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00:00:01
Reverse Culture Shock: Why Coming Home Is Harder Than Leaving
18 Plays7 days ago
What does it feel like to return home for a visit after years of living abroad? In this episode of The Auto Ethnographer, John Jörn Stech prepares to board a plane back to the United States — his home country — and discovers something unexpected: he is approaching the trip the way he would approach a country he has never visited before. With research, anticipation, and a degree of hesitation he did not expect to feel.
"Returning home is not that simple, comfortable event that everyone around you expects it to be. It's one of the more quietly demanding experiences in the life of a global professional. And almost nobody talks about it."
Drawing on the W-curve model of intercultural adjustment (Gullahorn & Gullahorn, 1963), this episode explores reverse culture shock — why coming home can be as disorienting as moving abroad, and why almost nobody prepares for it. When your mental image of home freezes at the moment you leave, and you spend years absorbing a different cultural logic, you return not as the person who left — but as someone genuinely changed.
"You're not bringing your old self back to an unchanged place. You're bringing a changed self back to a changed place. And the collision of those two changes is what creates reverse culture shock."
Three anticipations shape this episode: the physical scale of the United States after years in Bangkok, the warmth and openness of American social interaction seen through recalibrated eyes, and the challenge of stepping back into a country in the middle of a deeply public conversation about its own values — without falling into nostalgia or reflexive rejection.
"The stereotypes that are the most difficult to resist are not the ones about unfamiliar cultures. They are the ones about the culture that formed you — the ones you carry without even knowing that you are carrying them."
John Jörn Stech also shares the deeply personal dimensions of this homecoming: attending the New Orleans Jazz Festival for the first time, celebrating his daughter's graduation from medical school, and visiting his son and future daughter-in-law in their first home together.
The Auto Ethnographer will pause for 2 to 3 weeks. New episodes return in the second half of May.
🎓 Ready to make the move abroad? Your Ticket Abroad — the complete guide for global professionals: https://www.auto-ethnographer.com/your-ticket-abroad-course
🌐 The Auto Ethnographer: https://www.auto-ethnographer.com/
🔗 Connect with the Auto Ethnographer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-auto-ethnographer
🔗 Connect with John Jörn Stech on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-stech-drive-electric/
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
In two days, I'll board a plane back to the United States for a visit, my home country.
00:00:08
Speaker
And I've noticed something that I find genuinely worth examining here. I'm preparing for this trip in a way that I would prepare for a country that I've never visited before.
00:00:23
Speaker
Why is that? with With research, with anticipation, and if I'm being honest, with the a certain degree of hesitation that I didn't expect to feel.
00:00:36
Speaker
That hesitation, that that that pause before going home, that's that's what we're going to talk about today. Because here's the the truth that not enough people want to say out loud. If you've spent a great deal of time living abroad, you've allowed the experience to genuinely change you,
00:00:59
Speaker
And returning home is not that simple, comfortable event that everyone around you expects it to be. It's it's one of the more quietly demanding experiences in the the life of a global professional.
00:01:15
Speaker
And almost nobody talks about it. My name is John Yuen Steck, and this is the auto ethnographer Bangkok.
00:01:27
Speaker
The Autoethnographer, your weekly cultural trip around the world. And today, we're going home. In fact, when this episode drops, I'm going to be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.
00:01:42
Speaker
I want to start with something that I find fascinating about how the the human mind handles absences. When you leave a place, your your mental image of it, it it freezes. it It doesn't update anymore in real time. You're not there to absorb all the small incremental daily shifts.
00:02:04
Speaker
The new restaurant that that opened and replaced the old one, the conversation that that gradually changed the tone of the neighborhood and the the slow cultural drift that happens almost invisibly to the people who experience it incrementally day by day.
00:02:25
Speaker
You, on the other hand, you've been somewhere else entirely. you've You've been absorbing a different cultural logic. a different set of assumptions about how people should move through the world, what they owe each other, and how time should be spent, and what silence means. in Here in Bangkok, there's not much silence, as you might hear in the background.
00:02:51
Speaker
So when you return, you're not bringing your old self back to an unchanged place. You're actually bringing a changed self back to a changed place.
00:03:05
Speaker
and And the collision of those two changes is what creates the specific kind of disorientation that researchers call reverse culture shock.
00:03:16
Speaker
The country that I carry in my memory, it it it has certain certain qualities, a certain scale, ah a certain informality, and a particular warmth of how strangers interact.
00:03:29
Speaker
But I've been away long enough to know that the country I'm going to land in is not going to be a perfect match to the one that I'm carrying in my mind. And then there's something else that I i can't quite set aside.
00:03:46
Speaker
The United States that I'm returning to in 2026 is a country in the middle of a very public and intense conversation about what it actually stands for, about its values, about its place in the world, about who belongs and and what that belonging requires.
00:04:07
Speaker
I've been watching all of that, all of that conversation from the outside. And now, I'm gonna go back and step right into it. Pun intended.
