Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
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In Japan, if you speak Japanese well, eventually they stop forgiving you as "oh, he's just a foreigner", and they hold you to similar standards. I.e. You should be careful how you express your opinion/thoughts to an elder.
Similarly, in China, it took me a bit to adjust to how direct Chinese people were about certain topics. For example, they will call you "fat" or call out many personal flaws that we would not do in America. (I know this is counter to the traditional thinking that Chinese are very withdrawn).
Similarly, with language, Japanese people will rarely call out any grammar/pronunciation error. Instead, they will ask a question, or give a gesture that you have to read into and infer from. Chinese people will call you out very directly, maybe even embarrass you in front of people to the point where you are too shy to speak. They don't mean it personal, they are just more open to this sort of direct personal criticism.
The author also mentioned jokes. I can relate to this, learning the language, let alone the culture is hard enough. Often times, humor is even harder as it requires a deep understanding of both language and culture.
Like the other said, the list goes on and on, but these things take so many years to adapt to and overcome. They are huge barriers to cultural integration.
I have a lot of respect for foreigners who even attempt to integrate with our culture (and vice versa).
p.s. I admit, I have gained some weight, so the criticism is deserved :)
I wonder if this is an inherent Chinese thing or a Maoist thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session
Your weight, your age and how much you earn are not taboo subjects in China, so people will bring them up in casual conversations.
>Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
"Except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted..."
Hundreds of thousands of Americans toil away in prisons as free labor due to "tough on crime" policies and the militarization of police forces. McDonald's, Whole Foods, Walmart, they all use prison labor where the prisoners get paid literally cents an hour and sometimes not at all.
There were big prison strikes and protests about it earlier this year - https://theintercept.com/2016/09/16/the-largest-prison-strik...
It's terrifying.
> People in China have
> put the cultural
> revolution behind them
There is also something else I notice: some people will decide they will not understand you because you look/are foreign no matter how hard you try or even if you don't make not many mistakes. There is a famous video about that[1] but this is not limited to Japan, I also saw it in France too with foreigners trying to speak French.
Also even in a cultural area there can be wide differences. Almost all Mandarin speakers I interact with (be they Taiwanese, mainlanders or huaqiao) seemed quite happy to talk their language with me. The Japanese not so much. I even sometimes hide my Japanese language ability and play it dumb to fit more in a group. And I plan not to expose a too great ability the day I got it unless necessary precisely too avoid being judged to harsh by the local standards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpiAhxaE_oI
I don't think I've ever met anyone in England like this, but I can well believe they exist.
Examples: I can call some business on the phone and people won't know I'm a foreigner. No accent. I've gotten in a cab late at night, talked to the driver for 10 minutes, and then had him freak out went he turned around to collect the fair because based on conversation he thought his ride was Japanese. I bring those examples up only to point out having zero accent and being able to speak in a way that I'm perceived as being fluent.
And yet I still run into people who's brains seems unable to accept that I'm speaking Japanese to them. It's a common complaint by friends who've been here 15-20-25 years that they still get this. Over time I've learned to accept they are trying to be helpful and I'm the 1 in 50 or 1 in 100 foreigners that can speak Japanese well so just thank them ... in ridiculously polite Japanese.
I think it's because languages are all about expectations. If some piece of information has primed me to hear one version of a homophone the other meanings never even pop into my head.
I've noticed a related effect while watching videos on youtube recently. I'm a native British English speaker. When I click on a random youtube clip I don't know what accent I'm going to get. If it's a strong accent I don't hear often it usually takes 5 seconds or so for my brain to 'work out' the accent. During that time I don't really understand what is being said. As soon as it clicks I can rewind the clip and hear the exact same audio with perfect understanding.
I think when the Japanese people don't understand me a similar thing is happening. They see my white face so are trying very hard to hear English. The sounds come out and are run through the 'process the English' part of their brain. Of course, they can't make heads or tails of it so end up not understanding anything.
I'm not a linguist but I'd love to know if anyone had any references on this effect.
But yeah, when native-born Anericans act like your English is unacceptable, they're being assholes.
Sort of like the famous Yahoo Answers query: "Has anyone ever been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?"
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100225111311A...
My main language is Spanish and when I speak with people practicing their Spanish I can usually understand them no matter their accent or how bad their pronunciation is. It has to be really bad for me not to understand them. The context of the conversation helps a lot too. But here in America say a word a bit off and people make a big deal out of it. C'est la vie.
