The Art of Coming Home Paperback – May 1, 2001

Culture Shock in ReverseCulture Shock, a noun . . . “the feeling of disorientation experiencedby someone who is suddenly subjected toan unfamiliar culture, way of life, or set of attitudes.” — GoogleIF YOU HAVEN’T EXPERIENCED IT, returning home after spending months or years overseas in a different culture, with different standards and perhaps another language, can be a challenge. American Peace Corps Volunteers, Japanese Volunteers or United Nation Volunteers in Latin America bring back their experiences and new found memories that have changed their person. And it isn’t just volunteers who experience these changes, military families, students, missionaries, and business executives do as well. Coming home is a challenge with special benefits that remain with us.What author Craig Storti brings us in The Art of Coming Home is an awareness of the changes in those of us who have lived overseas, but also in the family and friends we left at home. He provides a “manual” to consider the many benefits of living in a host country, and sharing what we have brought back…both our country and our host country reap the benefits of our experience. As an Army brat before I became a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia, my family moved every two or three years within the USA or overseas. Home was where we happened to be at the time, but memories were always kept in our scrapbooks or photo albums. . . to remember and share!Now with “selfies” and WhatsApp so much a part of our lives, we can share memories with our host families to see where we came from, and on reentry, we can show our families and friends what we did with our hosts in their respective communities. We are not far away anymore.Returning expats may see coming home as temporary, planning to return to their host country for visits, maintain contact with their “new” friends, or even marry. The challenge is to see and understand that we change, our family and friends change . . . even our Host families and friends change. Use the experience that you gained and what you left behind both at home and overseas to see yourself as a better person. Coming Home is the manual that can open doors to who you are and what you plan to do with the new you! Personnel officers need to listen to their expats or new employees or students . . . we want to share our experience!Keep this manual with you when you have doubts. Share when you get excited someone really wants to hear about your experience. Then con them into taking the challenge and go live in another culture!

Reverse culture shock is not a joke, but a real emotional and physical reaction to coming back "home," Anyone planning on going away for a long time should read this book, as reverse culture shock is usually never mentioned in trip preparations. He articulates this experience clearly and explores its effects with various types of ex-pats. The author articulates the experience from many angles (return to routine, change in friendships, not being a "star", etc.) There are chpters for diffeerent goups such as business, missionary, student, etc. At first, I thought they might not be relevant but i found many useful nuggets of wisdom even in the specifically-oriented chapters. I would recommend anyone who will be gone for a long time to read this so they are prepared for re-entry.

The Art of Coming Home is an excellent introduction to a little known or understood concept: reverse culture shock. When a loved one suffers and you strive to learn how to help, a book like this is invaluable and makes all the difference in understanding the problem and implementing a solution. The author thoroughly describes the phenomenon and carefully guides the reader toward a compassionate understanding and positive choices to support that loved in "coming home". Interestingly, my work often involves dealing with people whose lives are affected by what has been termed "institutionalization" - which I learned from this book is yet another form of culture shock. So, this book has helped me on both a personal and professional level. I highly recommend it. Ted

I’m only a few chapters in my im finding myself skipping a bulk of the content because it’s clearly outdated. The author takes quotes from the 40s, 70s etc, which would be fine except if it weren’t for the fact that travel and our ability to communicate with home very well whilst traveling or living abroad has changed drastically since these eras. The problems faced then are not the problems we face now. For eg, the author discusses the problem of how when we return, our families have no idea of what life is like in another country. That’s simply not true anymore- my family FaceTime me regularly and full grasp what life is like for me abroad. They’re also easily able to hop on a plane and visit. I can’t relate to the problems described thus far in this book. For me, returning home will be leaving a new home, and entering my old home a decade later, a decade after so much change. That’s the issue I’m facing in 2022.

I work in Papua New Guinea. After having two years there, I was heading back to Norway in December 2017. I read the book about a month before going home, and it was very helpful in anticipating some of the struggles I would face on returning "home". I am anticipating that the book will be helpful in the coming years as well, as it gives useful advice for people living abroad in different seasons of life.

I have just moved back to the US after 4 years in China. I read it right before we moved. We only had a month notice though, before we moved and this book would be most helpful if you had a few more months to do the Leaving the right way. I appreciated the information, and that the book was on kindle as books are hard to get when you aren't in the US.

The book is good, fair. He often refers to people who spend a "couple" of years abroad, which I find annoying. You either went abroad or you didn't, you either have reverse culture shock or you don't. It just seems limiting, not to mention redundant, to keep repeating how long the person must be away before they can be impacted by the phenomena of "coming home". Like any culture shock or reverse culture shock book, it's subjective how much you can get from it. For me, this was just Okay. I guess it's nice to know other people suffer through it, but it wasn't especially helpful with coping with or managing the feelings upon return.

A celebrated tome which was ground-breaking when written. The content is really helpful and useful, but it's not well written and is quite repetitious. If you can plough though it, there is enough gold in here to make the effort worthwhile.

Well-written. Good synopsis of the topic. Finished it quickly because it was quite ineteresting and well-researched. Enjoyed the anecdotes from others.

Very helpful and strictly recommended for returnees. I had very hard times after beeing expatriate for several years and whish i knew this book earlier.

Craig Storti is very well known for his hands-on books on intercultural topics. I found the book very useful for my research on repatriation.