00:04:20
Speaker
There's a framework in cross-cultural research that I believe every expat should know. It's called the W-Curve and it was developed by John and Jean Goulehorn way back when in 1963, before even I was born.
00:04:36
Speaker
I'm sure right now that Dr. Jerome Dumetz that we had on the program a couple of weeks ago is gonna tell me this is an outdated model But I have to say I still like the simplicity. Most people who study intercultural adjustment are familiar with the so-called U-curve.
00:04:53
Speaker
The idea that when you move into a new country, your experience follows a ah pretty predictable arc. You have initial excitement, then some frustration, and then gradual adaptation. Then eventually, something that begins to feel like integration.
00:05:14
Speaker
What the Gullihorns observed, though, is that the curve, it doesn't end there. It actually extends. Because when you return home, you go through that same process again.
00:05:28
Speaker
ah second U. And together, those two arcs form the shape of a W. Here's what makes that so important.
00:05:40
Speaker
The first you, adjusting to life abroad, people expect that one, rightly so, to be difficult. they They prepare for that one. They give themselves permission to feel confused, to make mistakes, to to take time making that transition.
00:05:58
Speaker
But the second you, coming home, almost nobody prepares for that one. Because how can home feel for it? How can the place that made you require adjustment?
00:06:15
Speaker
the The answer, I think, is that it can. and And the reason is precisely because you've done the genuine work of cross-cultural learning.
00:06:27
Speaker
So when a tourist goes abroad and comes home, they're they're largely unchanged. A person who has truly lived abroad, who has let the experience question their assumptions and expand their their sense of what's possible that person comes home very different and and and difference even welcome difference it requires adjustment before I go further into what I'm specifically anticipating when I when I land I want to take a moment just to just to share with you directly because to get a little bit personal
00:07:07
Speaker
Because this trip is not only a an intellectual exercise for me, it's it's deeply personal. I'll be visiting family in New Orleans, my wife's brother and and his fiancée, which means that I also will have what I can only describe as a distinct pleasure of attending the New Orleans Jazz Festival this coming weekend.
00:07:31
Speaker
For those of you who've never experienced New Orleans in the spring, i can only tell you that that very few places in the world are quite like it. And and this will be my first time listening to the music in the warm days of a Louisiana springtime.
00:07:50
Speaker
It's a city that wears its culture loudly and and without any apologies. And for someone who's, you know, spent their years studying how culture expresses itself, it's going to be a remarkable place to visit and to explore.
00:08:07
Speaker
Then from New Orleans, I traveled to Pennsylvania. My daughter is graduating from medical school. Soon to be Dr. Steck. Congratulations.
00:08:19
Speaker
That's ah a milestone that that I've been looking forward to for a long time. And my son and his fiancee, they've just acquired their first home together, which I'm really looking forward to seeing for the first time.
00:08:35
Speaker
These are the kinds of of moments that that pull you back. They're the, I guess I could call it the human gravity at the center of this homecoming. And because of that travel, the auto ethnographer is going to take a a short and brief pause.
00:08:52
Speaker
There won't be any new episodes for about two to three weeks. So expect something new to drop in the second half of May. I'll be back after that. And I'm sure I'm going to have considerably more to talk about once I've been in the United States and can talk about my experience rather than my anticipation.
00:09:11
Speaker
But for now, let me tell you what I'm expecting to find. There are really three things that I'm genuinely curious about when I walk back into American life.
00:09:24
Speaker
Not as criticisms, not as complaints, just simply as as as observations to look and and to to recalibrate myself. Because that is, after all, what this channel is is overall built on.
00:09:37
Speaker
The first one is is scale. One of the most consistent things that returning expats report, particularly those who have been living in you know walkable city centered, you know, urban areas is the the scale of the United States, the the roads, the the distances between things, the the portion sizes also, yes, but also the the space between people when they're holding a conversation.
00:10:07
Speaker
the The size of the the personal space bubble that that Americans surround themselves with without being fully aware of it is is really different compared to Asia, where everything is is crowded and personal space is more limited. You actually measure it in in inches, not in feet, like you would in the United States.
00:10:27
Speaker
I don't think scale is is a flaw by any means. I just think that it's it is embedded into the American logic and and the whole society has ah evolved around that.
00:10:38
Speaker
A country that large built around the the the mythology of space and individual freedom it is is going to produce a ah different physical and and social environment than the large, vast, sprawling and crowded Bangkok ever will.
00:10:59
Speaker
and And I understand that. But i'm I'm curious about how my my my body and my my psychology is going to respond to it after years of adopting and adapting to something really different.
00:11:14
Speaker
The second one is social interaction. American friendliness is one of the most genuinely appealing qualities of American culture. People are always smiling and and and seemingly happy. and And I mean that really, truly, without any kind of irony.
00:11:30
Speaker
The ease with which ah a stranger will strike up a conversation, the the warmth of ah of a server, the openness of of a neighbor, or the the the casual generosity of of people who, for no particular reason, want to be generous with you.
