Cultural shock, or welcome to Kazakhstan

If you refer to natives as to “ours”, it means you are not a newcomer.

Yes, Kazakhstan definitely needs foreigners. Because foreigners are not viewed here as spies any longer, but as those bringing investments to the country, leaving their money here and hoping to earn even more.

Yet many newcomers from foreign countries to Kazakhstan still regard it as a remote terra incognita – as one of the ‘stans’, i.e. countries similar to Afghanistan or Tajikistan. Hence, specific attitude toward the country.

If today a foreigner intends to visit Kazakhstan, he/she does not bear in mind that it is a part of the former Soviet Union. He/she just remembers that ‘stan’ means something that ought to scared of and avoided, if possible. This implies the necessity to vaccinate himself/herself against certain diseases, to make the will and find a good insurance company to be transported in the event of a disease or serious wounds. Such is foreigners’ attitude toward ‘stans’.

But any modification of the current name of the republic is impossible, as it concerns its history, traditions and self-identification of its citizens.

However, it is possible to change the countries image so as at least one of the ‘stans’ might become an exception from the rule “be aware of the Central Asian ‘stans’ ”.

Anyhow, arriving to the country, foreigners are ready to encounter any challenges. This especially concerns cultural shocks of any kinds. They can expect to meet here girls wearing yashmaks and Mafiosi with gold chains and tattoos on their hands. The former is regarded as the remnant of the Islamic past, whereas the latter – as that of the Soviet times. Those and other signs are constituents of the patchwork for drawing up the image of the Republic of Kazakhstan by Westerners.

Most interestingly, foreigners do always experience a cultural shock in our country, as, on the one hand, they know little or nothing about it or, on the other hand, only few natives speak English.

Of course, foreigners can find a hiding place in their own small community of expats, and many of them do find it. Nevertheless, in any case they have to communicate with locals – common citizens and employees, which in this or that way implies cultural shocks.

Speaking about the locals’ contacts with foreigners, we would like pay attention to the criminal aspect. Anyhow, expats are potential and – very often – real targets for criminals, mainly due to the existing stereotype: as a foreigner arrives in the country, he/she a priori has money.

In this case we have not xenophobia, but a mere financial interest: a rich foreigner-potential victim (especially from the West) is not used to be exposed to off-hand manners or physical pain and does not know local officials to complain to.

For foreign guests, to become such a victim is a catastrophe and shock. “How is it possible?!.. I have come here with my money, vacations and open heart, and you rob me in the street?..”

It is appropriate to note that foreigners do not much confide in the police or other local law enforcement organs (considering the latter either act in collusion with criminals or are inefficient and corrupted). Reasons do not matter here, as in this context it is the result that matters.

There are also other reasons for cultural shocks. For example, sometimes foreigners are shocked with that the reality does not corresponds with their worst expectations.

 

The country is multiethnic, and in everyday life no special estrangement is observed in relations between representatives of different ethnic groups. At least in universities, students do not distinguish their friends by ethnic features. In many Western countries, white people live separately from Arabs and Kurds. In Kazakhstan this mixture is predetermined by a great number of ethnic groups, which leads to unity. This also may cause a shock.

At the same time foreigners note that local people are not sufficiently self-dependent; this especially concerns the youth. Kazakh employees are somewhat infantine. If local managers are very risky, even too risky, employees often are not ready to be properly responsible for their actions. And there are also many specific cultural and behavioral phenomena in Kazakhstan that differ from those standards foreigners got used to deal with.

The problem is that foreigners themselves are also different. They are Chinese, Americans, Iranians and Indians. But we should admit that the US behavioral variant has become the international cultural stereotype. At least in the global business, the North American way of running businesses or that of communicating prevails.

The Western cultural option implies individualism and the right to preserve secrecy of private life. This right is not included in Kazakhstan’s obligatory cultural norms. If this right is observed to some extent, this is, clearly, a manifestation of the West’s influence.

Kazakh person’s visit to foreigners can be viewed a s an example of misunderstanding concerning the above right.

Suppose, Kazakh locals and foreigners have made friends with each other, and the locals are invited to visit their new friends.

Interestingly, a Kazakh person starts strolling around the apartment (purposelessly, from the viewpoint of the foreigner), commenting on what he sees: ‘yes, yes, it’s nice; you live so good…” The foreigner is shocked: all the boundaries of his private life are breached through.

The guest starts, so to say, putting the host aside, walking and “studying” everything, as if he plans to stay or spend a night here.

For a Kazakh person, his own behavior does not look abnormal. Being invited, he considers it is quite normal to know how the host lives. When local citizens visit each other they behave exactly in such a way and find it quite natural.

But the Western influence tells in this sphere too. Cultural shock means, first of all, difference between standards of our culture and those of our guest-foreigners. Hence, the quests’ feeling of discomfort and loneliness. To cope with it, small communities of foreigners and their separate clubs alienated from locals are being created. There is nothing bad in it, of course.

But we would like foreigners felt being at home here. We strongly wish that nobody would ever dare to beat them in our streets and search their clothes (by thieves disguised as policemen).

As for good manners of these or those visitors, they constitute a less important problem.

 

 

Case #10