• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Future Expats

Create an Untethered Life Overseas

  • Home
  • Start Here
  • About
    • Big Fat Disclaimer
    • Privacy Policy
  • Portable Careers
    • Blogging
      • Blogging for Expats WordPress Tutorials
    • Life Coaching
    • Photography
    • Teaching
    • Websites
    • Writing
  • Prepping the Move
    • Countdown
    • Narrowing Your Country/City Search
      • Africa
      • Asia
      • Australia/New Zealand
      • Central America
      • Europe
      • North America
      • Region
      • South America
    • Visas and Residency
    • Quality of Life
    • Learning the Language
    • Health Care
    • Technology
  • Panama
  • Blog
  • Resources
    • Hire Me!
    • Expat Resources: Prepping the Move
    • Expat Resources: Portable Careers
    • Expat Resources: Technology
    • Book and Movie Reviews
You are here: Home / Prepping the Move / Narrowing Your Country/City Search / Asia / Five Stages of Culture Shock

Five Stages of Culture Shock

July 27, 2009 by FutureExpat

Five Stages of Culture Shock

Decorated China Olympics car
Decorated China Olympics car
I just finished reading a truly excellent article over at Expat Exchange. In Culture Shock: It’s the Little Things that Count in the Biggest Ways, author Desi Downey identifies five stages of culture shock:

  • Honeymoon/Tourist
  • Irritation-to-Anger
  • Rejection/Regression
  • Integration/Assimilation
  • Reverse or Reentry

You can read the entire article here

Downey went to China with her husband, sent there by his company. As she describes it,

“One of the first things I noticed about China was that all the men carried purses and the women held hands. This phenomenon shot straight to the top of my list of “Weird World Wonders” and stayed there until a mere five minutes later, when I went looking for a bathroom at the airport and came face to face with my first squatty potty.

This was culture shock, pure and simple, and I was already moving from the first stage of it – the honeymoon, or tourist, stage, which I had entered before we ever left the States – into the second, the irritation-to-anger stage. “

The article is amusing and informative, and I highly recommend reading it.

Filed Under: Asia, General, What Kind of Expat Are You?, Working Overseas Tagged With: China, culture shock

Primary Sidebar

Visit Panama

Panama Relocation Tours

VPN Services

Best VPN for TravelersBest VPN for Travelers

Sale on .COM Domains!

KINGCOM domain salepixel

More Posts

Cheap Cities for Expats — But Would You Really Want to Live There?

Merry Christmas

Photography makes a highly portable career

So You Want to be a Travel Writer or Photographer?

Shock Announcement About the Easiest Place to Retire

World’s 25 Best Retirement Destinations

What do Internet Research, Social Media and Dancing Girls have in Common?

Top Expat Blogs – How Cool is That?

Here's a new award. . . We've just been named to the Top Expat Blogs list at Ranked Blogs! If you like us, click the link and vote us up! we're one of the top expat blogs at Ranked Blogs! Future Expats was recently awarded a spot in the Top 100 Expat Blogs.

Follow Me

  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Future Expats Forum
Proudly running on a Genesis Theme by StudioPress