An Emigrant’s Observations: Reverse Culture Shock

Julia and I have been living in Austria for nine years now: the first three in Linz and the following six in Vienna. Yet I still remember some of my impressions from those early months very clearly. I was surprised by how carefully local people chose their words and kept their emotions under control. “Oh, those Austrian robots,” I used to think. You could have a pleasant conversation with them, but behind their politeness there was often a certain distance that I found difficult to understand. Sometimes Austrians seemed cold to me. I wanted more open, heartfelt communication, and their caution about getting closer to people sometimes felt like a lack of interest in us. I would tell myself, “Back home, now that’s different — practically every meeting comes with its own drama!”

Sometimes, here in Vienna or while travelling, I find myself in a new group of Russian-speaking people. Conversations usually start easily, and the first joke everyone understands helps break the ice. There is a pleasant simplicity to these encounters: you can join the conversation almost immediately, even though you did not know any of these people just a few minutes earlier. But sometimes, after a while, I begin to feel uncomfortable and catch myself wanting to step away. It is not always immediately clear what has bothered me. The conversation seems to be continuing in much the same way as it began.

Someone might ask a question that immediately puts you in an awkward position: “What, you actually live in that terrible neighbourhood?” Or another example: “How can you possibly enjoy living in such a backward country as Austria?” Or, when you meet at a restaurant, someone says, “Why did you choose this awful restaurant?” The person barely knows anything about me, yet they have already found something wrong with my choices. And now, for some reason, I am expected to come up with answers to these provocative questions. If I say nothing, similar remarks may continue. If I respond in the same manner, the relationship quickly takes on a very particular character.

When someone interrupts me in a Russian-speaking group in Austria, my first reaction is to stop talking and wait for a chance to continue. But the other person has already picked up the subject, drawn a conclusion from what I did not get to finish saying, and is now enthusiastically explaining why I am wrong. My attempt to clarify what I actually meant leads to another interruption. After a while, I notice that all my attention is going towards finding a pause in which I can manage to say at least a few words. The subject of the conversation itself interests me less and less. I just want to finish my thought, restore the meaning of what I was trying to say, and stop the stream of objections to a claim I never even made. And suddenly I am speaking more loudly than I intended, rushing through my words, and feeling irritation gradually creeping into my own voice.

What I now find particularly difficult to tolerate is the absolute certainty with which people make judgements in conversations like these. Someone may remember an event only vaguely, confuse the circumstances, forget the name of the person whose opinion they are quoting, and yet have absolutely no doubts about the finality of their conclusion. Of course, I can forget a name or a date too. I know how frustrating it is to lose a detail that you remembered perfectly well not long ago. But what amazes me is how easily people begin judging someone else’s knowledge on such shaky grounds.

And people who behave this way can be perfectly well educated, hold good positions, and clearly care a great deal about the impression they make. They feel completely comfortable with this style of communication, while I increasingly catch myself wanting to distance myself from it. My own reaction puzzles me: after all, I know perfectly well how to talk to people like this, and in the past I was quite capable of finding common ground with them. So why does even a short time spent in such company now leave me feeling so uncomfortable?

Back in Russia, I also found similar conversations exhausting, although over time I learned to manage them reasonably well. I had to consider in advance who I could afford to be gentler with and who required me to establish clear boundaries immediately. Sometimes, simply being prepared to respond sharply was enough to avoid further unpleasantness. I might be outraged by someone’s behaviour, discuss it with Julia, or try to see certain people less often. Yet I had long accepted the need to constantly adjust my behaviour to the people around me as a normal part of life.

I remember individual unpleasant encounters and can explain what irritated me about them, but I can no longer clearly feel the everyday burden of that time. So much other life has accumulated between me and those years, a life in which that kind of constant alertness has usually been unnecessary. Perhaps that is why even a brief return to a familiar social environment can feel so overwhelming. I had managed to forget how normal it once was to waste energy on a pointless confrontation and then continue that conversation in my head for a long time afterwards, coming up with the answers I should have given on the spot.

Over these years, I have become accustomed to expressing my thoughts calmly, without worrying that someone will interrupt me halfway through a sentence. When talking to Austrians and acquaintances from other European countries, I am often asked questions by people who want to understand what experiences have shaped my opinion and why I see something the way I do. When people listen to you, it becomes much easier to notice an inaccuracy, correct yourself, or admit that there is something you do not yet know. You can even pause to think in the middle of a sentence, confident that you will be allowed to finish it.

I now have a better understanding of the reserve that surprised me so much during my first years of emigration. That is why, when I hear complaints about how closed-off Austrians or Germans are, I also hear a question we should be asking ourselves: “How pleasant is it for other people to be around us?” Being friendly when you first meet someone does not promise anything, and the desire to meet again depends to a large extent on how that first conversation went.

At the same time, I recognise some of my own former habits in other people’s behaviour. I, too, could decide far too quickly that I had already understood someone and was perfectly capable of explaining why they were wrong. My own harshness seemed justified, especially if the other person had upset me first. You could go on switching from defence to attack for a long time, all the while remaining convinced that you were simply good at standing up for yourself. Now I find it unpleasant to recognise this behaviour from the outside and remember how naturally it sometimes came to me. I hope that today I pay more attention to the person I am talking to, although being convinced of my own good manners also calls for caution: I began noticing many things about myself much later than I should have.

After all, I am also part of other people’s social environment, and my behaviour affects how comfortable they feel around me. Explaining my habits through the environment in which I grew up is not enough. In every new conversation, I either continue following the rules I absorbed or try to do without them. When you think about this, it becomes harder to blame everything unpleasant about life in Russia exclusively on those who govern the country. You can sincerely hate the abuse of power and, at the same time, willingly take the opportunity to dominate someone who happens to be in a weaker position. That is why, for me, the desire to get rid of the current criminal government in Russia is becoming increasingly connected with a question about ourselves. What are we prepared to reconsider in the way we treat one another, especially when circumstances allow us to behave however we please?

The life Julia and I have built here is precious to me, and I am increasingly unwilling to give up even a small part of it to pointless confrontations. In the rush of everyday life, it is easy to get used to peaceful days and stop noticing just how valuable they are. Sometimes, encountering a familiar style of communication reminds me to be grateful for the most ordinary life, in which I have long felt at home.

You may also like these articles:

News

О проекте:

О проекте:

Последние материалы

An Emigrant’s Observations: What “Home” Means After Nine Years Abroad

An Emigrant’s Observations: My Nine Years in Austria

My Beloved Vienna: By the Numbers, Not Just from the Heart

An Emigrant’s Observations: A Fresh Look at the Exhausting Process of Adapting to Another Country

О проекте

Полезное

Лайфхаки

Контакты