SỐC NGƯỢC VĂN HÓA Ở CÁC DU HỌC SINH VIỆT NAM SAU KHI VỀ NƯỚC

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION
GRADUATION PAPER
REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK
IN VIETNAMESE STUDENTS
RETURNING FROM AMERICAN EDUCATION
Supervisor: Đào Thị Thu Trang, MA.
Student: Trần Thị Thúy Hà
Course: QH2010.F1.E21
HÀ NỘI - 2014
ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH
KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP
SỐC NGƯỢC VĂN HÓA
Ở CÁC DU HỌC SINH VIỆT NAM
SAU KHI VỀ NƯỚC
Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Đào Thị Thu Trang, MA.
Sinh viên: Trần Thị Thúy Hà
Khóa: QH2010.F1.E21
HÀ NỘI - 2014
ACCEPTANCE PAGE
I hereby state that I: Tran Thi Thuy Ha – QH2010.F.1.E.21 , being a
candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of
the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper
deposited in the library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in
the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in
accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care,
loan or reproduction of the paper.

Signature
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I want to say thanks to my dear friend - Tuyet
Nhung, who always urged me to accomplish this study and helped me with
so many things.
Secondly, this study would not be completed without the help from
my supervisor – Dao Thi Thu Trang, MA. Thanks to her, I could see clearly
the direction of the research. Besides, the contribution from adorable
friends who are the subjects of my study is very useful to me. They are the
ones who show their great willingness to join this research.
I also want to express my sincere gratitude to Mr. Michael Vu.
Thanks to the conversation with him, I have the idea for the topic of this
research. He also helped me to invite his relatives and friends to participate
in my study.
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ABSTRACT
Little is known about the reverse culture shock in Vietnamese
students who have lived and studied in America. Reverse culture shock may
impact their process of integration into their home culture. This research
investigated the reverse culture shock that Vietnamese students faced after
their return to Vietnam. It also examined the correlation between the age of
moving oversea, the time living oversea and the influence of reverse culture
shock.
In this study, qualitative research design was applied. This study
used the method of purposive sampling to take the participants and
employed content analysis to analyze the data. This research revealed
several findings. First, the returnees experience reveres culture shock
mostly in language, cuisine, working style and traffic culture. Secondly, the
age at which the students move oversea negatively correlates with the

influence of reverse culture shock, and there exists the positive correlation
between the time of living oversea and the influence of reverse culture
shock.
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LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ILLUSTRATION
Illustration 1: Steps of data collection procedure
Figure 1: The U-curve in culture shock process
Figure 2: The W-curve in culture shock process
Figure 3: The age when Vietnamese students moved to the U.S
Table 1. Frequency of aspect of reverse culture shock in Vietnamese
students
Table 2. Frequency of reverse culture shock in language
Table 3. Frequency of reverse culture shock in cuisine
Table 4. Frequency of reverse culture shock in traffic culture
Table 5. Frequency of reverse culture shock in working style
Table 6. The reason of reverse culture shock in working style
Figure 4: Time period Vietnamese students lived in the U.S
Table 7. Frequency of reverse culture shock in service
Table 8. Frequency of reverse culture shock in traditional custom
Figure 5: Attitude towards aspects of reverse culture shock
Table 9. Frequency of attitude towards reverse culture shock
Table 10. Level of negative effect due to reverse culture shock
Figure 6: Attitude towards reverse culture shock
Figure 7: Frequency of reverse culture shock problems
Figure 8: experiencing time of reverse culture shock
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Table of Content
Table of Content v
1.Discussion of participants 16
2.Research design 17

v
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter was designed to present the purposes of this research.
Research questions, significance of the research, the scope of the study and
thesis structure were also mentioned in this chapter.
1. Statement of research problem and rationale
Morreale, Osborn and Pearson considered communication an important
factor which is “vital to the development of the whole person”, (p. 15).
Therefore, the problems exists in communication would exert influence in
individuals.
Among the factors affecting the communication, the reverse culture
shock is the one that lays impact on the returnees. Reverse culture shock is
the process that the returnees have to re-adjust and re-acculturate and re-
assimilate into their home culture. The time experiencing reverse culture
shock could range in different level depending on each individual’s
condition (Adler, 1981; Frank, 1992). In spite of the influence of reverse
culture shock, there are limited studies intensively investigating this
problem, especially the reverse culture shock in Asian returnees in general
and Vietnamese students in particular.
Nowadays, more and more Vietnamese students have opportunities to
live and study abroad. America is a destination of many students. As the
statistic of General Statistics Office of Vietnam (2011), Vietnam ranks
eighth in the global scale in the number of student studying in America.
Culture shock is a matter that many people often think of and anticipate
when moving to a new country or a new culture, however, reverse culture
shock is little got concern by the returnees after they came back their home
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country (Gaw,1995). Therefore, this research was conducted to have a
closer understanding about reverse culture shock in Vietnamese students
who returned to their home country after a period of time studying and

