40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus • Hacker News Board

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#211

Post by coraphans » Thu, Feb 16, 2017, 2:50 AM UTC

arambhashura wrote: post #125

hkmurakami wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sort of okay with the cheating on English proficiency exams. They're pretty contrived anyways. But these groups also tend to help each other out in cheating on actual assignments and tests, which doesn't sit well with the me.

Going off-topic from the OP: Not only that, but when I was a foreign student, the Indian and Chinese students had networks of past-year students, who'd built up databases of exam questions. While perhaps strictly not cheating, this gave them an advantage, because some professors repeated questions from previous quarters/years. Some of us thought that was unfair, and talked with the professors and they were unwilling…

> the Indian and Chinese students had networks of past-year students, who'd built up databases of exam questions.

A friend of mine joined a frat and he said they had the same thing.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#212

Post by rootsudo » Thu, Feb 16, 2017, 2:51 AM UTC

31reasons wrote: post #191

morgante wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced that language is actually such an essential aspect. Cultural similarity seems like a much bigger one. For example, I've seen Indians with great English struggle a lot more to fit in and acclimate than French students with poor English but more shared cultural touchstones. As an American, I've found it to be much easier to make friends with Europeans than with students from non-Western cultures—even…

I agree to this. As a Non western student I never had any American friends in Collage. After more than a decade living in the US I still don't have any. Primarily because I am introverted but culturally I care less about American sports and music (two big cultural domains). Edit: Another important factor (at least during collage) is the financial one. As a student from a poor country I had far less financial resource…

you do know that many Americans don't focus heavily on American sports and music? As someone who was born in the USA and raised, I have zero interest in sports. Music, I have a fleeting interest due to it's global acceptance.

Financially, not all Americans are rich or come from 2 income households. Alot of 18yr olds+ celebrate independence by moving out, taking a crappy local job at a fast food or retail and still, make American friends.

Introvertness isn't an issue, did you actually try? There are so many clubs that allow anyone to join and be friends. From meetup.com to local bookclubs.

But, we're also forgetting the big issue. Being American isn't like most countries in the world where you're born into a homogenous society. If you've lived more than a decade in the USA, and are a citizen, congratulations! You're a citizen, if any of your friends who aren't native born but also become naturalized, congratulations they're Americans!

Of course, I, know nothing of your background, so the above is all assumptions.

But, I felt like having to write this, as I wrap up spending 6 months in Japan.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#213

Post by rootsudo » Thu, Feb 16, 2017, 2:53 AM UTC

wallace_f wrote: post #203

habosa wrote: post #74

It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency: Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed) Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification) Level 4: Can do all of the above passiv…

I have spent years living abroad and am utterly unconvinced by this argument. The people who are easiest to befriend are not those with the best language skills, they are those with the same cultural (or sometimes religious) values. At least that has been a very consistent, reliable way of modelling this phenomenon of human behaviour in my travels. A very obvious example is that alcohol is a large part of Western, an…

I have to disagree on: "A very obvious example is that alcohol is a large part of Western, and now, some Eastern cultures; but people whose religion and culture strictly abhores it will have a harder time being happy among a group of Western friends."

Alcohol was always big in Eastern cultures. It's just not dominated because it is always considered an old people thing, not what young people do.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#214

Post by coraphans » Thu, Feb 16, 2017, 2:58 AM UTC

morgante wrote: post #156

habosa wrote: post #74

It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency: Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed) Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification) Level 4: Can do all of the above passiv…

I'm not convinced that language is actually such an essential aspect. Cultural similarity seems like a much bigger one. For example, I've seen Indians with great English struggle a lot more to fit in and acclimate than French students with poor English but more shared cultural touchstones. As an American, I've found it to be much easier to make friends with Europeans than with students from non-Western cultures—even…

If that were the case, then you should see Chinese international students hanging out with Japanese and Koreans.

But from what I've seen, the various East Asian groups don't interact much. And each group speaks their own native language.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#215

Post by rootsudo » Thu, Feb 16, 2017, 3:09 AM UTC

cgarrigue wrote: post #202

hocuspocus wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived 5 years in South Korea, and well: * It was incredibly easy to meet other foreigners, and not necessarily westerners, far from that actually. I now have genuine friends on every continent. * Since you're on the same boat, you can relate. Given how unique the work and life environment can be, it's nice to be able to talk with people who'll understand you. * Making native friends isn't easy, even when you're mak…

I wonder how much it comes from the culture in Korea. I've been living in Tokyo for 3 years, and although I never to the university here, I my observations in the country are that: * Korean people tend to stick together and don't mix much with other nationalities * Chinese people integrate so well that their Japanese friends and acquaintances barely notice they are not Japanese. And as they are not afraid to speak in…

I would say because Japanese takes so much of Chinese in terms of their writing system and numbers, the Chinese have a running start. Sure, it may be considered basic Kanji to the Japanese, but arriving to Japan and knowing immediately 2000 (or so, I don't have an exact number, I made it up.) of the basic Kanji is key to survival -- all you need to pick up then is the grammar rules and hiragana/katakana which are just 72 chars each so 144 total.

