Abstract

Many students who re-locate from host to home country are said to undergo aprocess of reverse culture shock akin to bereavement, involving stages of a grievingprocess. This has been likened to a ‘W-curve’ in which feelings fluctuate beforereaching a more balanced state. The present study examined the re-acculturation ofTaiwanese and Sri Lankan graduates after study in the West. It did not find evidenceof re-entry trauma in the psychological sense already established in the literature,but it did find socio-political issues that were associated with the tension betweenmodernism and traditionalism, or individualism and collectivism.