Returning to Indonesia 1998/1999

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Section IV: Now You Are Home

Re-entry and Re-adaptation to Indonesia

The job search back home occurs in the context of a psychological readaptation to life in Indonesia. Most of us believe that returning home is easier than going abroad. After all, Indonesia is home! You will no longer be a foreign student adapting to life on a far-away campus and its larger society.

Actually, we all undergo subtle but important changes during the re-entry process. Being aware of them will help you re-integrate into Indonesian life more smoothly. This chapter explores terms of reference that together constitute "reverse culture shock." You can use them to anticipate the return issues that will be most and least troublesome.

Age and academic level   Older students or professionals who were well-established in their fields before their sojourn abroad sometimes experience a less troubled re-entry than younger students who left home as teenagers.

Readiness to return home   Students who strongly desire to return home at the end of their study sojourn are likely to return with a high motivation to "re-socialize."

Individual awareness   The more aware a returnee is of the process of re-entry, the more likely the problems will be tractable and short-lived.

Gender   Returnees may experience more difficulty and conflict upon returning if the home society has a strong patriarchal or matriarchal tradition in the family and work place.

Previous cross-cultural experience   The hypothesis is that foreign students returning home after an American study sojourn encounter a less-difficult re-entry if they have previously been away from and returned home.

Length of stay and degree of interaction with the host culture   The longer a student stays abroad and the greater the interaction and empathy with the host culture, the more difficult re-entry to the home culture may be.

Degree of change in the home environment   Encountering altered family relationships, standards of living, or political climate may be stressful and make it difficult for a student to find a new niche and to realize his or her plans. Conversely, a student may be surprised to return home and find that nothing fundamental seems to have changed. It takes time for image and reality of home to move closer together.

Degree of similarity between the home and host culture   The greater the differences, the greater the re-acculturation difficulty for the student.

The type of job placement or opportunity   Graduates who have difficulty finding an appropriate job upon their return can be expected to experience more stressful re-entry than those who return to a past position, or to a promotion, or who are able to make a new start in a challenging role.

Expectations of success   Some returnees encounter feelings of failure because their expectations, and especially the expectations of their parents, are so high.

Presence or absence of a support group   Being able to share concerns and coping strategies with other recent or more established returnees can help reduce the alienation that can accompany re-entry.

Family status   After being independent in the United States, many Indonesian students have to readjust to the way parents get involved in their everyday lives. Indonesian students whose children have been abroad with them report that young children have adjustment problems initially, but soon learn to fit in. Teenage children may have the hardest adjustment, but if their parents tried to maintain positive attitudes toward Indonesian culture in the family during the time they were abroad, their adjustment is easier.

These factors tend to shape the character of one's return experience. Some factors will be more critical to some people than others. Can you predict the kind of return process you are likely to have based on these factors?

Individual Experiences

Re-entry experiences are very individual. You may be interested in these comments from students now working in Jakarta.

Readjustment

• "It took time for me to adjust to the traffic and environment."
• "The cost of living in Jakarta is high. Books are expensive."
• "I had difficulty adjusting to the working world. Being fresh from the campus, I was very idealistic. Not all my ideas could be put into action immediately."

Re-entry issues

• What aspects of Indonesian life have you missed most while you have been away?
• When you envision returning to Indonesia, what things provoke anxiety and recur in your thoughts about home?
• What things do you expect to be most pleasurable about returning?
• What issues do you expect to be most frustrating? How do you expect you will deal with these?
• What images and expectations will be placed on you by family, friends, and potential employers because you are a graduate of an American university? How well do these respective stereotypes of American graduates in Indonesia actually fit you?
• What is the time frame in which you expect to have secured employment back in Indonesia? How much time can you give yourself to find the right job for you?
• The current economic difficulties that Indonesia is facing will no doubt lengthen the job search process in many cases and exacerbate the re-entry process as well.