living in America.
2. Research questions
The researcher focuses on four specific questions relating to the
description of reverse culture shock participants meet, which is divided into
cultural differences and difficulties, and their reaction toward reverse
culture shock and also the reasons for that reverse culture shock. The
research questions are: 1) What is the reverse culture shock in Vietnamese
students’ perspective after they returned to Vietnam? 2) What are the
reasons for Vietnamese students’ reverse culture shock? 3) What is the
correlative relationship between the age of moving, the time living and the
influence of reverse culture shock? The following is researcher’s
clarification of questions’ importance.
Research question 1: What is the reverse culture shock in Vietnamese
students’ perspective after they returned to Vietnam?
Reverse culture shock discovered in different aspects of culture.
Question 1 aims at finding out reverse culture shock in daily routine and
working environment which the returnees meet. Because of the differences
in culture between Vietnam and America, the returnees experience the
influence of reverse culture shock at different level due to the time of living
oversea and the age at which they move abroad.
Research question 2: What are the reasons for Vietnamese students’
reverse culture shock?
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This question 2 focuses on the reasons leading to the reverse culture
shock in the returnees.
Research question 3: What is the correlative relationship between the age
of moving, the time of living and the influence of reverse culture shock in
Vietnamese students?
The research is conducted to understand the correlative relationship
between influential factors and the level of reverse culture shock that the

returnees have to face.
3. Significance of the research
Due to the limitation in the amount of research as well as journal about
reverse culture shock in Vietnam, especially in education environment, the
researcher was really encouraged to conduct a study in this interesting topic
- reverse culture shock encountered by Vietnamese returned students.
Besides, the result from this research could be useful information for
Vietnamese students before they come back to their hometown to reduce
the influence of reverse culture shock in them. In addition, this study would
be considered a reference material for other researchers to understand
reverse culture shock and have further studies. This research is also hoped
to give suggestions for the returnees so that they would soon integrate into
their own culture.
4. Scope of the study
This study investigates the difficulties that the returnees meet in the
process of integrating into Vietnamese culture. The working and studying
environment and daily life are concentrated. Due to the limitation of the
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participants, this study is similarly like a qualitative study. With a small
number of sixteen participants, the result from this study is hardly
generalized into scientific figure for bigger context. The researcher would
like to understand the reverse culture shock in Vietnamese students.
Besides, the research also aims at finding out the reason of the returnees’
reverse culture shock, the influence of that shock on each returnee. In
addition, the researcher wants to discover the relationship among important
factors in the returnees’ reverse culture shock. In this study, the researcher
also aims at comparing the findings to what the researcher known via
literature review.
5. Thesis structure
This research covered five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter states the research problem, the significance of the
study, the scope of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature review
This chapter introduces the explanation of key concepts and presents
the researcher’s review on previous studies in related issues.
Chapter 4: Findings and discussion
This chapter presents the research findings and discusses the reverse
culture shock that Vietnamese students encounter. The application of this
study is also mentioned.
Chapter 5: Conclusion
4
This chapter presents summary of the research, the limitation of the
research and also suggestion for further studies.
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Definition of key concepts
1.1. Culture
Many different definitions are introduced to the word “culture”. The
term “culture” is defined in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 11
th
edition dictionary as the customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social
organization of a particular country or group. Taylor (1871) considered
culture as “complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law,
morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society”, (p.15). In this qualitative, the concept “culture” is
defined by pointing out its apparent attribute. However, this definition does
not point out the culture’s feature of distinction among area. Apart from
Tylor, Hofstede (1980) in his study defined culture as “the collective
programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group

