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Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

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Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#111

Post by meric »

aisofteng wrote: post #106

The main problem I've had with Chinese students is rampant cheating and lying, including with help from Chinese professors. I dated a Chinese girl in my PhD program for a bit and she showed me it all first hand, including a Chinese professor giving exams to his Chinese students ahead of time. She giggled about it and didn't see a problem; to her, it was just an easy way to get ahead. During undergraduate, I participa…

I acknowledge your observations and would like to note the culture between Chinese students in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam are all different and warn you against pinning Chinese culture with cheating. I imagine the behaviour you are talking about is more unthinkable to Singaporean Chinese than even to you yourself for example.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#112

Post by albertgao »

Didn’t read the content from the link, only the comments here, already knew the topic. As a native Chinese, I should say that this fraud culture is a common sense in China since the government itself is a fraud, so people living in the country will get used to it and finally adopt it. Because every time you wanna strive hard to get something, you will find the fraud is taking the “shortcuts” and making better progress than you. Eventually, you will be part of the culture and fraud in a daily basis, which means, when you want to achieve something, you will always think of this kind of “shortcuts” at the first place. And, this is the 2nd main reason why so many middle class people want to immigrant besides the environment crisis. The good part of hunman being is something nature borning. If you can’t change it, you can change yourself. Ye, but some people will still be influenced by the old habit. That’s a shame.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#113

Post by aisofteng »

meric wrote: post #111
aisofteng wrote: post #106

The main problem I've had with Chinese students is rampant cheating and lying, including with help from Chinese professors. I dated a Chinese girl in my PhD program for a bit and she showed me it all first hand, including a Chinese professor giving exams to his Chinese students ahead of time. She giggled about it and didn't see a problem; to her, it was just an easy way to get ahead. During undergraduate, I participa…

I acknowledge your observations and would like to note the culture between Chinese students in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam are all different and warn you against pinning Chinese culture with cheating. I imagine the behaviour you are talking about is more unthinkable to Singaporean Chinese than even to you yourself for example.

Everyone I mentioned is from mainland China. I don't have reason to believe it's the same elsewhere. As I said, my comment is about one particular country's culture, not a race.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#114

Post by KennyCason »

dutchieinfrance wrote: post #85
titanix2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Japanese people will rarely call out any grammar/pronunciation error" & "In Japan, if you speak Japanese well, eventually they stop forgiving you as "oh, he's just a foreigner", and they hold you to similar standards." There is also something else I notice: some people will decide they will not understand you because you look/are foreign no matter how hard you try or even if you don't make not many mistakes. There i…

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but where in France did you experience this? I'm a non-native speaker of French and I have never experienced this, not even when I was in my teens still learning French.

Having never been to France, but heard a lot of stories, this may be a France American issue more than a France Foreigner issue.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#116

Post by RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u »

titanix2 wrote: post #14
KennyCason wrote: post #2

"Confucian behaviorism is optimized for a Confucian society, and western behaviorism is optimized for western society." This is so true. Speaking Chinese/Japanese on a daily basis and regularly interacting with these two cultures, I would regularly encounter such differences. In Japan, if you speak Japanese well, eventually they stop forgiving you as "oh, he's just a foreigner", and they hold you to similar standards…

"Japanese people will rarely call out any grammar/pronunciation error" & "In Japan, if you speak Japanese well, eventually they stop forgiving you as "oh, he's just a foreigner", and they hold you to similar standards." There is also something else I notice: some people will decide they will not understand you because you look/are foreign no matter how hard you try or even if you don't make not many mistakes. There i…

> There is also something else I notice: some people will decide they will not understand you because you look/are foreign no matter how hard you try or even if you don't make not many mistakes. There is a famous video about that[1]

That was my impression when I'd studied in Japan decades ago (but TBH it was so long ago I can't really recall if it had happened to me personally), however it seems that it is getting better. I actually saw your linked video by way of another [0], and the people he'd interviews generally finds the scenario ridiculous, too. Moreover, there's a follow-up video [1] where he put the premise* to the test, and majority of people replied in Japanese back.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLBShiGoJFo

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TofNjIjt0TQ

(*) TBF, the various sampling / editorial biases aside, his setup was not quite right in the follow-up video. He should have had a pair, one Japanese and one foreigner, had the foreigner ask for directions, and see if the test subjects a) replied back in Japanese, and b) repeatedly directed their replies to the Japanese of the pair.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#117

Post by berneezy3 »

blueberryy wrote: post #107
berneezy3 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that points out the whole fallacy of PC culture: that Americans only will be ethnically thoughtful when being pressured into. For better or for worse, Asians get mocked simply because we are conditioned to deal with mockery with silence. I don't know whether we can just attribute that to Asians dealing with it well. But I definitely share your hopes that this quality will benefit us in the long run. One of my…

Are you okay with being treated differently for being Asian though? I don't see how being silent to mockery helps us at all. Americans are well aware of how African-Americans feel about stereotypes and racially charged language, but can casually mock Asian-Americans because of the subservient attitude a lot of us display. Please don't just take mockery with silence, let people know how you feel because they won't kno…

I don't think its the best solution, but I do think it is better than the way certain minority groups are using PC culture as a means to harass anyone with the different opinion. At least with the current Asian culture of remaining silent, we encourage there to be honest dialogue. Yes we will be mocked sometimes, but at least Americans won't act all polite and PC in front of us, then let all the beans spill we aren't listening.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#118

Post by sangnoir »

VLM wrote: post #67
emddudley wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> black Americans have had the weird status of being majority in some states with a unique subculture and history while also being a tiny minority across the entire country. One small correction: Blacks are not the majority in any state. Mississippi has the highest percentage, at 37%, but it is still 59% white.

Yeah that was poorly phrased on my part. The main point being there exist cultural and governmental areas that are definitely Black like Jackson MI at 80% or whatever other "homeland" type definition you'd like (perhaps based on some counties, etc) yet on a very large federal scale in a country with extremely strong dominant federal government they are a powerless minority. The Blacks political problem doesn't help t…

> Meanwhile the R party knows they'll get rounding down to 0% of the votes no matter what they do or promise so they also do nothing for Blacks

This was by design: read up on the "Southern Strategy" if you'd like to get a better understanding the recent history between the GOP and African Americans. The Republicans found it politically expedient to oppose the civil rights movement, yet before this, the Democratic party was the party of the KKK.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#119

Post by hgw2016 »

albertgao wrote: post #112

Didn’t read the content from the link, only the comments here, already knew the topic. As a native Chinese, I should say that this fraud culture is a common sense in China since the government itself is a fraud, so people living in the country will get used to it and finally adopt it. Because every time you wanna strive hard to get something, you will find the fraud is taking the “shortcuts” and making better progres…

Agreed, I can testify to this observation.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#120

Post by jimworm »

dutchieinfrance wrote: post #85
titanix2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Japanese people will rarely call out any grammar/pronunciation error" & "In Japan, if you speak Japanese well, eventually they stop forgiving you as "oh, he's just a foreigner", and they hold you to similar standards." There is also something else I notice: some people will decide they will not understand you because you look/are foreign no matter how hard you try or even if you don't make not many mistakes. There i…

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but where in France did you experience this? I'm a non-native speaker of French and I have never experienced this, not even when I was in my teens still learning French.

Once at the railway station in Dunkerque. I started by asking the ticket officer in French if she spoke English, but after she said no she refused to listen. Fortunately there were two booths open and my bad French was better received by the kind girl working there. Good thing too, she was our only way out of town.
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