By Huang Ziyin

On the evening of Mar 7th, a lecture named “Culture Shock between America and China" was held by Mr. Lucas Conrad in C304of Leyu Building.

First of all, Mr. Conrad introduced the four stages of facing culture shock: Honeymoon Stage, Negotiation Stage, Adjustment Stage and Adaptation Stage. And then he explicated the four stages combining with his own experiences.

On Honeymoon stage, Mr. Conrad indicated that it took him a few weeks to get used to it. During this period, he was interested in Chinese culture including the Chinese people, food, lifestyles and so on. However, a few months later, the differences between the two cultures became more and more apparent, such as language barriers, traffic differences and so on, which made him feel more lonely and homesick, and this was his Negotiation Stage. Probably one year later, Mr. Conrad entered Adjustment stage, in which he began to adapt to the culture with a positive attitude and developed skills to overcome difficulties. Finally, after his continuous efforts, he was able to fully get accustomed to the new surroundings and culture.

In addition, Mr. Conrad talked about the Reverse Culture Shock. He told students his quite a few behaviors after going back to America, which made the atmosphere more pleasant.

Mr. Conrad, combining with his own experiences and feelings in both China and America, gave the students a vivid speech, which made the students have a better understanding of cultural differences. What’s more, students got to know more about how to face the cultural differences as well as ways of solving them.