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

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

#281

Post by dominotw »

guitarbill wrote: post #149
dominotw wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My US friends who moved to the UK or Australia had no problem making friends. us, uk and australia are identical cultures. us and india or us and china is not even comparable. Its not just language, its common cultural memes that bond people.

that's pretty demeaning. there's certainly overlap, however that's mostly US TV and movies being exported, which also happens in other (non-English speaking) countries. but each has a distinctive culture, with different TV shows, music, artists, celebrities, politicians, words, lifestyles etc. now, speaking english with ease does make it easier to pick up on the differences. but it still takes effort to engage with p…

>that's pretty demeaning.

sorry , Certainly not my intention. I am curious why you say this though.

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

#282

Post by junnan »

amyjess wrote: post #154

I remember, several years ago (2010-ish), a friend's roommate brought a couple of his Indian coworkers home. I got to meet them because I was hanging out with my friend at the time. They hung out for a bit, and then he took them to a shooting range, bringing his gun collection along. Before they left, he told my friend and I that he was doing this because he read a statistic showing that a huge percent of Indian-born…

Dude, the stories you didn't tell are far more intriguing

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

#284

Post by humannature »

Newsflash: people like to hang out with people that look like them and have similar culture. It's human nature. Just look to the animal kingdom for examples (or lack thereof). Ever seen a zebra hang out with a horse? or a lion with an elephant?

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

#285

Post by vinay427 »

afashglaksnhb wrote: post #247
vinay427 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to guess France, which has around that percentage of Muslims and is certainly not geographically confined.

More like 6%

I stand corrected, thanks. The Google article preview listed a much wider confidence interval of estimates.

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

#286

Post by beeftime »

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…

A great deal of that is probably the tension between the two countries - Koreans tend to feel it far more personally (they were the ones invaded, after all). Having lived in Seoul for the same amount of time I'd say the same thing, only about Japanese. I'd say you're on the money about Chinese folks, though. Chinese people bring the party with them, for sure.

Koreans have a saying about their neighbors: "The Chinese love you rudely. The Japanese hate you politely."

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

#287

Post by int_19h »

AnAfrican wrote: post #248
int_19h wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No other country, except maybe for Canada, had to deal with multiculturalism as much. There is a Christian majority country in the world that also has a ~15% Muslim minority, and it's not even particularly geographically confined. It's not US or Canada. Curiously, it's also not a particularly inclusive country. Which just goes to show that multiculturalism doesn't necessarily translate to inclusiveness - it can als…

Russia is an Empire though. Its Multiculturalism has always been about hadling Subjects who could become Citizens by Russifying.

That hasn't been true since 1917. There are plenty of citizens in Russia who hail from other religious or ethnic groups, and they aren't any worse for it in terms of political rights.

The difference is how it is handled. Russia is structured as a federal republic, in which some constituent entities are explicitly designated as national republics. Those have their own official state language (in addition to Russian on the federal level), their own regional constitutions and laws etc.

But it also means that for the titular ethnicity, when they're outside of such a regional republic, they can face an attitude of "we don't do these things here, and if you really want to, you can go back home and do them there". In other words, different cultures are siloed rather than amalgamated.

This is oversimplified, because there's still plenty of amalgamation in practice - it's inevitable when people live and work and intermarry. But it's definitely very distinct from e.g. Canadian multiculturalism.

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

#288

Post by 153a »

kop316 wrote: post #205

I would like to frame my thoughts on this as an American that is dating a Taiwanese person, and as someone who has traveled around the USA a lot. I also ran my thoughts by her and she agreed with what I said. First, I think there are two types of people who travel to a new place (this can be a different part of the country, or a foreign student to the USA): 1) the person who wants to try new things and enjoy where th…

It goes both ways. Aside from cultural differences, I would assume you would also feel excluded or isolated if you were the only non-American among a group of Americans who only spoke English, and you didn't understand or speak English.

Note that English is used as a universal language in international settings, and that you are a native English speaker. It's somewhat easier for you since they would know a least a little bit of English, while you wouldn't know their language unless you have some level of proficiency.

Also, Americans generally have a culture of accommodation or assimilation, while people from other cultures may not. The social environment when the host population interacts among each other as peers is also different than when interacting with foreigners, as it requires a separate form of interaction that isn't the norm. This applies to both Americans and other nationalities.

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

#289

Post by Arizhel »

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…

>But it can fall apart in a social setting. Once there are 5 overlapping streams of conversation stuffed full of cultural references these coworkers of mine very frequently lose track of the conversation and become quieter and quieter over time.

Hmm, this sounds exactly like me. And I'm a white American guy (obviously, English is my first and pretty much only language, unless you count the German I learned in high school where I don't even meet your level 1).

I'd say I'm at your level 4 with English. When there's too many people talking, I'm unable to discriminate. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, if the relative volumes are different enough I can (so in a bar if someone is talking into my ear and the other conversations are in the background, I can make it out though I'll ask for a lot of repeats), but my big problem is in the workplace, where people for some reason insist on carrying out multiple loud conversations in the same room, right next to each other, and seem to have no concept (unlike the bar-goers) that it's really really hard to follow one conversation when the other one is right next to you at the same volume.

Yet another reason I totally regret going into engineering and software, and wish I had gone into something else where I'd get an office.

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

#290

Post by Arizhel »

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…

>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).

I'm a white American guy. I don't give two shits about American sports (or any other sports for that matter). The very best you can do is talk me into watching hockey, maybe, but I haven't done that in years (and that's more of a Canadian sport anyway).

As for music, what kind? There is no "American music". People who like rap probably don't like country, and vice-versa, for example. Lots of Americans have zero interest in pop. When I was in college, I didn't like any of those three, only rock and metal. It did affect which friends I had at the time though. But rock and metal in particular aren't American, they're Western, as a lot of it comes from Europe and UK.

But yeah, it's kinda hard to keep a friend if you have nothing in common with them. And this doesn't just apply to relationships between people from different countries; even within the same country it makes it hard to find friends. Notice how divided rural and urban Americans are now, or how big the racial divide is between white and black people. And that's people who all grew up in America, speak the same language, etc. The cultural values are so different that they don't form many strong friendships across these boundaries.

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