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The Harm of Studying Abroad

readingthechinadream.com

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Re: The Harm of Studying Abroad

#101

Post by dondawest »

L_Rahman wrote: post #32
L_Rahman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The final claim is hyperbolic. There absolutely is another option which is to find people who aren't interested in performing amiability or socializing exclusively in the safety of their ethnicity. I made friends because we loved talking about healthcare policy, from being on the debate team, from a shared love for Mad Men, from being interested in starting companies. I did all of this as someone who'd spent the deca…

In the interest of intellectual honesty, it's possible that I'm an extreme outlier in this respect. I've spent the last year traveling around the world, I find it really easy to share emotional vulnerability with strangers, and I've made meaningful connections with people in every country I've lived in for more than a week. This is likely not true for most people.

In the interest of intellectual honesty, I just wanted to say that I’m an awesome person and I am literally so cool.

This is likely not true for most people.

Re: The Harm of Studying Abroad

#102

Post by nelaboras »

akfanta wrote: post #59
blaser-waffle wrote: post #2

> The text translated here, written in 2008, has nothing to do with Zhang’s academic work, but instead reflects changing attitudes among younger Chinese intellectuals concerning the value of Western ideas and the experience of studying abroad. > Zhang is surely right that doing an advanced degree in a foreign language is a challenge involving at times a loss of autonomy and a loss of status. More interesting is the o…

> China is a great place to be if you've got the right connections This might be true for the majority of China, but for big cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, no, connections mean far less even comparing to western world. > but no so great if you're gay, muslim, tibetan, or like to have opinions. Do you get this from reading western media or did you actually go there and talk to those actual human beings? I…

There are some built-in biases favoring some of the minorities, but there is a reason for this: to avoid that those minorities protest and push back against the PRC/Han China which in the mind of many is still an occupying force. Contrary to Chinese propaganda/school teaching these areas were hisotircally never/rarely in the same realm as the han-dominated regions.

But stepping away from perceptions: being any kind of critic (say, someone warning of a new corona virus epidemic) or just being the wrong religion/ethnicity can mean your life will be hell in China. Look at the treatment of those giving first warnings from Wuhan - even the globally/publicly known critics have been disappeared; and there are many more that never reached this visibility and have the same happen to them.

More at scale: more than 1 Million Uyghurs are in what propaganda calls 'vocational training institutions', which translates to them being brought to and held against their will in reeducation camps. The stories coming out of there ate nightmarish. Assigned CPC representatives live in their homes to keep watch, and in cases where one or several parents in those camps the children were forcibly put into orphanages and the parents have no chance to find out where they are and even less chance to get them back.

Sorry but China is absolutely and 100% oppressing these people, just for existing and daring to be born in a specific ethnicity/religion.

Re: The Harm of Studying Abroad

#103

Post by nelaboras »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #6

Very interesting to hear a Chinese person complain about American higher education as too rote, as I've often read complains in the HN bubble that the Chinese system would be too rote. Perhaps things look too rote from either side if you're missing the culture-specific subtlety? Perhaps things are too rote on both sides but it's only noticed by those from a different background? Relevant excerpt: "The things you thin…

Sample size n=1 but a friend of mine was in the top 3 of CS in Hong Kong university and thus got to go abroad for a year. He described that back home they had to learn hundreds of specific 'best solutions' by heart and then regurgitate them on the test. He loved that he got actual challenges and got to work independently at the UK university where we met.

Re: The Harm of Studying Abroad

#104

Post by kinghtown »

powersnail wrote: post #9

The whole article rings false to me. Although I get that it's Zhang's personal experience, but the reasoning makes zero sense, and it feels like he just wanted to vent. Some of the points seemingly have nothing to do with studying abroad, but the nature of the university he attended, for example, > First, you have no time. You read a lot but there’s no time to think. This is has nothing to do with being a foreigner,…

> Personally, I think the biggest difficulty for a Chinese in studying abroad in the US, is the difficulty of being accepted into the circle. You could make friends and acquaintances with Americans, but you're never part of "them". I constantly feel like I'm on the wrong side of a aquarium glass pane, being observed and judged.

As a foreigner living in Taiwan, the vast majority of people here do the very same to me as well. I am constantly shut out of circles and deemed too weird to actually know yet always being watched like some sociological specimen. I don’t think that “othering” is a known concept here or if it were it registers pretty low on people priorities when interacting with me or mindlessly staring at me while I eat in public..

People will literally take their children away from the park when I bring my daughter to play. I must insist that I was a well adjusted and popular enough guy home. It’s been a bit of a heartbreaking experience to realize that probably every culture on earth has irreconcilably racial biases and prejudices inherent in the majority because the most common unifier amongst all people is stupidity.

