Living in the U.S. may be very different than living in your home country. What was the hardest? Things that you had to overcome and how you adjust to culture shock?

Kittichai, Thailand

My name is Kittichai. I'm an exchange student from Thailand, the very respect and gentle country. I live in Simla, small town in Colorado, with my lovely host family. I go to study at Simla High school in Simla. I joined basketball team after two months of school. I got a lot of friends from basketball. I joined baseball team after I'm done from basketball in outfield position. We don't have baseball in Thai, so I had no clue how to play baseball. At first, everything was good, my teammates try to help me every way they can, and I got a baseball shoes from my coach. I caught two pop-fly-balls in the first game. My baseball coaches studied our game, and came out with new practice. We need to yell as loud as we can if we can get the ball which is totally against my culture. Everything getting worse, because I did well on my first game, my teammates didn't help me anymore; when I forgot to yell or didn't yell loud enough, they yell at me. I lost all my confident: I cannot hit the ball, my grade in school started to get down, and my emotion getting worse every time we have practice. They got pick on my accent, and they even made fun of me by writing me a song. One day my host mom caught me that I was crying in the bathroom. I tell her everything. My host mom told me to quit the baseball, but the thing was I didn't want to quit, so my host mom went to talk to one of my coach. We had a meeting about respect after that day. After that everything is getting better, my teammates treat me much better. I get my confident back, and it's getting fun. I think the only thing you need to do, when you have problem, is tell your host family. I think that was the hardest thing that I had to overcome and adjust my culture.