The Art of Coming Home

Rating:
Summary: Insightful!
Review: If you spent months in Paraguay or Latvia longing for modern supermarkets, octo-plex movie theaters and mega-malls, coming home will surprise you. All that consumerism, all those different breakfast cereals, all that plenty and pizzazz may not play as well with you as you had remembered. Never mind. Eventually you'll again expect to be offered 15 different kinds of herbal tea with your $18 lunch, but when you first return and the deprivations of your overseas station are still fresh, reentry can include a big shot of culture shock. Companies pay plenty of attention to executives and workers who need help and advice when they're given an overseas assignment. But Craig Storti thought it was time to address the needs of those same expats when they return and face the challenge of readjustment. He does so expertly in this practical guide, which includes hard logistics and some soft psychology. We from getAbstract highly recommend this book to homecoming expats and to those who play crucial roles in managing their reentries.

Rating:
Summary: A decent resource...
Review: Of no surprise to anyone who has lived overseas and then attempted a successful 're-entry', coming home is tremendously more stressful and difficult than leaving home. Storti directs a company that designs and delivers seminars in cross-cultural adjustment, repatriation and multicultural diversity. Most striking about this book was how complex the issues are surrounding the re-entry of a family or person into a society and culture that no longer feels like his/her own. One of the most remarkable results of living overseas is that you come to understand your own culture much better and more clearly then those at home who are 'in' it. We experience this when we come home even for brief periods - the US is so enveloped in its high-consumerism that an outsider has difficulty finding value in the every day. While Americans have learned to absorb the 1000 cable channels, and 800 varieties of dog foods in the supermarket aisles, expatriates find it highly stressful to come back to a country where abundance, waste, and intense material comforts are the norm (after they've lived in places where all of these things are harder to find and they've adjusted thusly). Storti is also careful to speak to the frustrations that the homebound friends and family experience when their loved ones decend upon them after what they see as tremendous opportunities for cultural and personal growth. I found this book a very good resource and will likely pick it up again every time I am heading home - for a new series of stresses - to help remember why these stresses exist and how to soften them.

Rating:
Summary: Rings true to my repatriation experience
Review: This book captured and helped make sense of the unsettling experiences my wife and I had in returning to the US after four years living and working in England. I think the best time to read it might be before you leave, but I only found it after returning (and hearing the author speak to a group of repatriates).

The book includes good practical insights and suggestions for employees, employers and co-workers, spouses, families, and teens/kids experiencing what the book calls "reverse culture shock."