Culture Shock and Homesickness

written at the end of february....



I am definitely culture shocking. I don’t think I could ever describe the extent of my frustrations to anyone in America. They just wouldn’t understand. Luckily I can vent with the other students, who are enduring the similar difficulties as I am. I learned so much about culture shock before I came here – the stages, the symptoms, the strategies for overcoming – that I figured I’d see it coming from a mile away. For me, this was not the case. For me, culture shock hit like a brick wall. Or at least it felt that way. I’m realizing now, as I look back on the past few weeks (since Ochi), that I’ve been culture shocking for quite some time, and it climaxed this weekend.

I didn’t think that it would come in handy, but I brought my Kohls with me, and today when I realized that my depression and frustration might be culture shock, I opened the book and looked at the symptoms. To my surprise, I have been experiencing the majority of them: anxiety, homesickness, boredom, depression, fatigue, self-doubt, spending excessive amounts of time reading, need for excessive amounts of sleep, irritability and hostility towards host nationals. As I looked over the symptoms, I couldn’t help but laugh. I was so happy to have been able to blame something for my uneasiness and my extreme and seemingly sudden dislike for Jamaica.

According to Kohls, one of the strategies for overcoming culture shock is to try to look at the situations from the host perspective. He says, “Begin to look consciously for logical reasons behind everything in the host culture that seems strange, different, confusing or threatening. Take every aspect of your experience and look at it from their perspective” (Kohls 102). I decided to do this to the thing that I’ve found most threatening: the men.

I thought about it for a long time today. The men. The cat calls. The pickup lines. The marriage proposals. The forwardness. The phone numbers that I throw away as soon as I get home. And I asked myself why I was receiving all of this attention from the Jamaican men. Is it because I am just the most beautiful person to grace their eyes? …Probably not. More likely, it’s because I am a white female.

White people in Jamaica are few and far between. So when a white person walks by it’s pretty much automatically assumed that you are a tourist. The stereotypical tourist has tons of money that they’re just waiting to shell out on the most trivial things. This is not my situation. Of course I want to play the tourist game, but I have four whole months to do this, so I’m not in any rush and I don’t need people pressuring me, begging me to check out their shops. I thought about the stereotypes of American women, who are known as being very promiscuous. This of course is intensified by the stereotype that white women want to experience a black man because of their mystical reproductive organs. This is probably the reason that I have so many men begging me to call them, telling me I’m beautiful, wanting to walk me home, pestering me to hang out with them – because they think I want to get a taste of what they have to offer. Not so much my case.

So I think I understand the reason for their pickups. But what I still cannot understand or justify is the persistence of the men. Do they really think that I’m going to call them after meeting them randomly on the street? Do they really think that I find it attractive when a man comes up to me and tells me that I need to experience a Jamaican? Why do they get mad when they give me their number and I don’t call? It’s not like I’m leading them on…I have a boyfriend already and I’m not looking for anyone else. I lie and tell them that I’m married or engaged, hoping it will deter their pressures. But it rarely works. What would make these people think that I would give up a relationship with the man that I hope to marry one day for a random Jamaican man that is doing construction work on my street, whose name I can’t even pronounce? I feel like I cannot justify their actions. I just don’t understand. Is it my cultural duty to call every single man that gives me his phone number? Do they not understand that I’m already taken?

The worst part is how mad they get when you don’t call them and you run into them on the street. Would it be better just to tell them straight up that if they give me a phone number, I’m going to put it in the trash when I get home? I feel extremely threatened. I feel like these people think the reason I’m in Jamaica is for the sex. When I go out all I want to look at is the sidewalk so I don’t accidentally make eye contact with someone who is going to tell me that I’m beautiful and give me their phone number. I feel like I’m viewed as less than a person. I feel that when these men give me complements, I’m expected to make a return payment of my body, my love, my care and my emotions. I feel like I’m not viewed as a Jamaican or a student or someone who is interested in this beautiful island in the middle of the industrial world, but as a tourist, a prostitute and a thing. I understand that it is polite here for people to make those comments, but where is the line drawn (if at all)? It’s lovely when people tell me they like me, but as soon as they incorporate themselves into the story, I’m no longer interested.

I understand that I’m culture shocking, and that maybe my assumptions are wrong. Maybe I’m clinging to my American culture so desperately that I’m reading these men completely wrong. But I can’t help but doubt that. I feel very strongly that I am not being accepted into this culture by the men. I feel that for the complete duration of my stay, men will view me as a tourist, as a potential sex buddy and a rich white girl. It is very dissatisfying and it is the main problem that I’m facing while dealing with and understanding culture shock from the first person perspective.