Final answer:
Culture shock is the disorientation and frustration experienced when encountering a new culture. It can happen when traveling abroad or within one's own country. People initially feel excited but become stressed by differences in language, expressions, food, schedules, and etiquette. Adjusting to a new culture takes time.
Step-by-step explanation:
Culture shock is a term used in sociology to describe the disorientation and frustration experienced when encountering a new culture. It can happen when traveling abroad or even within one's own country or hometown. Anthropologist Kalervo Oberg coined the term and found that people initially feel excited about experiencing a new culture, but gradually become stressed by the differences in language, expressions, food, schedules, and etiquette. This constant stress can make people feel incompetent and insecure.
Examples of culture shock include a traveler from Chicago finding rural Montana's nightly silence unsettling, and an exchange student from China being annoyed by constant interruptions in class, which is considered rude in China. However, as people learn more about a culture, they can adapt and recover from culture shock over time.
Adjusting to a new culture takes time, and it can take weeks or months to fully recover from culture shock and feel fully adjusted to living in a new culture.