from another”, (p.23). This definition does not focus on its elements like
Tylor’s one, but it emphasizes the characteristics included. This definition
alone can be considered a vague and unclear one to have a close look at this
complicated concept. Comparing the definition between Tylor’s and
Hofstede’s, the researcher sees that each one represents an aspect of the
concept culture: elements and characteristics. According to Hofstede,
“culture is learned, not inherited. It derives from one's social environment,
not from one's genes.” In other word, culture is transmitted across
generations. Having the same idea with Hofstede, Hall (1976, p. 16)
introduces that culture is not genetically inherited, and cannot exist on its
own, but is always shared by members of a society.
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After over a decade since the time of Hofstede’s study, in 1991,
Mulholland mentioned the word “culture” in his study as the complex
concept which could not get the same agreement among researchers. He
regarded culture “a set of shared and enduring meaning, values, and beliefs
that characterize national, ethnic, or other groups and orient their behavior.”
The definition introduced by Mulholland includes both the idea of Tylor
and Hofstede. It mentions the essential nature of culture with values and
beliefs and also the feature of specific characteristics in culture which are
considered the ones to “distinguishes the members of one group from
another” by Hofstede (1980, p. 25).
After reviewing some definitions introduced for the concept “culture”
as well as the explanation, the following definition by Mulholland is
adapted in this research: “Culture is a set of shared and enduring meaning,
values, and beliefs that characterize national, ethnic, or other groups and
orient their behavior”, (p.18).
1.2. Culture shock
According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 11
th

edition,
culture shock is defined as the feeling of disorientation experienced by
someone when they are suddenly subjected to an unfamiliar culture, way of
life, or set of attitudes. In history of research in culture, the concept “culture
shock” was first used by the anthropologist Cora DuBois in 1951 to denote
the feeling of anthropologists when entering a new place (Oberg, 1954). In
1960, Oberg developed the concept “culture shock” introduced and applied
it for people traveling abroad into new cultures. He expanded it into a
definition as an “occupational disease of people who have been suddenly
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transplanted abroad” (p.177). Culture shock is considered “a feeling of
frustration and anxiety” which “results from losing all our familiar signs
and symbols of social intercourse” when individuals experiencing a new
way of life (Oberg, 1954). In this vein, Adler (1975) provided a new
definition for the concept “culture shock” which denotes the reaction of
individual to a new culture:
Culture shock is primarily a set of emotional reactions to the loss of
perceptual reinforcements from one’s own culture to new cultural
stimuli which have little or no meaning and to the missunderstanding
of new and diverse experiences (p. 13).
Adler’s definition clarifies the essential nature of culture shock.
Ruben, Askling, and Kealey (1977) combined the concept “culture shock”
with the period of adaptation or adjustment:
Culture shock focuses on the manner in which persons
experience and cope with the cyclic psychological, physiological,
and vocational fluctuations associated with the adjustment in the
first months in a new environment (p. 91).
The American Psychological Association (1988) described culture
shock as “social, psychological or emotional difficulties in adapting to a
new culture or similar difficulties in adapting to one’s own culture as the

result of rapid social or cultural changes” (p. 50). This definition clarifies
clearly the concept “culture shock” when it refers to culture shock of
individuals in their own culture.
Among different definitions, this research will adapt and use the
definition of “culture shock” introduced by American Psychological
Association.
1.3. Reverse culture shock
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Reverse culture shock is also known with the name re-entry shock or
own culture shock. This concept refers to the difficulties returnees may face
when entering their own culture. Reverse culture shock is a period in
culture shock process. It is the progress of readjusting to one’s own culture
after appropriate time living oversea (Gaw, 1995). Returnees are likely to
go through a process of adjustment like what happen in their culture shock
oversea. After a short time of feeling excited when seeing family and
friends, returnees will soon feel somewhat isolated in their own culture
when things change by time. In this study, the definition of reverse culture
shock introduced by Gaw is chosen.
2. Related studies on the reverse culture shock
Due to the similarity and involvement between reverse culture shock
and culture shock, understanding reverse culture shock should begin with
culture shock first.
Culture shock consists of both psychological confusion and
emotional discomfort (Hess, 1994). Regarding the impact of culture shock,
Ferraro (2006, cited in Xia, 2009) claimed in her study that people would
have behaviors of rejecting the environment they come when they cannot
cope with symptoms of culture shock. Hisam (1997) stated that culture
shock is a root cause of expatriate failure.
In the study Culture Shock Adjustment to New Cultural
Environments, Oberg (1960) mentioned the symptoms of culture shock