Also, when you mention Americans and never being a part of them do you mean all Americans including blacks, latinos, natives, arabs..? I see a great deal of projection going on here where Chinese Americans are being shut out of socializing when it seems to me the truth is that many Chinese born people living in the west actually don’t like the culture all that much and don’t want to integrate either but don’t vocalize it this way because it doesn’t sound nice to say.

Re: The Harm of Studying Abroad

#106

Post by TomSwirly »

L_Rahman wrote: post #32
L_Rahman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The final claim is hyperbolic. There absolutely is another option which is to find people who aren't interested in performing amiability or socializing exclusively in the safety of their ethnicity. I made friends because we loved talking about healthcare policy, from being on the debate team, from a shared love for Mad Men, from being interested in starting companies. I did all of this as someone who'd spent the deca…

In the interest of intellectual honesty, it's possible that I'm an extreme outlier in this respect. I've spent the last year traveling around the world, I find it really easy to share emotional vulnerability with strangers, and I've made meaningful connections with people in every country I've lived in for more than a week. This is likely not true for most people.

> I find it really easy to share emotional vulnerability with strangers

You and almost everyone else. It's much easier to be emotionally vulnerable using a "throw-away account".

For an example, if you come out as gay to some stranger on a train, it's almost certain that there will never be any real-world repercussions. But if you come out as gay to someone in your hometown, it will likely change your life forever.

> I've made meaningful connections with people in every country I've lived in for more than a week. [...] This is likely not true for most people.

Funny, I've heard some variation on this speech from most people who get to travel around the world for a year.

I attribute it to not having to worry about money, myself, and it's my belief that a majority of humanity would be that way, if they could afford it.

Re: The Harm of Studying Abroad

#107

Post by oblio »

thisrod wrote: post #97
pasabagi wrote: post #51

It seems a bit strange to view the physical 'traveling abroad' as harmful, when he's so obviously 'traveling abroad' in thought throughout the piece - Heidegger, after all, was not Chinese. It also seems that a lot of what caused the century of humiliation for China was this inward-looking tendency in Chinese culture, a tendency that left them ignorant of western ideas and technology until it was essentially too late…

> it's at its very best when it's vigorously confronting the outside world How so? The examples that spring to my mind—Imperial Japan, the Manchurians, that Genghis bloke—all end very badly for China and its culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_treasure_voyages

Re: The Harm of Studying Abroad

#108

Post by akfanta »

stone-monkey wrote: post #99
akfanta wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China is a great place to be if you've got the right connections This might be true for the majority of China, but for big cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, no, connections mean far less even comparing to western world. > but no so great if you're gay, muslim, tibetan, or like to have opinions. Do you get this from reading western media or did you actually go there and talk to those actual human beings? I…

I'm not saying you're wrong,but what was the deal with the lesbian author who was arrested for her books? There was this webcomic I read called 他们的故事 which is about a lesbian high school couple which has gone nowhere plot wise, and someone told me the reason why they stopped focusing on the romance part of the story is it was the author's reaction to the news about the erotic novel author getting arrested.

I am pretty sure she was arrested for selling/profiting exotic sex content. Agree with it or not, selling pornography is illegal in China. I think her sentence has more to do with explicit sex content itself rather than being lesbian/gay.

This is also a perfect example of media manipulation, is it not? Put on a sensational title to grab attention, but convenient ignore the fact that similar sentences were given out to people selling straight porn. While I don't agree this should be illegal but this is not a good example of prosecutions against the LGBT group.

Re: The Harm of Studying Abroad

#109

Post by hootbootscoot »

hootbootscoot wrote: post #26
nja4 wrote: post #8

To me, this reads as so much Chinese nationalism. Feels super consistent with Communist propaganda of an indolent West. Also, seems very suspect to criticize a lack of intellectual freedom by comparing it to a system without freedom of information. I also thought that Western education was widely considered much less about rote memorization and more about intellectual creativity and freedom, even to the detriment of…

I hear you, but I think that there is a significant portion of the "modern" university system (particularly larger schools or systems) that is merely paying lip-service to these values, particularly at the undergrad level. I had the good fortune of small class sizes and being able to debate professors. (Appeal to authority didn't count lol) I think that some school even prioritize what you mention: St Johns school of…

Sorry, I meant "read Euclid in Greek" not Latin. doh.

Re: The Harm of Studying Abroad

#110

Post by hootbootscoot »

hootbootscoot wrote: post #16

Talk about someone projecting their own experiences as universal truths for everyone, LOL ...and then trying to use Heidegger as an excuse for intellectual laziness is pretty silly too. The more languages you know, the more you really understand the true meaning of words in your "own" language. (Certainly with Latinic languages and English, for example.) There's also a point to be crossed at which you can dream in an…

Out of curiousity, what statement did I make to inspire a downvote from someone?
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