Culture Shock in China cs en the author reflects on the different stages of the culture shock she experienced when moving to China. Assumption

3. Analyses
I try to analyse my experiences according to the five stages of culture shock.
The first part of my China experience was very exiting. I travelled around, could overcome all problems of daily travellers life. Chinese people were very nice to me and I was looking forward to my new life in China. I was not yet landed in Chinese daily life but I had really a feeling of “flying high”. So I would say that the first two weeks travelling around in China were my honeymoon stage.
I landed in reality when I arrived at the dormitory in Hangzhou. From one moment to the other I saw in what environment I will have to spend the next year. I was very disappointed about the circumstances. This reality changes my mood very quickly! I didn’t feel good anymore but doubts aroused. I quarrelled a lot which the Chinese people in the “foreign affairs office” in order to get a better or a single room. But they couldn’t understand what my problem was. I was sure that they just didn’t want to understand me! By-and-by the blocked me, which I thought was very unfriendly. In fact, they just didn’t know anymore what they should tell me. In this time I felt very sad and helpless. I was not sure anymore in what I was doing here. In this time I was fallen into the disintegration stage.
Once I realized that the people in the “foreign affairs office” couldn’t help me, I got very sad and sluggish. I spent most of the day in my room doing nothing. I was not able to learn. I was not able to go out. I didn’t even feel like seeing friends. I was sleeping most of the afternoons. An even though I slept half a day I still could sleep in the night. When I was sleeping I hadn’t to think about my situation. Sleeping was like an escape from the daily Chinese life, which I really hated at that point. When I went out, for example, to buy aliments, I didn’t want to bargain with the people on the market. Instead, I was sure, that they all just wanted to cheat me. I was very unfriendly and so they were also unfriendly to me. In this phase, I couldn’t see anything positive in my life. I wanted to go home! Home in my country where everything was much better or even perfect! I arrived at the lowest point of my life, which might be the reintegration stage.
After a while I was able to see my situation from a more objective sight. I realized that I would feel better, when I could live outside of the dormitory. So I made another effort to find another place to stay. This time a succeeded! This achievement was a proof that I am able to organise my life in China gave my new power. I was very proud that I made it. I was very happy having back my privacy. The new “life” in my small apartment motivated me again to take part of the Chinese life. I started to make Chinese friends and I finally started to learn Chinese. This time was my autonomy stage.
From now on most of the time I felt very well in China. I learnt a lot of the Chinese Culture. I was keen on learning the “rules of the game” and I enjoyed it very much to apply them. This fact was also appreciated by my Chinese environment. More and more I was integrated in my new social surround. Over the time I realised that I have two “sets of behaviour” - one for my western world and one for my Chinese world. This was a fact which made my very happy.
The hole experience made me stronger and in a was also more adult. At this point, I reached the interdependence stage.