Cognitive Dissonance

If you buy into what you have heard in the mainstream media about Asia (positives and a few negatives), and then move to Asia as a resident teacher or other worker /entrepreneur, you will eventually experience cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance (you can read more at the link) is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing them.

Dissonance occurs when a person perceives a logical inconsistency in his beliefs. For example, a belief in animal rights is inconsistent with eating meat. Noticing the contradiction may lead to dissonance if the person is not willing to let go of one of his beliefs about the situation, either "Non-human animals are persons who ought to have rights," or "It is okay for me to eat this steak." The dissonance might be experienced as guilt, anger, frustration, or embarrassment.

Another case of dissonance might occur when you find out that the Asian education system you heard was so wonderful, in reality rests on feet of clay.

This post on being a medic in the Iraq-Afghan war may give you an idea of what cognitive dissonance is. The author tells about his former belief system (fortified by myth and mass media) in contrast with the reality of the situation he was thrust into.