Paulina Para
November 2, 2015
Anthropology 101

“Cold Water”

Cold Water, directed by Noriko Ogami is a documentary from 1986 about cross-cultural adaptation and culture shock. It is about diving into a new culture and having it feel, as one foreign student puts it, like a “plunge into cold water.” Twelve Boston University foreign students express their perceptions of their experiences in the U.S. as each of them (plus one American student and three specialists) is interviewed about living and studying in a new culture. Initial focus is on the arrival and immediate post-arrival period and the culture shock which, for most of the interviewees, follows on its heels. It becomes clear that central to the problems encountered …show more content…

An example she gives was when someone was questioning her English not realizing that the language is spoken in her country. According to Lang, Americans need to get their eyes into some geography books. Moving along with Jean Mayer another interviewee which claims that Americans are very nosy and always like to be in everyone’s business. With him I will have to partially disagree only because as an American I’ve witnessed two sides to this judgement. I probably know just as many nosy people as I know those who always keep to themselves. The thing in America is that you have a variety of people so you can’t simply say the same thing about every single American. You’ll notice the amount of people living in this country that would prefer to keep their life a secret so that others won’t get into their business. Brigit from Switzerland fell into deep depression. She claims that at one point she couldn’t even understand herself. What happened here from my perspective was she faced a severe stage of frustration. There’s evidence when she admitted her talking bad and hating the culture because of her own unhappiness. This was one of the aspect explained in this particular stage. She shared her experience of a “friend” not inviting her to a party that a group of classmates were hosting. She shares her advice by saying talking and confrontation is the best idea during neglect. I believe with Brigit when she mentions that Americans