Stories from Utah: Culture Shock

The last post was a letter that I sent out when I first got to Israel. I was trying to capture some of my daily life to share with friends and family who were suddenly far away.

I put it up now to remind myself that I have survived culture shock before and I will survive it again. I am experiencing serious culture shock today. It was triggered by something minute. I went shopping with some friends and as soon as we got in the car, one said, "Let's get a soda." So we did. We stopped at a gas station and the two guys I was with got sodas and beef products that came in cellophane wrapping. This, I think, is a very common American experience. I have never done this before except on a road trip.

There in the Sinclair, I had a cultural experience. And it made me realise how often I have similar experiences. Most of the time, it makes me laugh. It is funny to be a foreigner in your own home. Except when it isn't. Like the times when I leave a friend's house and I feel like something was left undone, because I didn't kiss them good bye or because we didn't hug and kiss hello. When you've adjusted to a culture where your landlady grabs your hand and calls you sweetheart, it's pretty lonely to come back to a culture where touch isn't the norm and no one refers to me as sweetheart, let alone- motek, chamuda, mami, bubba (sweetie, cutie, pretty, doll) sometimes all in the same sentence. I'll be honest, it is over-the-top sweet to coo "Cutie," at everyone all the time. But you get used to it, and embrace it and then when you get off the phone with someone without saying "kisses," it just feels wrong.

It's bizarre to go the liquor store to buy wine, to drive everywhere, to not eat salad with every meal, to not light candles on shabbat at least occasionally, to miss half the holidays with no one to share them with and no one to even remark on them. It's weird to go into a store and see the Star tabloid covered with the same plastic covers that they have on porn magazines in other places. It's funny to have the bad words bleeped out of songs, to not hear Arabic music on the radio, to never speak or see Hebrew, to realise that my pronunciation has deteriorated dramatically.

I mean this is obviously minor culture shock. We aren't talking suicide bombs and foreign languages, just a vague feeling of loneliness and the shock of living a different life so suddenly. Every once in a while, it would be lovely to meet a friend in a cafe to drink a great cappuchino and eat a gigantic salad, flavored by sea breeze and exhaust, look at all the beautiful people and pat each other's hands and babble on in Hebrew. "Nachon, Motek, aval, at yodaat, Chamuda, yehiye beseder." You are right, Sweetie, but you know, Cutie, it will all be fine.

Vezay nachon, yehiye li beseder. (And it's true, I will be fine.)