The Reverse Culture Shock

Today one year ago was the day I left for an unknown adventure in India. Today I'm home for about a week, slowly adapting to the Belgian lifestyle again. Though it might sound strange, there is something like the 'reverse culture' shock, meaning that even one's home country asks for some minor, sometimes major, adaptations again.

Upon my arrival a national strike for more buying power had been declared and put on hold the public life (and transport) in Belgium, for a day. It will not surprise you that after a year in India, the discussion about buying power (decreasing due to inflation) seems banal and superflous. Not only my own buying power was extremely low, having seen the masses without buying power over there every single day, pretty much makes me ashamed of the noisy union bosses yelling for more money and less work. It makes you quit and gets one thinking about how spoiled we are here in our little Belgium...but what to do? Not joining the ratrace would be a good start, right?

On the other hand it's good to be back. It's quite, clean and structured here. Cold as well. It's hard to make conversation sometimes, I'm not really aware of the changes, maybe even lost a bit of feeling with people. But I'm more me, I enjoy and staying for a while...