After Reading "Culture Shock"

My personal experience of culture shock is when I was 16 which was when I went to the United States for a year. The first stage to me was insignificant. America was much like what I expected it for I remembered a bit from my childhood, and it didn't seemed to be that difficult to adjust to. However as I entered the second stage, I realized I was going to have a hard time to fit in. Talking with people was something that was hard for me. I become so cautious about what I was saying, trying not to offend anybody or to make silly grammar mistakes. At the end I got frustrated at the situation I shut myself off from the environment. I didn't willingly make conversations, did it only when I thought I needed to. So eventually I didn't make a lot of friends and this to me was okay considering that I knew I was going to stay for only a year there. I guess I fled from the situation and gave up to be part of the society.

Another hard aspect was I found it uncomfortable that everybody was expressing themselves so loudly. Expressing one's feeling is important however over expressing was somewhat rude to me. and in this situation I think I never acquired any true understanding. It is still strange to me.

In the reading there was a part about identity problems. And though the reading does not explain a lot about what it means, I think I still face the problems today. I am more closer to Koreans, I speak native korean and I am more comfortable with the korean culture, that is for sure. However deep inside the thinking process is like Americans. I cannot point out a specific example, but I experienced that I preceive the same situation differently with people who were born and grown in Korea. And even though there are many reasons for this experiences, I think that living in America when I was young is part of it. I don't feel myself fully as a Korean nor an American and this is still confusing to me.