After a while they all just become "language" and your mind handles it fine. But new people have such a hard time swapping between hearing the different languages.
But yeah some people are just jerks too.
I have encountered this as well. It also happens more frequently from foreigners who have learned English (perhaps even better than your studying of language X) and they just don't want to talk to you in their language.
Fortunately, most people are not like this, and from my experience of both Japanese/Chinese people, they are very open to communicate with you in their language.
With the only exception being that you have to speak a bit more Chinese before English speaking Chinese people will agree to speak Chinese regularly with you, versus Japanese where they will speak Japanese to you from almost day one if you want. (which is a blessing and problem since you won't understand much) haha
That was my impression when I'd studied in Japan decades ago (but TBH it was so long ago I can't really recall if it had happened to me personally), however it seems that it is getting better. I actually saw your linked video by way of another [0], and the people he'd interviews generally finds the scenario ridiculous, too. Moreover, there's a follow-up video [1] where he put the premise* to the test, and majority of people replied in Japanese back.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLBShiGoJFo
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TofNjIjt0TQ
(*) TBF, the various sampling / editorial biases aside, his setup was not quite right in the follow-up video. He should have had a pair, one Japanese and one foreigner, had the foreigner ask for directions, and see if the test subjects a) replied back in Japanese, and b) repeatedly directed their replies to the Japanese of the pair.
In "western" (not just American) cultures, calling somewhat fat is basically calling them gluttonous or lazy (both among the 7 deadly sins).
To me Americans are focused on being PC while not dealing with the root cause. In the case of "fat" the root problems is that Americans tend to shame & hate those who are fat. It has become a negative stigma, but instead of attacking the root cause we have removed fat as an adjective and think that by removing the hateful term (hateful by usage not by definition) we have solved the problem.
I remember everyone who shat on me. Swimming against a culture is different from being a contrarian. One is challenging the fundamental premises of a people; the other is innovating within them. The former is biologically designed to hurt.
Corollary: call your friends when they are fired. I remember everyone who called me when I quit my first job.The congratulations? Can't remember one.
TL;DR Engage where others aren't engaging. At a minimum, you will reap rare cognitive primitives.
During undergraduate, I participated in international competitions twice, both times with a Chinese girl on the team I led and who both times tried to collude with competing teams in China (who were colluding with each other) until I yelled at her to either stop or get out of the room and let the rest of the team finish without her.
I've seen this in two out of two institutions, and have had this confirmed by friends at other schools.
In the first big boy job I got, we hired a Chinese guy who ended up having lied on his resume about being able to code. At my last position, I've admonished the Chinese guy on my team at least once for copy pasting others' code into PRs without understanding it (which would never even occur to me to do because it is so obviously wrong), and have once caught flat out lying about having done something, apparently because he thought I wouldn't check his work.
All of these cases have been with people who went to high school or undergrad in China. The ones I've met who grew up here seem to be better about it.
So, personally, I look down on what I've seen of Chinese culture for this reason. Not people - culture; when I work with someone that grew up in China, I check for cheating and lies, because of what I've seen of the culture. With people that grew up outside China, I don't worry as much.
I expect I'll get a negative response to this, and I don't care. I'm criticizing a culture, not a race, and these are my life experiences with that culture. It's possible I've just had an extremely unlikely series of uncounters, but, tautologically, that is extremely unlikely.
I use the Stylish Chrome extension with this override for Quora to achieve this:
html,body,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,.box_feed,.box_feed div,p,.link.selected,blockquote {
font-family:"Tahoma", Sans-serif;
}
And to what code do you switch when people of conflicting cultures are present in the same room with you?
As an immigrant, I have also chosen to try to join my adopted culture. I spend a great deal of time studying cultural practices. I wear traditional Japanese clothing most of the time in the summer (western clothes are better suited for winter, I have to say). I make traditional Japanese preserves, and live a traditional Japanese lifestyle (as much as my Japanese wife will let me, anyway...).
