Culture Shock & Cultural Differences

After 15 years in Sweden you would think I would have a pretty good notion of how things work in this country. Yet every time I find myself in a new situation it hits me that I spent the first 25 years of my life somewhere else and that these years still fundamentally form who I am and how I think.

Still, as time goes on it becomes more and more difficult to know exactly where the cultural differences lie. Is it just because it is a new situation? Is it a generational difference? Is it some other reason or is it because my frames-of-reference, my learnings, my experience - my culture, is of a different origin?