The Art of Coming Home [Paperback]

Craig Storti (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1997

The evidence is compelling: the overwhelming majority of people returning from a period living or working abroad find returning to their home culture more difficult than adjusting to the foreign culture. Expecting that home will be the way it was when they left, most returnees are shocked to discover that both they and their home have changed. Indeed the differences between what they expect and what they actually find are so striking that the phenomenon of re-entry is known as "reverse culture shock". In this book, the author takes readers through the re-entry experience. He discusses the highs and lows, the problems and the solutions and what to expect at each stage along the way, defining four clear stages - leavetaking and departure, the "honeymoon", reverse culture shock and readjustment. He provides practical suggestions for successful repatriation, looking at the issues most returnees face.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Craig Storti is founder and co-director of Communicating Across Cultures, a Washington, D.C.-based intercultural communication training and consulting firm specializing in seminars on cross-cultural adjustment and repatriation. With work appearing in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune, he is the author of six books, including Speaking of India: Bridging the Communication Gap When Working with Indians and the bestselling Cross-Cultural Dialogues, The Art of Crossing Cultures, and The Art of Coming Home. Having lived nearly a quarter of his life abroad, he lives now in Maryland. For more information, please visit his website: www.craigstorti.com --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 201 pages
• Publisher: Nicholas Brealey (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1877864471
• ISBN-13: 978-1877864476
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,403,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A decent resource..., August 5, 2000

By 

R. Peterson "International citizen" (Leverett, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Art of Coming Home (Paperback)

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.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rings true to my repatriation experience, June 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Art of Coming Home (Paperback)

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."

63 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a Complete Waste of Time, but..., February 29, 2000

By 

David W. Allen (UAE) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Coming Home (Paperback)

I went into this book expecting a feast. Instead, I got table scraps.

While this is by no means an awful book, it is unbalanced and doesn't address the issues a large population of returnees face. Let me cite some examples: In my opinion, Storti spends too much time addressing the problems of corporate "organization people" who are sent overseas by the multinational corporations they work for. Poor Mr & Mrs Smith (and their children) had to endure all the corporate perks overseas; more autonomy, compensation, free accomodation, servants, etc. Then they have to come home to less power and prestige, no servants, and they have to pay off the luxury apartment. To top it off, no one understands them. My heart bleeds, as you can probably tell.

When Storti gets around to those less fortunate expatriates - Peace Corps Volunteers, Missionaries, Military Personnel - three quarters of the book is finished and you're wondering if the author has met any returnees in the last 20 years (since he started coordinating corporate "Repatriation Seminars") who are not managerial material.

The fact is that most people who go overseas are not corporate types. They go with a prearranged job or study plan and return, jobless, on their volition. They are students, English - and other subject - teachers, and aid/NGO workers who generally don't pull down the cash that Storti's seminar members do. In the end, what left me unsatisfied was the lack of balance and covert classism of this book.

To the book's credit, however, the author does provide some good advice for repatriation which I hope to use in a few months. For this reason, I am glad that people like Craig Storti are out there. However, there is not enough of this to go around. In the end, you wonder, like the old lady on American TV said, "Where's the beef?".