What does it feel like to return home for a visit after years of living abroad? In this episode of The Auto Ethnographer, John Jörn Stech prepares to board a plane back to the United States — his home country — and discovers something unexpected: he is approaching the trip the way he would approach a country he has never visited before. With research, anticipation, and a degree of hesitation he did not expect to feel.

"Returning home is not that simple, comfortable event that everyone around you expects it to be. It's one of the more quietly demanding experiences in the life of a global professional. And almost nobody talks about it."

Drawing on the W-curve model of intercultural adjustment (Gullahorn & Gullahorn, 1963), this episode explores reverse culture shock — why coming home can be as disorienting as moving abroad, and why almost nobody prepares for it. When your mental image of home freezes at the moment you leave, and you spend years absorbing a different cultural logic, you return not as the person who left — but as someone genuinely changed.

"You're not bringing your old self back to an unchanged place. You're bringing a changed self back to a changed place. And the collision of those two changes is what creates reverse culture shock."

Three anticipations shape this episode: the physical scale of the United States after years in Bangkok, the warmth and openness of American social interaction seen through recalibrated eyes, and the challenge of stepping back into a country in the middle of a deeply public conversation about its own values — without falling into nostalgia or reflexive rejection.

"The stereotypes that are the most difficult to resist are not the ones about unfamiliar cultures. They are the ones about the culture that formed you — the ones you carry without even knowing that you are carrying them."

John Jörn Stech also shares the deeply personal dimensions of this homecoming: attending the New Orleans Jazz Festival for the first time, celebrating his daughter's graduation from medical school, and visiting his son and future daughter-in-law in their first home together.

The Auto Ethnographer will pause for 2 to 3 weeks. New episodes return in the second half of May.

🎓 Ready to make the move abroad? Your Ticket Abroad — the complete guide for global professionals: https://www.auto-ethnographer.com/your-ticket-abroad-course

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