with excessive concern over daily matters like eating, drinking and sleeping
together with the fear of contact with other people, also the feeling of
helplessness and desire for dependence on the residents in the host country.
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He noted that culture shock included arrivers’ refusal of learning new
language and finally, it leaded to the desire to be back their familiar living
environment and lifestyle to meet their relatives and bathing in their mother
tongue. These symptoms that Oberg mentions are almost all the negative
ones which deprive the arrivers from acquiring a new culture and adjusting
to it.
The U-curve hypothesis was first initiated by S. Lysgaard (1995,
cited in Peserden, 1995) to describe the periods that individuals experienced
in the process of adjustment in the host culture which move from the higher
and more satisfactory to the lower and less adequate level and then move
towards the return of higher and more satisfactory level in surviving new
culture. Oberg (1960, cited in Irwin, 2009) divided culture shock process
into four stages: honeymoon, crisis, recovery and adjustment. The first
stage – honey moon – may last for few days or up to several months.
Individuals are likely to have exciting and fascinating experience in a new
unfamiliar environment. This stage can be seen as tourist’s experience. The
second stage is described as “crisis in the heaven” when individuals have to
face the harsh reality of isolation which differentiates them from the natives
(Oberg, 1960, cited in Irwin). In the third stage, experiencers will find way
to adjust to that new environment by learning host nation’s language and
understanding the customs there. After a period of time in the third stage,
experiencers will move to the last stage called adjustment. In this stage,
experiencers tend to integrate to a new living environment and accept a new
life style.
In 1975, Adler expanded periods of culture shock into five stages
including contact, disintegration, reintegration, autonomy and

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independence. As what Adler (1975) introduced, the first stage is similar to
honeymoon stage mentioned above. The second stage includes
disintegration of individuals’ familiar lifestyle and then it is full of
behaviours meeting requirements in new environment. They would be
likely to meet lots of difficulties and consequently blame for themselves.
The third stage is highlighted with reintegration into new environment. This
stage will be continued with the fourth stage featured with individuals’
autonomy in their living environment together with their balanced
perspective presented by the ability to see the negative and positive
elements in culture of both of their country and the host one. Finally,
individuals will experience the fifth stage with the interdependence, which
they can feel comfortable in both their home culture and host culture. Dr.
Michael Davidson (n.d) explained in his paper that Adler’s stage-theory of
culture is well-known as the U-curve in the academic field despite of the U-
curve hypothesis by Lysgaard.
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In this vein, there are many theories describing different stages in the
process of culture shock. Despite of that, almost all theories consist of
phase-based stage in this complex process of culture shock (Pedersen,
1995). In general, stage theories of culture shock come out in support for
the U-curve hypothesis. However, the U-curve was then extended into the
W-curve hypothesis including the period of readjustment to home culture.
Gullahorn and Gullahorn (1995) conducted a study with the participation of
5,300 scholar returnees to understand readjustment pattern and then they
found it similar to the U-curve of culture shock introduced by Lysgaard,
hence, the W-curve theory appeared (see figure 2). This hypothesis was
provided by many researchers (Adler, 1981; Berry, 1985b; Bochner, Lin
and McLeod, 1980; Brislin, Cushner, Cherrie and Yong, 1986; Brislin
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Figure 1: The U-curve in culture shock process
and VanBuren, 1974; Curie, 1973; Gullahorn and Gullahorn, 1963;
Hertz, 1981; Martin, 1984, cited in Zapf, 1991).
Reverse culture shock was first got concern about in 1944 by Scheutz
when he tried to understand what veterans in the arm forces have to face
after they came back to their home town. The re-entry issue dated from
1935 was also mentioned in Austin and Jones’s study in 1987 (Gaw, 1995).
As what Gullahorn and Gullahorn stated, the difference between
culture shock and reverse culture shock is the expectation. Moreover,
reverse culture shock could be even more difficult to the experiencer due to
the lack of expectation. (Gullahorn & Gullahorn, 1963, cited in Gaw 1995).
Before moving to a new place, experiencers often expect a new culture with
new environment and also new life style; however when coming back to
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Figure 2: The W-curve in culture shock process
home culture, what they expect are the welcoming and unchanged things
(Gaw, 1995).
Culture shock is studied by many researchers and a lot of research
has been published to discover returnees’ difficulties in reverse culture
shock after a period of time living abroad.
As what N. Adler and Carlisle-Frank described in their studies,
reverse culture shock is experienced in different level, some meet a little bit
differences in their hometown, some consider reverse culture shock a
personal problem and it takes them months to years or even longer to be
familiar with the home countries. Reverse culture shock tends to be a
problem of all people returning from oversea.
In a study on reverse culture shock encountered by students
returning from oversea with the number of 66 participants, the results of
Kevin F. Gaw (1995) pointed out that the higher level of reverse culture
shock returnees experience, the more shyness problems and personal

