Cultural Shock Quotes

I remember that coming to America was scary for me because everything here is just bigger, better, shinier, you know?

I'm Egyptian, and my parents stupidly decided to move us down to South Carolina when I was five, which was pretty brutal.

In Mumbai, I feel like a stranger.

The first years when I came to New York, everything was too big and too much. For me, it was too difficult here, but bit by bit, it became one of my favorite places.

I grew up in a small Southern town, and there were white people and black people. Coming to New York to go to Columbia, every time I went into the subway I was absolutely astounded because you see people from all over the world who actually live here - who aren't just here as tourists.

It took me three years to learn to dress in the American way, especially in winter. That was just like me. I barely wear socks even now.

As a person of color from the South, San Francisco was the first city that really made me feel like an other.

To my child's eyes, which had seen nothing else, Shanghai was a waking dream where everything I could imagine had already been taken to its extreme.

And it's true, you hear things in Damascus and, after a few hours, the human double-take stops operating.

I was raised by two moms in a town that was diverse and understanding of people. I remember when I got a taste of the whole rest of the world and left my bubble when I got older, I was just so confused by the fact that not everybody else was like that.

When I was growing up, we learned our history almost as lives of the saints. And it came as a shock, "Oh, Jefferson had slaves?" It always comes as a shock to us that elevation to the White House didn't somehow cleanse them of all their deep character flaws.

My first college roommate greeted me with a shocked silence followed by, 'So... you're black.'

There was a queen that was overthrown here. So I was affected by all of that and felt profoundly grateful for the opportunity to live in Hawaii, and I set out at once to try to fit in.

I grew up on the north side of Chicago, in West Rogers Park, an overwhelmingly Jewish neighborhood. When I was 13, my parents moved to Winnetka, Illinois, an upper class, WASPy suburb where Jews - as well as Blacks and Catholics - were unwelcome on many blocks. I suffered the spiritual equivalent of whiplash.

I remember my first day at grammar school, being the only person who was me. Everybody else was like everybody else, and there I was, tanned, in a freezing cold playground in the middle of Middlesbrough, wondering what on earth I was doing there.

I'd read an enormous amount but had spent so much time in my own head that I didn't have extensive social skills. Suddenly I was in this world where I was surrounded by these incredibly polished and wealthy kids who had gone to prep schools, and I felt daunted by them. I don't think people were aware of how full of anxiety I was... For a long time I felt like I was living in a place where I shouldn't have been.

What is fascinating about a place like Los Angeles airport is that it is lots and lots of people, many of whom have saved up all their lives and channeled all of their energies toward coming to the promised land of abundance and plenty - the American Dream. But as soon as they arrive here they get a crash course in the American reality.

When I was 17, I went to India for six weeks and had what, at the time, was a very challenging trip. You walk down the street and you see lepers and beggars, and there were several of us, a group of Americans. I remember we were just trying to park one night somewhere and people were just sleeping in the parking lot.

Life in England was a bit difficult. It is not easy for a South American. Some people get on fine, and for others, it is harder to adapt.

Boarding school didn't feel like my world, I felt like an alien; people there had a lot of money.

Living in New York, you get a lot of confidence; when I go back to Michigan, I realise how obnoxious and demanding and straightforward I am.

When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.

When I went to Australia, I had this feeling, like, 'Wow, this is really a different country.' I think that feeling of genuine foreignness, that this is a very different culture, which is increasingly rare in our globalised world.

Making the 'An Idiot Abroad' series, I was really dreading going to India; I thought I'd hate it. It was a nightmare, and I was really ill - just like everyone says.

The transition between life in red-state America and life in the Arab capital was at times overwhelming because of the traditional segregation of men and women in many public and private settings.