Cultural Adaptation: A Personal Experience

‘In mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.’
- János Neumann, Hungarian matematician

Replace the word “mathematics” with “Budapest” and the Hungarian-born Neumann could be speaking to all of us living here.

Each person makes the transition to living in a new country in a highly individualized way, cultural adaptation being a personal experience, as unique as any relationship between two people.

• How much do we want to understand about our host country?
• How do we relate to those things that we must “just get used to”?

It seems to me that a secret to feeling at ease and at home in a foreign country is to ask these questions (early on, if possible) and go from there. In choosing our level of investment in our host country, we also choose how to relate to those things unfamiliar and often inconvenient.

Though sitting in the heart of Europe, Hungary was a more or less closed society (politically and linguistically) until 1989. This created a special environment, with its own set of cultural expectations and etiquette. North Americans find greater cultural differences than Europeans, and western Europeans find greater differences than eastern Europeans. Still, most, if not all, expats experience some degree of culture shock when first settling in Hungary.

For the curious, cultural expectations can be learned quickly and easily. And while language knowledge can be an important part of this process, many people live happily in Hungary without speaking the language.

Thankfully, there are an increasing number of books in English to help. Best among them, and recently released in completely revised fifth edition, is Budapest: A Critical Guide, by András Török. More than a guided series of walks, it has been described more than once as the “ultimate insider’s guide”, a first-rate look into the city. Read this book first for an intimate introduction to Budapest. It just might lead to a love affair with the town. While Budapest might initially seem as impenetrable as calculus, as in math, the beauty of those things we do understand reveals itself with effort as we get used to those things we do not.

Andrew Bock, MS, LPC is an American mental health counselor in private practice in Budapest. His website is www.budapestcounseling.com

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