> Is there xenophobia? Are Americans looked down upon or treated differently? xenophobia, no. treated differently, definitely. often they won't know where you fit into the social hierarchy, because, you don't. You don't have any family or social history so they may treat you like gods or may somewhat exclude you. Language is a huge barrier. If you're in Shenzhen, there will be near-zero english. You'll have to learn…
> You'll have to learn mandarin, which will take many years. Why would it? Is it really that complex a language? How different is learning Mandarin than learning German, French, Russian, English or Greek? I understand that the writing system is probably much more complex and requires much more memorization than the other languages mentioned, but other than that, what about grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation?
Some words mean 5 different things depending on how you vary the tone throughout the word; I'm no stranger to simple variation as I had to deal with emphasis and inflection while learning Spanish, but Mandarin is a whole other kettle of fish.
I'm more than happy to accept that maybe I didn't put enough effort in or am generally poor at languages (only speak two), however I struggled to learn a handful of words per month.