What helps to avoid culture shock in the USA?

What is culture shock?
If you have moved or travelled abroad for more than a week, remember what your feelings were like at arrival. In a month? A couple of months later? After half a year or a year? You probably experienced waves of enjoyment and irritation – and you were not the only one!

How frequent is culture shock?
It’s common for all travellers who face a country and its culture for the first time. However, the amount of time one plans to spend there can impact the ultimate reaction and feelings.

What causes culture shock?
It is mainly lack of knowledge about the style of life of a host country BEFORE arriving there.

There are plenty of areas where cultures vary while the most common triggers of cultural shock include, among other things, language barrier, differences in everyday life (e.g., food habits, accepted working hours, dating traditions, etc.), legal norms, laws. Imagine you have to deal with all these during the first day or two having no access to people, objects or activities you are used to at home. It wouldn’t be long before information overload – a big friend of culture shock – takes place.

What happened to Sir Charles Chaplin?