Sick of Reverse Culture Shock

"I give you two choices - your mother or your car?"

(this is complimentary post to the "Addicted to culture shock" post)

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"Reverse Culture Shock - Returning to one's home culture after growing accustomed to a new one can produce the same effects as Culture Shock" (Wikipedia)

Reverse culture shock is deadly and it takes me down every time. I can't relate to most of my Israeli family and friends who smile in pleasure when they get back to Israel feeling that they are, at last, home. The first day of every return is usually the worst of them all.

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My Peugeot was left to my mother for the time that I was away in Asia. When I came back, my mother handed the car for some "minor repairs" so I would get it back in the same state I left it in. Coming back from a long time away, there were endless little issues to sort out and take care of and in a big city a person needs his car.

First day back from Taiwan, I was told by my mother that she's sorry but my car was still at the mechanic's and that since she was busy and I needed the car - I should just head over there and collect it when they're through. "Everything is taken care of, you don't need to do anything other than take the car" I was reassured.

I went over to the mechanic's and after waiting for a few minutes the head mechanic comes over, gives me a nasty look and practically shouts at me the details of his encounter with my mother. Apparently, my car was fixed a while before that and my mother collected the car, but whil she drove back she noticed that the car's door window was loose, so - being sure that this happened at the mechanic's - she drove back and told them to fix the window to be in exactly the same way she gave it to them. They argued for a while that it wasn't their fault and that the car came in that way, but at long last - after taking it to the manager - they agreed to take care of it. I was suppose to take the car with a fixed door window.

He then spitted at me his final opinion of my mother - "Your mother is a #%(*@ liar, she broke it and now she wants us to take responsibility. I now give you two choices - Either you admit that your mom is a complete lying @$*& in front of all those witnesses and I'll fix your #@#$@# car, or you could tell me that she's right and you can take me up on that to the courts and we'll see who wins". I was speechless - I couldn't say anything for about ten seconds - still with the Chinese practice book in my hand, thinking how much I miss Taiwan but hoping that coming back to Israel wasn't that bad. "But, I don't understand, didn't you sort this out with her the last time she was here?" I give a few ridiculous attempts to rationalize my way through this verbal warfare with the raging bull. He then sneered, giving me a very self-explanatory body gesture he barked "I give you two choices - your mother or your car, what's it going to be?"

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First day back from London, I'm being told by my mother that she's sorry but something was wrong with my car. It wouldn't start and attempting to cable start it wouldn't help since the alarm doesn't respond. Since my good friend was getting married that day in a different city and I was hoping to drive over there ASAP, I was very nervous. Seemed like a small issue to me, which could be resolved with an experienced professional, so I called up the insurance hotline to send someone over to have a look.

After a couple of hours waiting for someone to come, a mechanic opens up my car, plays around with all the cables, taking out parts which I had no idea what they were meant for but always believed that they serve a purpose. He sighs, he curses, he plays around some more, and then he somehow bypasses the alarm to get the car running with the alarm making the worst noise. "Here, this is all I can do for you. Now you can drive the car to a mechanic to take care of this" he doesn't give me any choice. "But what if you try this with a little bit of that?" I try a few workarounds to save the day. "You think?" he laughs as if he's never heard anything more stupid his whole life, "just drive the car over there, they'll surely know what to do".

It was getting late, I was worried and disappointed, so I drove the noisy alarm-car all the way through the streets of Jerusalem to the mechanic. At the mechanic's I was told I need X Y and Z, since there's no other way - "I can fix it for you ONLY tomorrow, and it would cost you around 1100 shekels (250US$)". I was speechless - I could buy myself a return ticket to London with that money. "But, the battery was just emptied" I try to see if there's any explanation to this. "SIR! Don't argue! This is how it is! Come here tomorrow and pick it up". I try to consider my alternatives of taking it to a different place, but the clock's ticking and I've already missed escorting my good friend to his final wedding arrangements. After promising to myself to get back at all the mechanics of the world - I leave the car and head home, in a crowded noisy bus on a 35c hot sunny day, and when I arrive home I get a message that I need to call the mechanic. I felt like throwing up, but I pinched in the numbers and the mechanic's breaks the news to me  in what sounded to me like a vicious gloat - "We took a look at your car, and now we KNOW that you also need to replace W, which would cost you 600 shekels more (120US$)".

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These are just small examples and I have plenty of other painful first-day-back experiences. This isn't about money, or about mechanics, or about coincidences, it's about perception of the surroundings when coming back. If I'm completely in love with the difficulties of culture shock, I can't stand the difficulties of reverse culture shock and everything around me when I get back. Everything that was once so familiar looks so foreign and distant that I feel like I can't take it. The only thing I can think of to calm myself down is that this is temporary. It becomes a little, but only a little, better after a while, but it doesn't take away the feeling. Sadly, I haven't come to accept or learn how to deal with reverse culture shock, it still takes me down every time.