There are people here who are similarly interested in American culture. They want to learn about it and practice it and live it. My Canadian background makes me feel embarrassed to say it, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. While being able to experience outside cultures inside your own country is wonderful, also make sure to experience what makes your country great. Keep your culture and traditions alive, because they are important. There will be people from other countries who want to participate in that experience. Be sure to welcome them as well.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive, IMO. Quite on the contrary, I think in order to successfully adapt, you have to know where you stand in the first place. What fits you, what does not. It is an ever-going process, long and sometimes painful. But in the end, it will force you to better understand your own background, its virtue and weakness alike, and what difference has America bringing to it.
> as being quiet and
> reserved in the public
In my opinion, people in the US are, without realizing it, very hypocritical and very stuck-up when it comes to racism. If your roommates joke that you will study all day, they are being really rude, but making fun at a cultural difference which is indeed very noticable (in general, Asian students study way more than American students). I don't think this is racism. The basic problem is that people think that being racist is a binary thing that can be triggered by saying something bad about groups of people (nowadays, it doesn't even have to be a racial group anymore). It is a very bad thing that such an undefined thing is taken so seriously (I think the usual definition of 'racism' is 'the idea that people of some racial groups are inferior to people of other racial groups', which would make the only racist thing to literally say that people of some racial groups are inferior to people of other racial groups.
I think similar behaviour against other ethnic groups should be treated the same way as this behaviour against Asians (as rude, but not racist). I think it is mainly due to Asian people who deal with mockery very well (as illustrated in this story). In the long run, I think it will only benefit Asians. For example when I am around black friends, I will subconsciensly watch my words and avoid touchy subjects or remarks.
One of my white roommates who mocked me in the story was actually a hardcore Bernie supporter who stood up for black culture at the drop of a dime, so I found it curious that he viewed people of my culture so negatively.
I don't think you could say that there's a similar vein of humor with African-American culture that's developed, and that's principally historical: America's slave holding history is still an open-wound today, and its social concepts around African-Americans were widely based on making sure they were viewed as lesser.
EDIT: This isn't to say either is ultimately good. There's a pretty important difference between occasional good humor that transitions into something of more malevolent intent, but how people perceive them appropriateness very much matters.
How many people know about the Chinese Massacre of 1871 in LA?
If we really are going to compare suffering, wouldn't Native Americans be on the top of the list? And yet their suffering isn't really something that is focused on.
Just curious, did you perceive a certain level of malice with their mocking, or was it more lighthearted? I can't speak for Americans, but here in Australia, mocking from your friends is a sign of acceptance and mateship. It's a way of indirectly indicating that you're comfortable enough with someone to knock them around a bit, it's a complimentary way of saying "I know you're strong enough to handle it".
I don't want to risk sidelining your experience, but is there a chance they may have seen you as one of the boys?
However, after this episode, we maintained great relationships as roommates, and yes, they still made fun of my driving, my small eyes etc., but at that point, I knew it was all in good spirits :)
Some of this is just kids being dumb, but some is Americans have a weird relationship with their Empire.
On one hand their parents and student loans are paying more money to fund the foreign exchange students and every foreign exchange student present is quite literally one local taxpayer who isn't getting an education yet is somehow supposed to pay for the system without an educated-level job. Even if the school accepts everyone, that just means the local taxpayers are on the hook for capex to make huge buildings that wouldn't be necessary without the demands of the Empire.
That sounds like a horrific deal for the local taxpayer, and it is, but Empires always suck at some level or another for pretty much everyone involved. However from a foreign aid and propaganda perspective that money is well spent, who else gets to propagandize the entire world's youth for practically no cost compared to military expenses? Its a lot cheaper to indoctrinate the world's kids at an American school than to wave expensive F-35 fighters at them in a threatening manner a decade later. In typical American corruption we officially spend like 0.1% of our federal budget on foreign aid and then bury things like state Uni budgets in the individual state budgets to pretend our Empire spends roughly nothing on foreign aid, but we really do spend lots of money on the Empire, for which we're theoretically running a profit, or if not "we" at least someone is running a profit.
I'd estimate the total cost to the GDP of empire has got to be something like 5% but its cheaper than the alternative, or so the people getting rich off the empire insist.
At any rate, my point is some of it is just kids being dumb, yet some of it is knowing for federal level foreign policy reasons their old high school buddy named XYZ can't go to college with them, despite his having to pay for it in taxes, because a foreigner is there in his place and supposedly everyone is better off for it, yet fundamentally on a personal level they still miss their old high school buddy XYZ.
