While many of us experience culture shock when we travel outside our own country, I think it's just as easy to experience culture shock when traveling to new places within your OWN country. For me, I grew up in a very small town in West Virginia, so I definitely experienced some culture shock when I moved to NYC. When you grow up in a small town, you tend to know most people and if you don't, you will still say hi to strangers you see in the store or on the street. In NYC, though, this just isn't done! People don't make eye contact here and tend not to talk to people they don't know. I remember how odd it was when I first moved into my apartment building. There were 90 apartments in the building, and you'd see people in the laundry room or mail room and they would completely ignore you! It's easy to see why people who don't live here may think that New Yorkers are cold and uncaring.
However, after you spend some time in NYC, you learn that this really isn't true. If you stop a New Yorker and ask for directions, almost all of them will be very happy to help you. Also, New Yorkers tend to come alive and will start talking to strangers when there is some sort of shared experience, such as getting stuck on the subway together, witnessing someone doing something strange, or during emergency situations like hurricanes and blizzards. Eventually, I learned that New Yorkers aren't cold. We just spend tons of time with A LOT of other people all day long, so when you see us on the street or on the subway and we're keeping to ourselves, we're really just trying to take a few quiet minutes to think, read, listen to music, whatever. It takes a little while to get used to if you're a country girl like me, but eventually you settle into this New York way of life.
Privacy (or Lack Thereof) in Shared