Re-entry, or Reverse Culture Shock

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Jetlag Formula (Rule of Thumb) is one day to readjust sleeping patterns for every hour difference between beginning and end of your journey. Modifiers would include length of time in the beginning location, nearness to the equinoxes (mid point of summer and winter) and general wellness. I always make a point of staying up until local bedtime on the first night, to ensure the fastest recovery rate. It felt luxurious to sleep in until 9am on my first day back in Australia, even though my body clock knew it was really 6.30am and time to get up for work.

Reverse Culture Shock Formula (same thumb!) is one week to readjust your reality filters for every month you have been away. After five weeks everything around me should seem as normal as it ever did. Modifiers include previous experience with RCS and similarities between cultures left behind. So, for example, the east coast twang of the Quantas staff was most shocking to me at the Rome airport after I had been living in Europe for two years.

A thick, wooly blanket of silence was the most startling sensation when I first came home. Even after 2 weeks, my ears ring with the silence of Adelaide, after the hustle and bustle of life in China. Empty Australian suburban streets from sunrise to after dark, contrasts strongly with the public lifestyle of Asian cities. Tai chi and sword practice in the mornings, street stalls and badminton matches during the day, and square dancing at night mean that there are always people about. Everywhere here seems echoingly empty and bereft of life.

Inches of makeup, tatoos, agressive voices, lack of respect for teachers and elders, dreadfully casual dress taste and suffocating clouds perfume, seemed less shocking now than after my return from Japan.

Travellers often compete with horror stories of toilets in terrible conditions. Sadly, I have found myself trying to analyze national characteristics by the shape and style of toilet bowls. What could be said about Australians, because the paper covers the contents of the bowl?

Vivid blue skies, birds singing in every tree, clean and tidy streets are things of wonder at present. Every beautiful place should be photographed, before they become commonplace again. Easy warm welcomes from friends are comfortable and treasured. The ease of everyday tasks needs to be bottled, and kept in reserve for when the humdrum of routine makes some things seem difficult again. Being home is so glorious, why would anyone want to leave... until adventure calls again, and my feet start to itch.

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