[originaltext] "You’re going to the United States to live? How wonderful! Yo

"You’re going to the United States to live? How wonderful! You’re really lucky!"
    Does this sound familiar? Is your life in this new country always wonderful and exciting? Specialists say that it is not easy to adjust to live in a new culture. They call the feelings which people experience when they come to a new environment culture shock.
    According to these specialists, there are three stages of culture shock. In the first stage, the new comers like their environment. Then, when the newness wears off, they begin to hate the city, the country, the people, the apartment, and everything else in the new culture. In the final stage of culture shock, the newcomers begin to adjust to their surroundings and, as a result, enjoy their life more.
    Some of the factors in culture shock are obvious. Maybe the weather is unpleasant. Perhaps the customs are different.      Perhaps the public service systems such as the telephone, post office, or transportation are difficult to figure out and you make mistakes. The simplest things seem difficult. The language may be difficult. How many times have you just repeated the same thing again and again and hoped to understand the answer eventually? The food may seem strange to you and you may miss the familiar smells of the food you are accustomed to in your own country. If you don’t look similar to the natives, you may feel strange. You may feel like everyone is watching you. In fact, you are always watching yourself. You are self-conscious.
    Culture shock may produce a feeling of homesickness, imagined illness, or even unreasonable fear. When people have such feeling, they sometimes feel like staying inside all the time. They want to protect themselves from the unfamiliar environment. They want to create an escape within their room or apartment to give them- selves a sense of security. This escape does solve the problem of culture shock for the short term, but it does nothing to familiarize the person more with the culture. Familiarity and experience are the long-term solutions to the problem soft of culture shock.