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Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#81

Post by dmix »

mattmanser wrote: post #12
ed312 wrote: post #5

I don't understand the protests. I would expect educating Saudi youth in exceptionally liberal institutions like universities in the Northeast to have a net liberalizing effect on the Saudi government and culture long term. Is this not a better use of Saudi funds then e.g. buying more weapons?

It's a double edged sword. For a few reasons. Firstly it maintains an elite who are much better educated, and skilled, than those at home. Secondly, when there's lots of foreign students from the same place, they just clique up. In my university there were a lot of Chinese students that hung around almost exclusively with other Chinese students. One year I represented the student common room, a sort of social club/su…

They also discover they don't need to assimilate since every western city, at least in North America, has enough Chinese citizens and community resources where you can easily survive with just Mandarin/Cantonese and minimal English.

There are plenty of Chinese people here in Toronto who have been here for two plus decades and still have very poor English (or feign as much). Because they live in Chinese communities, shop at Chinese grocery stores, and eat at Chinese restaurants.

It's their kids who learn English or the ones entering a work environment where English is used.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#82

Post by oblio »

veb wrote: post #60
qwerty9876 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Finland the Erasmus/foreign exchange students of universities also tend to hang out among themselves and the native Finns don't really care about them. One thing I've heard is that the Finns consider many of the exchange students to be a bit juvenile since in their home countries people often live with parents until their 30s. Whereas most Finnish students move out and become fully independent by age 20.

where on earth is it the norm to be living with your parents until you're in your 30s? Kiwi here, a lot of us move out and go flatting at the first possible chance we get - which is right after high school/first year of uni.

Almost every developing country + Southern Europe. So most of the world.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#83

Post by houqp »

mattmanser wrote: post #12
ed312 wrote: post #5

I don't understand the protests. I would expect educating Saudi youth in exceptionally liberal institutions like universities in the Northeast to have a net liberalizing effect on the Saudi government and culture long term. Is this not a better use of Saudi funds then e.g. buying more weapons?

It's a double edged sword. For a few reasons. Firstly it maintains an elite who are much better educated, and skilled, than those at home. Secondly, when there's lots of foreign students from the same place, they just clique up. In my university there were a lot of Chinese students that hung around almost exclusively with other Chinese students. One year I represented the student common room, a sort of social club/su…

I saw the same behavior for foreign students studying in China, they only hangout with their own group due to language and culture barriers. My university has lots of foreign students but i have never meet any of them in social settings except one for like 10 minutes during my 4 years undergrad.

Even within Chinese in China, people from the same region tend to hangout much more due to language and culture differences. I grew up speaking both mandarin and cantonese natively so i made friends with both sides and saw the same pattern.

I would say this is just human nature. It is amplified for Chinese students in the west because there are more of them ;)

Believe me, they really want to hangout with native students as well, but it’s not easy. It’s like you know going to gym is good for you, but because it requires extra hard work every day, you ended up skipping it.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#84

Post by lowdose »

sho wrote: post #72
veb wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where on earth is it the norm to be living with your parents until you're in your 30s? Kiwi here, a lot of us move out and go flatting at the first possible chance we get - which is right after high school/first year of uni.

Lol. How about pretty much everywhere in Asia? China? Singapore? Korea? The "norm" is to live at home until you get married, when you use all the money you saved living rent-free at home to put down a hefty deposit on a house. I know actual millionaires who still live with their parents! Given the difficulty of affording a deposit for new home buyers who have been renting since 18 (like me - Aussie here), I can see t…

Still we can agree on the fact a millionaire living at hotel mom sounds outrageous.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#85

Post by lowdose »

Phemist wrote: post #69
pmyteh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not uniform across France, either. If you try your broken French in out-of-the-way villages in Brittany, you will generally once again get your smiles and encouragement. In Paris, more of the evil eye. The Netherlands is interesting. It's nearly guaranteed that their English is better than your Dutch, so if you try anything more than "good morning" then they will generally rapidly switch to English. More politely tha…

You can even have it the other way around. An English colleague of mine tried to be polite and speak in (obviously non-native) Dutch to a Dutch lady in a super market once. The lady got offended by it and said "I _do_ speak English, you know". As if, rather than for practice, he tried to speak Dutch because he assumed she couldn't hold up her end of a conversation in English.

It's called the expat paradox.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#86

Post by hombre_fatal »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #61
lonelappde wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand and explain what you mean?

given the downvotes I just got, the nationalism on HN lately, and the narcissism in US-centric discourse in general, no, I do not wish to explain or expand on this it is to the US-centric benefit that I should mention it, or expend the energy to explain myself, not the other way around

Why did you even add your cryptic two cents on this forum if you refuse to explain what you even meant? How is that not just pure, masturbatory noise?

Holding your point hostage because you got a downvote is especially ridiculous.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#87

Post by wyclif »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #62
veb wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where on earth is it the norm to be living with your parents until you're in your 30s? Kiwi here, a lot of us move out and go flatting at the first possible chance we get - which is right after high school/first year of uni.

> where on earth is it the norm to be living with your parents until you're in your 30s? The south of Europe. Spain is probably the most outstanding country in this regard.

Also southeast Asia! In the Philippines, for instance, it's quite common for both women and men to live with their parents until they get married.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#88

Post by wyclif »

rogy wrote: post #68
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where on earth is it the norm to be living with your parents until you're in your 30s? The south of Europe. Spain is probably the most outstanding country in this regard.

And increasingly common in the UK

Yes. It's much more expensive now to get one's own flat or share it with roommates in, say, London than it has been in the recent past. And it's only going to get worse.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#89

Post by wrong_variable »

lowdose wrote: post #84
sho wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. How about pretty much everywhere in Asia? China? Singapore? Korea? The "norm" is to live at home until you get married, when you use all the money you saved living rent-free at home to put down a hefty deposit on a house. I know actual millionaires who still live with their parents! Given the difficulty of affording a deposit for new home buyers who have been renting since 18 (like me - Aussie here), I can see t…

Still we can agree on the fact a millionaire living at hotel mom sounds outrageous.

Why is it outrageous ?

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#90

Post by wyclif »

lowdose wrote: post #84
sho wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. How about pretty much everywhere in Asia? China? Singapore? Korea? The "norm" is to live at home until you get married, when you use all the money you saved living rent-free at home to put down a hefty deposit on a house. I know actual millionaires who still live with their parents! Given the difficulty of affording a deposit for new home buyers who have been renting since 18 (like me - Aussie here), I can see t…

Still we can agree on the fact a millionaire living at hotel mom sounds outrageous.

Sounds outrageous, but it can also be clever in a counter-intuitive way.
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