The Art Of… Enjoying Culture Shock

Unfamiliarity is good for you. And Japan delivers just the right amount of the strange and startling, writes ANNA HART.

- Anna Hart

Imagine being immune to culture shock. You’d miss out on so much. And I admit I was growing a little concerned about my cultural immune system, last year. After all, I’ve lived in far-flung cities as disparate as Belfast, Singapore, Auckland, Los Angeles, Warsaw and London. I’ve attended weird and wonderful events like the Rio Carnival in Brazil, a Viking fire bacchanal in the Shetland Islands and the mass water fight that is the Buddhist New Year celebrations in Luang Prabang, Laos. What if I was now culturally unshockable? Had calluses formed on my soul, the hardened soul of the inveterate writer who has seen it all, done it all, and therefore feels nothing at all? Had I travelled myself into a grim state of perpetual ease, relentless comfort and unyielding self-confidence?

Mercifully, this flurry of worry was ended, abruptly, by a visit to Japan. Japan immediately made me feel like a bumpkin, an alien, a clutz and an amateur. The relief was immense. Because it’s healthy to drag ourselves away from the familiar and face the unfamiliar. Feeling like a fish out of water forces us to laugh at ourselves, it nips emergent prejudices in the bud, and it keeps our minds nimble and resilient.

Culture shock – our wholly natural alarm at a new environment, with new people and a new way of life – is the medicine that makes us better travellers, and better people.