“Scientific” test for jet lag and American culture shock

A recent commenter remarked that he had culture shock when he first went back to the US, and it got me thinking about flying back to the US.  I’ve made it back only once since I moved to Japan.  And I guess I had a little bit of a shock sensation when I first got there.  After living in Japan for not quite two years, I didn’t expect to have any sort of reaction to going back.  I honestly missed the US.  I missed my family, parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, etc., etc.  (I come from a huge family).  I missed American shopping: outlet malls, grocery stores, junk food.  I missed big kitchens and ovens large enough to cook a massive Thanksgiving turkey.  I missed back yards, driving a car, American television.  We decided it would be fun to visit more than one place while we were there, so I booked a few intracontinental flights.  On the initial flight over, I thought about the places we were going to visit and the things I absolutely had to do before coming back to Japan.  I was excited, and I didn’t sleep much.  The rest of the family, however, had no problem sleeping.  My husband was out at least six hours.  And kids can sleep hanging upside down, so they had no problem contorting into all sorts of strange positions to get comfortable.  I watched movies.  So who had really bad jet lag and who didn’t?  I had almost none.  I went to bed at bed time and got up with the sun from the onset.  The husband and kids were exhausted all day and up half the night walking through the hotel lobby trying to find snack foods for the first few days of the trip.  I did the same thing on the flight home, didn’t sleep, and again, no jet lag!  So it is now a proven fact (for me at least) that sleeping on the flight exacerbates jet lag while staying awake for 24 to 36 hours straight forces the body to sleep based on the clock where you land.  It’s a completely scientific study based on a handful of participants.  So what’s the family verdict?  They still sleep on the flight because they think it is more miserable to spend 11 to 14 hours in the air awake than asleep.

So what shocked me going back to the US?  When we got off the plane, I guess I had the biggest shock just standing in the US customs line.  We obviously stood in line with all the American passport holders and not the line with the foreigners who landed with us.  The man standing directly in front of me in line was a good 6’3″, 240 lbs. maybe, and he towered over us like a rotund giant.  Then I looked around at everyone else standing in line.   They all seemed so huge!  My first thought was “What has happened to Americans in the short time I’ve been gone?  Have they all taken growth hormones and stuffed themselves with calzones?”  See in Japan, I feel like an Amazon woman.  I have boobs and hips and height.  About the only thing that’s not big on my body in Japan are my feet, which are average size here, and on the smallish side in the US.   Oh and my hands, which are freakishly small.  But in the US, I felt absolutely small.  I wear a size small or medium top, depending on whether the clothing item fits around my chest.  And I wear a 6 or 8 bottom.  Sometimes 10 if the item is ultra high end designer, which I don’t generally buy because a) I can’t really afford high end designer clothing and b) I’ve had a hang-up about wearing anything with double digits since I got out of grad school, where I got decidedly plump. 

Then, walking around the airport, I noticed that most people were speaking English.  Of course they were.  But I had become so accustomed to hearing Japanese that the English startled me.  Then we ate at a chain restaurant in the airport waiting for a connecting flight, and the service was horrible!  Really bad, actually.  I don’t generally complain, but asking for a cup of coffee three times, and then deciding I could get it quicker if I went back into the kitchen and got it myself forced me to do so.  So what did the manager say?  He made some excuse about hard times and the economy, and not being able to force the waitstaff to smile or to be rushed to get a cup of coffee for a cranky airline passenger.  Then he got indignant about me being one foot into the kitchen.  My husband just said I got too used to the service in Japan, where waitstaff is always polite and prompt with service, except on rare occasions that result in managers begging for an apology.  I was in the US for a month, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say restaurant service in the US generally sucks even in nice establishments.  Maybe it’s the casual nature of Americans, the squatting at the table to take an order, the use of language that is not completely professional, the general attitude, or maybe it is that Americans have stopped teaching the younger generations to take pride in anything and everything they do.  I honestly didn’t enjoy going out to eat nearly as much as I thought I would.

And I didn’t enjoy the junk food.  Everything I thought I wanted to eat – a Burger King whopper (TMI, but I threw it up not ten minutes after I ate it), some Taco Bell, cheesecake, mexican food, Cracker Barrel – didn’t sound or taste so good when I found myself trying to choke it down once I got it.  I have to admit, though, I did miss my sister’s sweet potato souffle.  She makes it with orange juice and nutmeg, and a little skim milk, and it was the highlight of the holiday meal.  In general, even when I wasn’t in a hotel, I found myself beelining it to the asian food aisle of the grocery store and trying to find asian markets so I could buy ingredients to cook the foods I most wanted to eat.  I was really surprised by that, actually.

But one thing I wasn’t at all shocked by, and that I most enjoyed, was the shopping.  There’s nothing better than going to a kid’s store and buying little girl tops for $4.99 each, getting socks for $1.50, pants for $16.00, or a boy’s fleece hoodie for $12, jeans for a lot less than in Japan, athletic shoes for around $50 or less for the kids, and about that much for me.  Or high end designer jeans on sale for less than $100, getting hemming at any dry cleaner for $4 a leg, Ferragamo shoes for $170 when they cost almost Y100,000 here.  I really enjoyed shopping, particularly at the outlet malls.  The whole concept of an outlet mall thrills me.  Oh, and Walmart and Target.  I got enough toiletries and vitamins to last the family a year.  The only thing that sucked was getting it all home, but at least the luggage at the outlet mall where I bought it was cheap.  But the best thing was going into any store and knowing they would have my size, and it would fit through the shoulders, in the arms, throught the waist and hips.   And it would all cost at most half of what it would in Japan.

Regardless, the most shocking thing about going back was the change in landscape of my old hometown.  I’m not going to say where I grew up, except that it is south of the Mason Dixon line, but it had been a while since I went back.  Maybe ten years.  But there are new roads, wider roads, new highways, buildings, faces.  My old hometown isn’t were I grew up.  I had trouble recognizing the landscape because there are so many changes.

But having been back in Japan for a while since the US trip, it really feels like home to me now.

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