From Wiki

• One of the challenges we have in communicating with each other is that, at any given moment, members of our group are experiencing different phases of Culture Shock.

• Someone comes onto the forum and complains about ... well, you know ... Canadian haircuts or Canadian cheese or Canadian banks or Canadian TV shows or Canadian sandwiches or Canadian leave entitlements or Canadian something.

• The original poster probably is going through the Rejection phase of culture shock.

• Someone else, who also is going through the Rejection phase, comes along, agrees with the original poster, and adds a couple of new complaints to the original one.

• Still another person, who is in the Honeymoon or Pseudo Adaptation phase, comes along, berates the original poster for complaining about something so petty, and defends Canada's haircuts / cheese / banks / TV shows / sandwiches / leave entitlements / whatever.

• Then another member of the Rejection brigade comes along and tells the unsympathetic posters that they were mean.

• Then someone who is well into the Adaptation phase, comes along and says, "Ho hum. What's all this fuss about?"

• It is very difficult to be patient with someone who is going through a phase of culture shock that is different from one's own phase. Many, many members of this forum, even some who usually are polite, have expressed impatience (and sometimes even downright rudeness) towards people who were going through the Rejection phase of culture shock.

• Nonetheless, psychologists say that the most helpful thing you can do for a person who is experiencing culture shock is to listen to him/her.

• Remember that one of the symptoms of the Rejection phase of culture shock is that the level of annoyance is out of all proportion to the actual importance of the issue.