I, myself have fallen into the English foreigner trap. It's exhausting to make Japanese friends, that in the end you really don't get anywhere with, casually.

I've gravitated towards existing hobbies, and soon will enter a bekka. I still want to blame my non-existing Japanese for my lack of true Japanese friends.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#216

Post by dang » Thu, Feb 16, 2017, 3:15 AM UTC

muninn_ wrote: post #57

paradite wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you even read the article? You literally broke the HN guidelines here. I agree that the headline is misleading, but nonetheless it promotes interesting discussions that can bring more value than the article itself.

no I did not. The headline isn't misleading, the content of the article is extremely poor.

Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's not a great article, you're right. But you've made the thread worse by complaining about it in a way that... made the thread worse. We share your concern for the quality of HN, but it's also important to let go sometimes.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#217

Post by wallace_f » Thu, Feb 16, 2017, 3:24 AM UTC

rootsudo wrote: post #213

wallace_f wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have spent years living abroad and am utterly unconvinced by this argument. The people who are easiest to befriend are not those with the best language skills, they are those with the same cultural (or sometimes religious) values. At least that has been a very consistent, reliable way of modelling this phenomenon of human behaviour in my travels. A very obvious example is that alcohol is a large part of Western, an…

I have to disagree on: "A very obvious example is that alcohol is a large part of Western, and now, some Eastern cultures; but people whose religion and culture strictly abhores it will have a harder time being happy among a group of Western friends." Alcohol was always big in Eastern cultures. It's just not dominated because it is always considered an old people thing, not what young people do.

>It's just not dominated because it is always considered an old people thing, not what young people do

Yes, well that's true, but now it's part of youth culture so I think we're actually in agreement on that. However, what I'm not sure about is South East Asia..? I believe in places such as the Phillipines, drinking culture was largely introduced by the West, but I'm not sure about that.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#218

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Feb 16, 2017, 3:43 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #77

habosa wrote: post #74

It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency: Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed) Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification) Level 4: Can do all of the above passiv…

It's the cultural proficiency that gets you. By now I have probably spent 1000 hours learning (as part of a formal process), reading, listening, writing and speaking English. Probably a lot more, but let's go with that estimate. The actual language learning part was probably 20%, the rest was acquiring cultural references. I'm trying to do the same for French, where I'm probably around level 2 or 3, and damn, I had f…

I'm American, lived in Brazil for 8 years, became totally fluent in Portuguese, worked at a local company, etc.

After about 5 years, I realized that no matter how much vocabulary I learned, how perfect my grammar was, or how reduced my accent was -- I would never get the references to childhood cartoons, or any of another 1,000 things that came from growing up there. And it's actually crazy how much of casual conversation revolves around all these things.

And finally coming back to the States, it was all just so easy -- such a luxury to have a whole shared cultural history with people I'd hang out with, so many jokes to make, so much richness to the conversation. Social conversation felt "full" again.

That's what they never tell you when you learn a new language -- the language alone isn't enough.

Addition: the funny thing is, I have a lot of non-American friends who get all (or most) of the American cultural references, because so many of them revolve around TV/movies, and those are exported around the globe. So part of the American so-called "melting pot", I suspect, is helped by the worldwide ubiquity of our entertainment culture.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#219

Post by caidh » Thu, Feb 16, 2017, 3:53 AM UTC

I had a college roommate from Hong Kong for a couple years. He specifically asked for an American roommate, and I think we both benefited from the exchange. His English was far better than most of his friends after that time. It's hard though, if I were in his place, I might have been more insular as well seeking out those with my native language.

He also got to laugh hysterically as he saw me try to pronounce some greetings/messages in Cantonese to his father who would call from Hong Kong, so there was that benefit too.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#220

Post by coraphans » Thu, Feb 16, 2017, 3:55 AM UTC

kyle-rb wrote: post #113

010a wrote: post #89

I can't generalize for every school, or everyone at every school. I attended an engineering program at one of the top 5 schools by total international student population. Honestly, international students are cliquey. Many of them that I talk to openly admit to cheating on their english proficiency exams universities require you to take before you can attend. Meshing with local students is nearly impossible if you don…

>international students are cliquey I've noticed this at my college firsthand; I see groups or pairs of Chinese students speaking solely Chinese. Speaking in their native language isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly makes them less approachable.

From my experience, these Chinese students probably did try at first to make friends with local Americans, but were made fun of because of their accents.

So rather than be humiliated, they chose to just hang out with people who won't insult them.