Softening Sting of Culture Shock : Loneliness: Foreigners isolated by differences in language and customs are taught survival skills by UCI group’s tutors. Lasting friendships often come out of program too.

Every week, May Lin, a native of Taiwan who lives in Irvine, goes to Leisure World to visit her friend, teacher and surrogate mother, 81-year-old Sylvia Tepperman.

Lin, who is 52, takes Tepperman grocery shopping, helps her with household chores, drives her to doctor appointments and cooks Chinese food for her. Tepperman, a widow who has no family nearby, appreciates Lin’s efforts to make her life easier. But she doesn’t look at Lin just as a helpmate. Their bond goes much deeper than that.

“May has been as much a daughter to me as anyone could be. I love her dearly,” Tepperman says.

“Our relationship will last forever,” adds Lin, who had been in the United States for five years, but was still suffering from culture shock when she met Tepperman about 10 years ago through the International Friendship Circle.

Lin had come to Orange County because her husband had been offered a promising business opportunity and they both felt their three children would get a better education here than in Taiwan. She had no idea when she left her homeland that she would feel so lost and alone as she tried to adapt to a new culture.

For her husband and children, work and school provided natural opportunities to practice conversational English, make friends and learn American customs. But as they became increasingly comfortable in their new surroundings, Lin, who had never learned to drive and spoke little English, became more and more dependent on her husband. She wasn’t even able to handle phone calls or help the children with their homework.

According to Elizabeth Stahr, who has been chairwoman of the International Friendship Circle for the past eight years, many women in Lin’s situation end up suffering from depression that causes them to withdraw instead of working to overcome their isolation.

“These are very lonely people,” Stahr says. “Their husbands work long hours and play golf on weekends. The wives stay home and do nothing.”

As Lin discovered when she met Tepperman, the IFC offers foreigners a chance to develop the skills they need to participate in American life while building relationships that will help them feel more at home in a strange land.

It also brings together people from many different cultures in a setting that promotes understanding on a very personal level. Stahr says: “I see it as a small U.N., an effort in promoting world peace.”

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Yoko Koyama, an Irvine resident from Japan who has been involved with the IFC for six years, says program participants are quickly united by their common plight: “We are all foreigners, so we start from the same base. We all need friends.”

The nonprofit, all-volunteer organization was started in 1979 at UC Irvine after the wife of a professor from Japan was hospitalized for depression.

The news of how isolated this woman had become because she couldn’t speak English mobilized Peggy Maradudin, a member of the UCI Faculty Wives Assn., and Lois Sword, a member of the university’s Town and Gown support group. They put together a group of about 15 wives of visiting professors and four Americans and began meeting weekly, just to talk. Gradually, as word spread and the program grew, it became more structured and started drawing an increasing number of participants from the community.

More than 1,800 students have gone through the program since its start, according to Stahr, who devotes 30 hours a week to the IFC. Today, she says, there are 65 volunteer tutors who meet weekly with a total of about 260 students, most of whom are wives of businessmen from Japan, Taiwan and Korea. The program, which is sponsored by the UCI International Services office, costs $20 per student for each of three sessions held between October and June.(For more information, call (714) 723-4842.)

Students and tutors gather on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 9:15 to 11:30 a.m. at four sites in Irvine. Two of the meeting places were chosen to accommodate some 85 mothers who bring along their small children and take turns baby-sitting in designated play areas while lessons are underway.

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The tutors, many of whom are older people warding off loneliness in their own lives, work with no more than five students each year and get to know them so well that they often find themselves acting as surrogate parents or grandparents.

Each week, a different lesson plan serves as a catalyst for conversations that give the students a chance to practice their English while learning about American customs. They gather in small, intimate circles with their tutors and talk about such diverse topics as introducing themselves to their American neighbors, responding to social invitations, interpreting body language, asking for directions, shopping, handling emergencies, using the library and post office, banking, making a doctor appointment, coping with an earthquake, dealing with the school system and driving safely.

Many of the handouts Stahr prepares for students are designed to help them avoid embarrassing situations and misunderstandings resulting from cultural differences.

“We don’t try to change their cultural habits. We try to help them survive comfortably in our culture,” she says.