00:11:47
Speaker
these are These are real and valuable things. But after years in environments with more formally stratified social interaction, I'm aware that I probably recalibrated myself and I'm probably not going to be so friendly.
00:12:04
Speaker
The question here is is not which approach to human action is is superior. The question is is really what my own calibration reveals about me and and how I've changed on the inside.
00:12:19
Speaker
The third anticipation and and perhaps the most complex is the ah political and the cultural atmosphere. I want to be careful here because this channel is is not a political channel. and And I can tell you it never has been and it never will be.
00:12:37
Speaker
But I... would not be honest if I pretended that a visit to the United States in 2026 is a culturally neutral experience.
00:12:50
Speaker
the The country is in the the middle of a significant debate about its own values, about what it owes its citizens, about its its role in the world, and about who belongs and what that belonging actually means.
00:13:08
Speaker
I've been watching that debate from abroad and now I'm going to step right back into it physically, hopefully not stepping in anything. And what I want to hold on to is the the same type of discipline that I try to bring to the culture that I encounter in every occasion, to observe it first, to to ask questions before drawing any kind of conclusion, to resist the pull to an uncritical nostalgia or even an uncritical rejection, just, you know, rejecting everything outright.
00:13:44
Speaker
That's harder to do clinically with your own culture, but it's also, I think, that much more important to go through that process.
00:13:56
Speaker
Here's the truth that I keep returning to as I prepare for this trip. the the dissonance that I'm experiencing, you know expecting to feel when I land in the United States, it's it's not about the country.
00:14:10
Speaker
it's It's about me, about who I've become in the four years since living overseas, first in Vietnam and now in Thailand. and And that's harder thing to to sit with because it requires a particular type of honesty.
00:14:27
Speaker
the The people who who stayed in the United States, they experienced the last few years incrementally. They lived through each development in real time, minute by minute, day by day. And and adjusting slowly, the way that you adjust to ah a temperature change, right? like Like one degree at a time.
00:14:48
Speaker
That's different than me. I'm going to experience everything that they've accumulated all at once and with fresh eyes and and with a different set of reference points than the ones that I left with a few years ago.
00:15:02
Speaker
Neither experience is superior to the other. They are simply two different relationships with the same exact reality.
00:15:14
Speaker
But what my experience offers, I think, my personal experience, is ah is a kind of a clarity. The clarity that comes from perspective, from from distance, from years of asking the same questions in a dozen different cultural contexts.
00:15:32
Speaker
What does that behavior mean? what What assumptions are are lying underneath that particular behavior? what What would this look like to to someone who you know was not simply raised to think of this particular thing as being normal?
00:15:49
Speaker
I'm going to apply that same lens to my own country, to my own people. And to be honest with you, that's where the real work of this trip lies. Because the stereotypes that are the most difficult kind to resist are not the ones about unfamiliar cultures.
00:16:13
Speaker
They're the ones about the culture that formed you. The ones you you carry without even knowing that you're carrying them. That was, in many ways, what our last episode was about.
00:16:28
Speaker
About human values. The stereotypes trapped that people can fall into when they equate the country and the nationality to the person. Going home is the most personal test of everything that I've explored here.
00:16:51
Speaker
I don't know yet what I'll find when I land. And I think that uncertainty is the the the most honest thing that that I can offer you today.
00:17:03
Speaker
What I do know is is this. The act of returning home with open eyes, with genuine curiosity, with the the willingness to be surprised by the place that that made you, that made me,
00:17:20
Speaker
that is one of the more demanding things that a global professional does it it asks you to to kind of hold two things at once the deep familiarity of a place that that you know deep inside in your bones and then the fresh perspective that that someone who has been genuinely challenged somewhere else develops Those two things are are not opposites.
00:17:52
Speaker
They are, when you can hold them out together at the same time, one of the real gifts of a life between cultures. So that's where I'll be for the next few weeks.
00:18:06
Speaker
In New Orleans at the Jazz Festival, surrounded by some of the most distinctive cultural expressionism in the United States. in Pennsylvania, watching my daughter cross a stage that she's worked years to reach, and then walking through the the rooms of my son's first home, the one where he and his fiancee want to build a life.
00:18:34
Speaker
These are the the moments that pull you back to what matters. And they're also, for someone who studies culture as a living,
00:18:47
Speaker
extraordinarily rich material. I look forward to bringing you what I find on the other side in a few weeks. Until then, I want you to stay curious, and I'll see you again in two to three weeks.
00:19:03
Speaker
As I always say, keep on driving, and I'll be doing plenty of that on the US highway system. And if you stayed to the end of the show right now, then you've been watching a really nice sunset over Bangkok.
00:19:20
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on today's journey. Please remember to like and subscribe to The Auto Ethnographer and leave us a rating or comment. For more information, visit our website at auto-ethnographer.com.
00:19:32
Speaker
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