Host ,'Why We Fight'
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
Re-entry stress (the industry term for reverse culture shock) was my specialty in my OD masters. When I casually mentioned my own experience, melting down in the cereal aisle of a grocery store, my cross-cultural comm professor chirped, "80% of the time, it's the cereal aisle."
It was a weirdly encouraging and confirming to hear how common the phenomenon is.
::nods::
There wasn't a lot of cereal around when I was growing up.
I think for me, it was yogurt or shampoo. But I get it being the cereal aisle.
Bread aisle. Because there was so much good bread in Prague, all 3 or 4 bakeries, meaning 12 ft of 3 or 4 varieties. And Smith's had a bajillion and none looked good.
The cereal aisle freaks *me* out, and I've never been out of the country. Too. many. choices.
For me, it's still the fruits and vegetable section. It's fucking Greek to me. I don't know what most of that shit is, and some of the stuff I'm supposed to know, like mangoes, is still weird.
Twenty years hasn't fixed that. And at the rate I expand my plant horizons, not changing any time soon.
I remember standing there, completely awash in the obscenity of 200 types of cereal when so many go without so much. I think the sensory overload really did me in too. So much color, so many shapes. So, very loud, visually speaking.
Yeah, for me it's just too much, color and flavor and New! and Improved! and Delicious! Go through there with a toddler in a cart, and it's a nightmare waiting to happen.
The cereal aisle freaks *me* out, and I've never been out of the country. Too. many. choices.
Our wee tiny neighborhood grocery store (probably a little smaller, square footage-wise, than a Trader Joes) closed at the beginning of the year, and our only other options are Big! Huge! Fuckoff! Grocery Conglomerates where you can buy not only a steak but the $400 gas grill to cook it on.
I *loathe* shopping there. I used to love grocery shopping, and the giant stores freak my shit out.
In the mid '90s, I saw a group of visiting Russian nuclear plant employees go into severe culture shock in a Toys R Us in Virginia. One said, "I was going to get my daughter a doll, but there are so many."