while telling the average Jo Tanaka in the street to tighten their belts and do their best for their country. There’s one story about yet another embezzlement scandal in Shinzo Abe’s cabinet and one about bones of Japanese troops still lying on beaches in SE Asia while Japanese politicians score cheap political points by turning up as Yasukuni Jinja shrine to “honour our boys”.

The fact that the Japanese ruling classes are such an unmitigated bunch of scum suckers has helped me come up with one theory of how to cope with a symptom of culture shock. If you are not careful, there will be times when little frustrations in a country will make the words “bloody (Spanish), why can’t they just (do their jobs properly)?” or such like pop up in your head or even out of your mouth. It might be because you are having a bad day, it might be because you are just in the wrong country, but it is very unlikely that you have come out with a comment which is true for 100% of the people in said country.

Find out how Alex gets over this problem at his website, TEFLTastic with Alex Case.

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