Cultural Shock In American Football

Cultural shock is the difference in habits and traditions people may have. Cultural shock can be experienced in many different ways, it can be experienced from the way a person dress to the linguistic difference one might have. The cultural shock I experienced has to do with sports and particularly football culture. When I talked with domestic students about football, they mostly would become confused because we were not in agreement of what football meant. To me it meant a sport where you control the ball with your feet but, that was known by them as soccer, and to them it meant a sport where the ball can be carried on hands which was known by me as American football. The majority of the countries call football the sport that in the US is called by soccer, and later on, I learned that not many Americans are aware of that difference in meaning. As well not many foreigners are.

Friends would start talking about football teams, and players, college football, and I would not participate on the conversation. Because of that, sometimes I felt left aside when the topic turned to football. Which I learned that it is not a minor topic since football is one of the most appreciated sports in the US. At this point a can assume that in my country I used to hear and participate in this kind of conversation, but it would be all about soccer, and at this time my friends were speaking a language I didn't know, and I'm not referring to English. I'm referring to football language. College mascots were new to me because in my on culture the university is rarely associated with sports and they don't have mascots. I found mascots really interesting and deeply connected to football and college