Dartboard

Acculturation or adaptation is the continuous contact with a foreign culture that results in some change within oneself. Basically, it is the consequences of moving into another culture (either voluntarily as I did in Japan or involuntarily as in the case of refugees), or of another culture "moving in" (again, voluntarily as in the case of ethnic groups or involuntarily as in colonization of native peoples).

I'm reading an article on acculturation attitudes for class now and I started thinking of my own acculturation when I lived in Japan. I went to Japan with one very strong idea: BECOME JAPANESE. Although obviously I knew I would never actually become Japanese, I did try my hardest to immerse into Japanese culture by observing and imitating my hosts as closely as I thought possible. While I still found value in my own culture, I was uninterested in maintaining a strong sense of connection with it for the duration of my stay, which I knew was temporary. I rejected those things which were familiar to me and the people with whom I thought I would prevent me from having a "fully Japanese experience."

In retrospect, by cutting myself off from some of those things, I ultimately lost of a lot of great opportunities, but at the time I didn't see them as doors, rather as obstacles in my "quest for Japaneseness." My acculturation attitude on arrival would have been something between assimilation and integration. I wanted mainly to create and maintain relationships with Japanese people, while temporarily rejecting my own (defined as assimilation). Perhaps because I knew it would be a temporary visit in Japan, I never expected to fully assimilate into Japanese society (hence holding onto an partial attitude of integration), but I found the most value in casting aside my own culture and for a few years putting all my effort into relating to my hosts.

Good in theory, but sometime between the first and second year I realized that perhaps--shockingly--my hosts might not accept me in the way I was hoping or expecting them to. While I had never considered that I might not be allowed to assimilate and create relationships with Japanese I began to feel some separation. While it was not a personal choice to reject or avoid Japanese culture, I often felt in a way that I was forced to remain an outsider looking in. I would never say that I was openly excluded or discriminated against, because the Japanese are too polite for that, but I always felt the separation hanging over at least one area of my life, if not permeating throughout all of them at the same time. It's funny, once I realized it was there, I could never shake the feeling of separation. And the more unattainable assimilation became, the more I believed it was simply a matter of overcoming obstacles. I do love a good challenge!

Luckily, in my two years I have only a few memories of complete marginalization, where I had no interest in my own cultural identity and characteristics and considered relationships with Japanese to be of no value whatsoever. I had a pretty strong support system back in the US, and after I gave up my naive ideas of assimilation (probably only fully giving up the idea in the last few months I was there) and accepted the non-Japanese support system which was already surrounding me (other English-speakers who were my friends) I was able to find a happy balance between integration and separation. Even the partially limited relationships I created with Japanese were valuable and unique in their own right, and I never had to give up my own cultural identity or reject reminders of my culture to be able to benefit or appreciate both.

I think I owe a big apology to Catherine who was often the recipient of my rejection of Western culture, yet who put up with me throughout all my acculturation attitudes and became one of my best friends. Sometimes I feel really ashamed that I believed I needed to keep away from her to have a successful experience in Japan, and I admire that she never seemed to have such a naive idea of assimilation. From the outside, she seemed perfectly integrated for the two years we spent there. With the value of hindsight I, too, can see why that method was more effective in making and keeping long-term Western friendships than mine. I do not desire to have made more friends, but I do wish that I had treated some of those friends better while I was there.

...Can I attribute some of that to acculturative stress?!?!