adjustment they have to face. This study also showed the negative
correlation between reverse culture shock and student support service.
Sahin (1990, cited in Gaw, 1995) conducted a research in reverse
culture shock to present levels of depression and anxiety of Turkish
secondary school returnees in comparison with non-returnee ones. The
results revealed that 34% of returnees regretted returning home (Gaw,
1995). These studies pointed out the worthy findings to understand the
impact of reverse culture shock into individuals and also to see the
relationship between reverse culture shock and other influential factors.
3. Chapter conclusion
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To sum up, this chapter gives the definitions of key concepts and
introduces related studies on reverse culture shock. Previous research points
out the interrelation among reverse culture shock and the adaptation.
However, there has been limited number of research concerning about
reverse culture shock among Vietnamese student returnee. In the vein of
research background, the researcher is eager to conduct a study to have a
closer look at Vietnamese students returning from oversea. Due to the
limitation of the research, the researcher decided to choose America to be
the culture environment influencing the returnees’ attitude. This research is
intended to give evidence supporting or disapprove the results of the studies
mentioned before.
Due to the limitation in the number of research in reverse culture
shock in Vietnam, this fact leaves a gap that encourages this research to be
moved on. The researcher hopes that this study would bring satisfactory
results to fill the gap.
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CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter is written in order to present the methodology applied in
the research. Selection of the subjects, research instrument, procedure of

data collection and analysis are discussed thoroughly.
1. Discussion of participants
1.1. Selection of participants
This research is conducted to understand the reverse culture shock in
Vietnamese students, who spent years in America and then returned to
Vietnam. In order to have trustful result, the research should analyze
different aspects of the returnees’ reverse culture shock. Therefore, the
subjects should be students in different groups with different characteristics
such as: age, working and studying environment, time living in America
and age of moving oversea. By this way, the feature would vary from each
participant.
In order to be involved in this research, the participants must satisfy
the compulsory condition: having at least five months living in America.
Due to the assumption of the researcher, the longer the students live
oversea, the more influence of the reverse culture shock they would
experience. Therefore, all of the participants of the research are chosen
carefully and they all satisfy the requirement of the research.
1.2. Sampling method
This research applied the purposive sampling method. According to
Tongco (2007), purposive sampling method should be chosen when time
and resources are too limited for random sampling. Besides, he also
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mentions that this kind of sampling method should be used when “the
information is held by only certain members of the community”, (p.151).
In this research, there are total 16 students chosen to be the sample.
All of them are at the age ranging from 18 to 39. These students could be
divided into two main groups. The first group consists of the ones who
followed their family to live and study in the U.S at the early age. These
students spent many years in America; they mingled with the American
citizens. They just had five to ten years living in Vietnam. In contrast, the

second group includes the students who got the scholarship to study abroad
in around some months to several years. These students mostly moved to
the U.S at the age of over 18 years old. They had years living and growing
up in their home culture.
Among the participants, some are chosen directly thanks to the
relationship of the researcher, some are friends and relatives of the
researcher’s friends.
In short, all of the respondents satisfy the compulsory requirement of
the research. In spite of the small size of the sample, the respondents are
quite ideal for the researcher to conduct a study about them when there are
two contrast groups of returnees.
2. Research design
Due to the limitation of the research as well as its features, the design
of quantitative study is preferred. By using this type of research design, the
measurement is objective and statistically valid. According to Anderson,
quantitative research generates reliable population based and generalizable
17
data and is well suited to establishing cause-and-effect relationships. Being
aware of the similarity between the advantage of quantitative study and the
features of the research, the researcher decided to choose it as the design of
study and a tool to explore reverse culture shock encountered.
As the purposive sampling method was chosen, this quantitative
research design is totally suitable. It lets the researcher have closer look at
the phenomenon of reverse culture shock. Because of the feature of the
research, no generalization would be made. As what Mackey and Gass
stated in their study, the matter of generalization would be less concerned
because the amount of participants in this type of research design is not as
large as in a quantitative study.
There are some ways to approach qualitative study such as
application forms, questionnaires, IQ tests and measurement. Because of

the shortage of participants and time limitation together with the research’s
features, the sample is expected to be small and methodology applied is
questionnaire. The results are expected to understand the reverse culture
shock in each group of students and also to find out the relationship
between some aspects such as: the age of moving oversea, time of living
oversea and the influence level of reverse culture shock affecting the
returnees’ process of readjustment.
3. Data collection
3.1. Data collection instrument
In this study, self-administered questionnaire is designed and applied
as the data collection instrument. This form of data collection instrument
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