A vast majority of foreign college students are not "exchange". They are just foreign students who pay full out-of-state tuition and don't qualify for any financial aid. That's why colleges are actively courting them as they bring in way more revenue.
I wonder if his roommates were attempting to give him some social cues about what kind of behaviour they wanted and/or trying to ease their own discomfort about living with someone from a different culture.
"In the group text, they joked that I would go out and play basketball all day, only listen to rap and hip hop, coming back late at night, and even joked that they should all move out because of me..."
Would this be an okay use of humor to ease their discomfort?
Having said that, firstly, understanding why a bad behaviour happens is important in stopping it: maybe students should meet their roommates earlier, or get introduced to them over the phone, or get pamphlets titled "How Not To Alienate The Person You Will Live With For The Next Year", or something.
Secondly, the OP is talking about people who were raised in a totally different culture. "Black" in the context you're talking about presumably means black Americans, who live in the same country as you, speak the same language as you, and get the same TV as you. As someone from outside America, I'm quite happy that the cultural differences between us exist, because they make life interesting - however, they can be an obstacle to communication.
Just sounds funny to me. Almost like a history of oppression is an integral factor in this, and joking about the diligence and work ethic of a group that's found huge success via those is different from joking about a group that's been literally enslaved, marginalised, and overtly oppressed by the group the jokers belong to.
I don't really understand how reducing any population of millions to two or three characteristics qualifies as humour. We can do much better!
Basically it seems worse if you reinforce stereotypes against a group that is already struggling.
Whether you're punching up or down, racism and sexism are ugly and disgusting, regardless of what Bidel-Pavda[0] and her ilk would claim.
[0] http://wetasphalt.com/content/why-racism-prejudice-power-wro...
Or are you denying that when backed up by a prevalent privilege (or an inverse stereotype), all other things being equal, discrimination becomes more damaging (and harder to withstand)?
No one is denying that plain discrimination is still ugly, after all.
One of the things I've always found shocking about America, as an Asian immigrant myself, is how black people are treated as more foreign, in their own country, than actual foreigners. There are small pockets of unintegrated Asians (mostly first generation immigrants) but cities all over the country are highly segregated along black/white lines. If you really want to understand what makes American culture tick, live somewhere like Philadelphia or Baltimore for awhile.
A lot of people on the left now describe the latter as discrimination, arguing that only institutional discrimination can be called racism, which can make some discussion confusing.
For example, say you're black/Hispanic/Asian and you marry into a white American family. To the extent you encounter any racism it'll be the individual kind. But the assumptions people make about you as an Asian are very likely to be the most benign. Likewise, consider the reaction of a typical Asian American community to a young Asian woman dating a white man versus a black man. Among the (cosmopolitan, upper middle class) Asians I grew up around, the former would be pretty non remarkable. The latter would still be kind of a scandal.
That's why it's socially acceptable to make fun of Asian stereotypes but not black (and to a lesser extent Hispanic) stereotypes.
Baltimore here, almost two decades. If the point you're using my city to make were as obvious as you make it sound, I would not now need to ask that you make it explicit.
http://graphics.wsj.com/baltimore-demographics/ http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/data/bal-baltimore-segregat... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/28/baltimore-segregate...
Likely due to net-population-availability of minority groups, and I won't disagree that many neighborhoods are almost entirely black (stayed with a friend living off diamond st one time), but I will say that one shouldn't then draw that to mean everyone in those cities also lives along the lines of such segregation. (To try and explain why the parent, and myself, had an experience that didn't always align intuitively with those articles)
What I'd also call out though that I wouldn't have noticed outside of having grown up there, is that I'd draw the lines there FAR more aggressively along socioeconomic boundaries, which just so happen to correlate with race. Not even starting to turn this into a discussion about which direction the correlation moves in, but I'm always hesitant to paint it soley it as a racial problem.
It's very easy and very comforting to say that maps like the ones you linked are just a result of white people not wanting to live around black people, because white people are racist. I get that. Who wouldn't rather believe a just-so story than acknowledge that not everything is simple and not every problem has an easy solution? Just don't make the mistake of confusing a just-so story with reality, or imagining that by doing so you're very likely to be of benefit to anyone.
