Really? Culture shock?

I can't remember if I wrote about a conversation I had with my Korean friend regarding my culture shock.  She was at BabyBird's dedication where I mentioned the culture shock I had on moving to the States.  She really couldn't believe that moving here would be a culture shock for me, she kept suggesting that speaking the same language made all the difference.  She even implied that my culture was very similar to an American culture.  I saw her again today and she said she had realised that when she is in a room full of Chinese people, she becomes very aware of the differences in their cultures, even though they look the same, and so now she can understand where I was coming from.  Anyway, I wish I told her, there are Koreans everywhere.  I know four kiwis in Bloomington.  One of them is my daughter (who doesn't even have NZ citizenship), one is my husband, and one is my sister-in-law.  There are Kiwis everywhere, but not so many here!

Speaking of cultural differences, Jbird and I come from the very same city and consider ourselves to have the same ethnicity (Pakeha/European on the NZ census).  You would think this would make our marriage easy but even he and I experience cultural clashes.  For example, his family are late to bed.  Mine are not.  We often spent Christmas day at the beach.  His spent Boxing day there.  Seemingly little things, but they all add up to make very different people.