We’re back Down Under for a couple of weeks and due to a bout of food poisoning (thanks Qantas…) and slow internet connection (we’re in rural Victoria) this is going to be a short post – but one that resonates with me as I struggle with culture shock of the strangest kind – my own culture!

Whenever we return home we find things that baffle us – things that after 16 years in America seem perplexing. This time it was the simplest act of turning on a light switch – who knew that Australian light switches are the opposite of American ones? That to turn on a light you flick down the switch, whereas in the US you flick it up. It took me a day of puzzlement and a belief that my mother-in-law’s house must have just been wired weirdly for me to realize that it was merely an example of cultural amnesia…yes, I had actually forgotten how to turn on a light! Add to this the whole time zone confusion – try explaining to your kids that they ‘lost’ a day traveling over the Pacific and it is now yesterday in America – and you have a recipe for family confusion.

So how can going home seem so strange? Like almost all crime fiction writers I enjoy examining the concept of the ‘outsider’ – the stranger who can observe things about a place, a society and a culture that others cannot see…but I never expected that I would feel the outsider in the place I grew up in, or that each time I return home I would find more evidence of cultural confusion. The simple act of turning on a light brought that home to me – and may provide rich fodder (I hope) for future books. But still culture shock in my own country is bizarre. Perhaps, however, I am not alone. Have any of you ever experienced culture shock going home?