My “culture shock” in Italy

Living in a new country requires certain efforts to adapt to a new culture, which is superficially known to everyone through art, cuisine, and expressiveness. And for some people, this becomes an overwhelming challenge.

The definition of this is a cultural shock i.e., an unexpected change in one’s lifestyle. The term seems negative at first glance, but in fact, it is about small and big things that you are not used to seeing, eating, touching, hearing, and experiencing in a certain way at home.

To explain what is unusual in Italy to those who were not born and raised here, I want to briefly discuss my history of adaptation to the country.

I have been in Italy for only six months at the moment, and I have already experienced quite a lot of cultural shocks during this time.

The first thing that surprised me on my arrival in Venice was that there are a lot of private houses there. I’m used to seeing a lot of high-rise buildings or just neighborhoods with at least five floors. But here, on the contrary, people have more private homes than apartments.

I also encountered a long bureaucracy and was surprised that sometimes, even for some meetings, I had to schedule an appointment face-to-face rather than online. I was also surprised that I had to wait for my bank card for over a month.

And if we talk about decency in a crowd, then I was very surprised at how people here can blow their noses very loudly, even during a lesson or while the teacher is talking. They never hesitate to do it very loudly, even if they are in a very public place. In my country, it is rather uncultured, and we move to a less crowded place to blow our noses. And even at such a moment, we do not always allow ourselves to do it so loudly. It’s even great that people don’t condemn such behavior and can do it so easily no matter what.

I was also surprised by the freedom of students and the attitude teachers have toward students. If you want to leave the classroom, you don’t need to ask the professor about it; you can just leave. Also, no one condemns you for being late, and you can safely enter the audience at any time and no one will even say a word to you. This significantly calms the learning process and makes it more comfortable.

I have a lot more that surprised me about Italy, but I think I’ll postpone them to other parts of our “Cultural shocks” rubric.

Editor: Neeti Devkota