However, no matter how much you prepare you're still going to suffer culture shock. Usually the first few days after arrival can be classed as a honeymoon period. Everything is new and exciting, maybe even exotic. You will be enjoying discovering a new place and to a certain extent being on holiday.
But after the first week the difficult reality of the differences begins to overtake the novelty of the differences. Trying to get a telephone connected, have a new stove delivered and the other tasks that are easy in your country, because you know how its done, begin to raise your frustration levels because your not in your home country anymore and everything is different now.
Working past the frustration and anger that will develop are the next stage of culture shock. It will take effort on your part and a will to succeed; no one is going do it for you.
The next few weeks can be a make or break time as to whether you will ever settle in a country. If you give up and decide it's too hard to learn the language, understand your host culture, or there's no point in trying to make a home for yourself, you're likely to be stuck in a circle of frustration and anger. If this happens it's likely that you will spend the rest of your posting counting the days until you leave the country.
But if you keep going, one day you will find that you are relaxed and enjoying yourself. You will be able to understand the shopkeeper, the taxi driver will know where you want to go the first time you tell him, as you walk down the street people you know say hello to you and the waiter recognises you at your favourite restaurant.
Once you begin to relax into the pleasures of your host country you can begin to enjoy the country to its fullest extent. With local friends and other expatriates you can experience the joys of being invited to weddings, parties and peoples homes where customs you've only seen on television are practised by real people.
But beware, culture shock can be recurrent. Every now and then you can slip into a trough of frustration as the foreignness of where you are becomes too much for you to cope with. Some people find it comes during certain seasons, others at particular festival times, but it can come at any time. If you are watching out for it you can catch it early and work through it, cook yourself that favourite dish from home, go out for dinner somewhere fancy, or hang out with friends. But don't give up, because it's almost always easier to work through a recurrence than it is to get past the first dose.
