My Cultural Adaptation Story - Intercultural Issues Reflection
In this blog, I would like to write down my experiences on the intercultural issues I faced as an international student from Indonesia in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2022. The U-curve model of cultural adaptation (Lysgaard,1955), (Oberg 1960), and (Adler, 1975) will be used in explaining the intercultural issue reflection I have experienced. Based on the u-curve model, there are 4 main stages of emotional reaction that individual might encounter when entering a new culture, and the four stages cover: honeymoon, crisis/culture shock, the recovery, and the last is adjustment.
The first stage is the honeymoon. This stage of my experience started from the preparation of my departure until arriving in Malaysia. I remembered the excitement I felt when I got accepted by a scholarship from the government to study to Malaysia. But before going further, the reason why I choose Malaysia was because that was the first time ever, I went abroad, so I thought it would be a good start to go to a country that is still near from Indonesia, hence I chose Malaysia. I realized that I did not learn much about Malaysia before going here, I just held my only perception “All things in Malaysia must be similar to Indonesia.”, little did I know, I was not prepared for the culture shock that might happen. The next is about my flight to Malaysia, it was on March 24th, and at that moment, I still had to undergo five-days quarantine. All was well until I landed at KLIA, then headed to one of hotels in Kuala Lumpur. My days were great at the quarantine, the excitement was still the same even though I was still locked in a room until the day I finished the quarantine and started to move to the dorm. The honeymoon phase of my story only lasted until the first 5 days I were staying the dorm.
Lost, was what I felt after several days living in a new environment. I started to struggle adapting to some differences in this new place with what I imagined. Thus, this phase of emotion was categorized as culture shock stage. The first issue was about the food, I am not good at explaining the exact differences of Malaysian and Indonesian food, but there is a big difference in taste. Before coming to Malaysia, I thought it would be similar, but I was wrong. I had difficult time in adapting with new food here. The next issue is about the transportation. I remember how shock I was when on my way to UKM from Kuala Lumpur. UKM was really so much bigger than I ever imagined. I always thought that it would be similar as unis in Indonesia, let me say I imagined UKM would be not so different with my university in Indonesia (Yogyakarta State University), but my guess was wrong, it is so much bigger. With the wide area, I was not expecting it would be so hard just to move around without owning a car. I got stressed because the distance from each place is quite far, even when I wanted to buy groceries I had to walk so far, passed long stairs to the bus stop. I had stressed and difficult days dealing with this issue, it led me to have severe homesick. I even needed medical help to cure my homesick. After dealing with the transportation, the next issue is language. This one is obviously inevitable. There must be issues with language when we enter a new country. In Malaysia, gladly I did not find any serious matter in communicating with local people, I can either use English as well as Bahasa Melayu, but there were several times my friends and I got warned not to use certain Indonesian words that have bad meanings in Bahasa Melayu. My culture-shock stage did not last that long. It was around a week then I started recovering from culture shock and home-sick.
The third stage is the recovery stage, it covers how I cope with culture shocks and how I adapt to a new environment. How I cope with food differences is by cultivating my spirit of exploration, I tried my best to find good Malaysian restaurants and it made me fall in love with some Malaysian foods. What helped me in adapting with Malaysian food was when I spent one month Ramadhan visiting night market and food bazaars in Bangi. I also enjoyed eating Malaysian food given by kolej where I stay. I fell in love with Nasi Lemak, Mee Tarik and also Keropok Lekor, I call it as my favorite Malaysian food. Beside finding good Malaysian dishes, I am also adapting living here by finding good Indonesian restaurants, here I can get Bakso, Soto, Sate, and also Ayam Gepuk. The next is how I deal with transportations around the campus. Here I try to make myself to get accustomed with go anywhere on foot. I make up my mind on how it is actually good for my body to walk rather than ride motorcycle or drive a car. Here I also learn how to take bus to go shopping, there is an application called “moovit” that I can use to track buses’ schedule. What helps me the most recover from the culture shocks I experiences is my friends, both Indonesian and Malaysian friends as well as friends from other countries. My Indonesian friends always give me mental support every time I feel down, I am lucky even when we just first met in this exchange program we already have good bond and it is nice to know we always have one another’s back. Along with Indonesian friends, I also made new friends from Malaysian, I would like to thank them for being nice and so helpful to me.
Next to the last stage, there is an adjustment stage. This phase reflects my enjoyment after coping with culture shock and being able to perform well in my new environment. I think I started to enter this phase after two months living here. I enjoy my time travelling with my friends to several cities, Kuala Lumpur, Malacca and Putra Jaya. I feel like I can also do well in all subjects that I take. In this phase, of course, there are still some difficulties I face, but overall, it got so much better and I am no longer feeling homesick. I start to love this country more than I ever imagine myself.
Nestya Nanda Nur Fauza
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