For example, those who are accustomed to taking their children with them wherever they go need to be told that they will have to get a baby-sitter when they are invited to someone’s home for dinner, unless children are specifically included.

That’s difficult for many IFC students, especially those from Asian countries, because they are not comfortable leaving their children with anyone but family members or close friends, Stahr says. Their freedom increases significantly as they make friends through the IFC and begin taking turns baby-sitting for each other.

The students also learn how to make a good impression when they socialize with their husbands’ business associates, something they may not have been expected to do in their home country. The tutors discuss such basics as appropriate dress for different types of occasions, how to make conversation and which silverware to use for each course.

Another much-needed lesson is one on how to get angry politely. It is aimed at those who are not accustomed to dealing assertively with people like repairmen who fail to show up on time, auto mechanics who do shoddy work and landlords who ignore legitimate complaints.

Students learn such key phrases as: “You said you were going to . . . “ and “It annoys me that you did not . . .” And they are told: “It is difficult to express anger in a language that is not your own. If you say the wrong thing, the situation could get worse. Do not let people take advantage of you.”

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Yuko Osawa, a 35-year-old mother of two from Japan whose husband was transferred to a job here two years ago, says the tutoring she has received through the IFC has been “very important.” Osawa, whose husband works from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays, says that she knew some English when she sought help from the IFC shortly after moving to Irvine, but, like many other newcomers, didn’t have the confidence to speak up in unfamiliar situations.

Her first friends in Orange County were other Japanese wives. “Before coming (to the IFC), I didn’t have any American friends,” she says.

Now she has many, including Helen Anderson, the tutor who helped her develop the confidence to drive, shop, sightsee and make new acquaintances on her own.

Anderson, who is 81, has entertained Osawa and many other students in her Irvine home during the 11 years she’s been an IFC volunteer, and she’s always ready to lend a sympathetic ear to those who are troubled. “They don’t have mothers here, and they need someone to talk to,” she says, noting that many of her former students who have returned to their homelands have been writing to her for years.

Anderson, who tries to foster a sense of family among the members of each group she tutors, says getting together with her IFC students is the highlight of her week.

“My children aren’t around here, and when you’re older, you don’t have much chance to be around young people. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

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Neither would Yoko Koyama, who came here from Japan with her husband and two children six years ago. The Irvine resident had been spending most of her time alone at home, afraid to venture out on her own, when she heard about the IFC. Her English improved rapidly with help from a tutor who personally guided her through the many routine tasks that had seemed overwhelming before.

The first step was a visit to the bank. Koyama had been carrying around large amounts of cash because she didn’t know how to get credit or open a checking account. Once she had both, her tutor taught her how to shop in a supermarket and where to find petite clothes in a department store. The tutor also introduced Koyama to American restaurants.

While she was learning how to make her way around her community and forming friendships through the IFC, Koyama was also warming up to an American tradition that she hopes will someday catch on in Japan: volunteerism.

After a year of study, Koyama became one of IFC’s volunteers, and for the past five years she’s been helping Stahr with administrative duties.

“I’m proud of helping the IFC. This group has influenced me a lot,” says Koyama, who wants to teach her native language to foreigners on a volunteer basis when she returns to Japan.

She’s one of many IFC students who have been surprised to see strangers go out of their way to help them. But people like Sylvia Tepperman feel no sense of sacrifice when they spend time with IFC students.

“It has given me so much satisfaction,” she says.

That satisfaction comes not only from her close, long-lasting relationships with students, but also from the feeling that she is learning as much from them as they are from her.

“To be able to speak one-to-one with them about their cultures is a complete education,” she says.

The education Tepperman has offered IFC students goes far beyond the lessons provided in program materials, according to Chin-Yi Lin, an accountant from Taiwan and one of the few men involved in the program. He admires Tepperman’s vitality (she was ebullient during a recent tutoring session, although she’d been treated in the hospital for a heart problem the previous day). Chin-Yi Lin says that, by setting a good example, this spirited teacher is giving him lessons about the “beauty of life” as well as how to live in America.

“I very appreciate Sylvia,” he says, struggling to find the right English words to express his gratitude. “She’s very precious.”