However black Americans have had the weird status of being majority in some states with a unique subculture and history while also being a tiny minority across the entire country. Now mix in relatively recent interstate migration and race mixing and their subculture has an interesting problem where if they integrate, its always better for every individual, but then their unique culture and history as a group will be annihilated. White people and "americans in general" have a variety of social signalling goals they share and the black folk in cultural self preservation mode will self police to maintain their unique non-white non-american-in-general accent, views about education, work, religion, food, criminality, even down to card games and sports. See also the culturally sensitive area of insults like "acting white" and the concept of being an uncle tom.
Meanwhile for the majority locals, all of us came from groups that immigrated and integrated and created our own shared mythologies about all kinds of ridiculous stuff. Someone who insists on being an unintegrated Polish patriot, for a random example, is seen as inadequate to integrate or too dumb to successfully socialize or at best misguided, but either way is going to get a really low social status from the integrated americans. There is some "slap in the face" animosity, what we're not good enough for you?
So you can see the source of the stress in this unique situation. If they integrate and become Americans, that's likely extremely good for them on an individual level, but then their culture would literally be annihilated from the planet because there is no reservoir of afro-american culture other than the state of Mississippi. If they don't integrate, intentionally or by failure, they'll be seen as extremely low social status by descendants of those who successfully integrated. So we end up with a crazy love hate relationship can't live together, can't live apart, tons of drama.
The final cultural lesson is everyone already involved kinda knows of this uncomfortable situation so its hopelessly socially inappropriate to discuss outside some hollywood comedy or drama movies. There's a lot of pressure from both sides and the pressure is worst on those least capable of handling pressure, that being young folks full of hormones and lacking in wisdom, patience, and logic. Meanwhile other folks think the problem exists solely so they can get into social media holiness signalling spirals which doesn't really help anyone on any side. And there's plenty of racists on both sides with varying ratios of liking their own folks and hating the other folks egging things on. So the map drawn for foreigners has "here be dragons" for good reason.
One small correction: Blacks are not the majority in any state. Mississippi has the highest percentage, at 37%, but it is still 59% white.
The Blacks political problem doesn't help the situation. They're extremely politically polarized. If 95%+ vote democrat that means there will never be any internal competition in running their homelands which results pragmatically and historically in ridiculously incompetent small governmental bodies which results in failure. Meanwhile on the larger stage minorities can be kingmakers if and only if they are not polarized, polarized equals marginalized. The D party knows they'll get 95%+ of the vote regardless what they do or promise so they have no motivation to do or promise anything for Blacks. Meanwhile the R party knows they'll get rounding down to 0% of the votes no matter what they do or promise so they also do nothing for Blacks. Net result is Blacks will never have any political influence on national politics until their voting records are closer to 50:50, or at least further from 100:0, until that happens they are disenfranchised above the local level.
That is a side cultural issue in that no one wants to live in a dysfunctional local government if they can avoid it, and disenfranchisement at a higher government level means their unique concerns are going to be eternally ignored if not actively worked against, and neither trend helps integration overall.
The situation in the USA is somewhat similar to the townships system in the bad old days of South Africa, just unofficially. That system wasn't really conducive to integration or positive race relations in general.
This was by design: read up on the "Southern Strategy" if you'd like to get a better understanding the recent history between the GOP and African Americans. The Republicans found it politically expedient to oppose the civil rights movement, yet before this, the Democratic party was the party of the KKK.
To use extremes, if 1% of a population has a PHD then holding a PHD may be a proxy for other desired things. If 99% of a population has a PHD then it's less useful as a proxy.
PS: On it's own a few years of post secondary education don't actually mean much, so a large chunk of the value is as a proxy.
If they're from a foreign culture or country then they've already given up on socializing with their own people by becoming exchange students. Theoretically they could learn or gain something from local kids, if kids had anything useful to teach them, and if they planned on staying after graduation. But if they don't plan on staying, then no matter how much or how little socializing they do, they'll just get one line on the resume or a checkbox at job time so over-investing in socializing won't help their future. So they may as well at least get something out of the classes, by learning as much as possible from the profs. Which they need to do, if a GPA of 2.0 and the right local friends is as useful in the job market back home, as a GPA of 4.0 from some foreign school and no local friends because they were at the foreign school.
From their point of view, maxing out their GPA is far more useful than getting drunk with people who won't matter to them in a couple short years, and being kids, have nothing to teach them anyway.