We touched down in the darkness and I walked the corridor to passport control. Everything felt familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The airport was smaller than I remembered: much like when you revisit your old primary school and notice the comically small chairs and urinals.
I rolled my luggage into the winter air and joined the bus queue. The Brits around me weren’t exactly thrilled to be back. “Always late,” said one as he checked the timetable. “Does anything work in this fucking country?” A sunburnt woman glanced at him in mute agreement.
The bus driver had to repeat the ticket price three times because I couldn’t believe it cost £13. When I handed him the cash he explained that paper five-pound notes were unacceptable because “we’re plastic now.” I shuffled to the back of the bus and stared out the window at buildings I used to know but now seemed foreign.
Yes, it can be a strange feeling to return home.
Reverse culture shock is defined as the emotional and psychological distress of readjusting to a culture after returning from a period overseas. In my experience the severity depends on how long you spent abroad and how different the other culture was.
I’ve only properly struggled with reverse culture shock once. After four years of living in China, I arrived in the London underground and wondered why it was so quiet: I thought the Queen must have died or something. During the months that followed, it seemed like my identity had disappeared and I belonged nowhere.
These days I live in Europe where the differences aren’t as pronounced, so I never properly experience reverse culture shock. That said, the first few days at home are always interesting because there is a short window before my brain realises everything is familiar.
On my last trip to the UK, I took great pleasure in eating fish and chips and buying English newspapers. For a short period I was neither a tourist nor a local, but existed in a strange and hilarious limbo in between. It was funny to see my compatriots adhering to the English stereotypes I used to believe were untrue — discussing the weather, dunking biscuits in tea, and following each complaint with “mustn’t grumble.”
But as the days passed the novelty faded, and what came next was less pleasing. Everyone else was going about their business and I had nothing to do. I felt adrift and unemployed, life was happening around me and I wasn’t part of it.
Perhaps this is why many expats are reluctant to visit their home country. Right now their life isn’t in the country in which they were born, so there is no reason for them to be there. This can be confused with reverse culture shock — when actually it’s just the reality of living away — because it’s unlikely that you’re creating a life abroad while simultaneously building a second one at home.