Related discussions on "Adapting to German culture as a Chinese student": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12769385
Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
21–30 of 121 posts
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this just the perceived difference in source? i.e. mocking someone for what you believe is a positive character trait is generally seen as okay (the aforementioned "study a lot"). Another vein this happens in is with regards to Germans ("being precise"). I don't think you could say that there's a similar vein of humor with African-American culture that's developed, and that's principally historical: America's s…
Very good point. I do think the hardships that the African-American community have endured are far more severe than the ones Asians in America have. But my people did endure their share of hardships as well; the first Chinese immigrants in San Francisco were used as slaves to build the railways, many working to their deaths on the tracks. The conditions were extreme, but I guess the scale was much smaller than the Af…
But do people even know the types of hardships Asian Americans had to endure?
How many people know about the Chinese Massacre of 1871 in LA?
If we really are going to compare suffering, wouldn't Native Americans be on the top of the list? And yet their suffering isn't really something that is focused on.
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#23Earlier 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…
Isn't this just the perceived difference in source? i.e. mocking someone for what you believe is a positive character trait is generally seen as okay (the aforementioned "study a lot"). Another vein this happens in is with regards to Germans ("being precise"). I don't think you could say that there's a similar vein of humor with African-American culture that's developed, and that's principally historical: America's s…
Aren't there a lot of accepted jokes about black men being well endowed or otherwise physically gifted?
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#24Related discussions on "Adapting to German culture as a Chinese student": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12769385
Great resource!
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very good point. I do think the hardships that the African-American community have endured are far more severe than the ones Asians in America have. But my people did endure their share of hardships as well; the first Chinese immigrants in San Francisco were used as slaves to build the railways, many working to their deaths on the tracks. The conditions were extreme, but I guess the scale was much smaller than the Af…
But do people even know the types of hardships Asian Americans had to endure? How many people know about the Chinese Massacre of 1871 in LA? If we really are going to compare suffering, wouldn't Native Americans be on the top of the list? And yet their suffering isn't really something that is focused on.
Native Americans are probably the most unfortunate group. To put it in business terms, I think certain ethnic groups have just been more successful in their marketing than others ;)
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#26It strikes me as really odd that mocking Asians this way is acceptable, while almost any remark about black people can be interpreted as serious racism. In my opinion, people in the US are, without realizing it, very hypocritical and very stuck-up when it comes to racism. If your roommates joke that you will study all day, they are being really rude, but making fun at a cultural difference which is indeed very notica…
I think a lot of it comes from the modern definition of racism involving power + prejudice. As a group Chinese people appear to be relatively successful in society (certainly in tech) and so sit slightly higher up the power scale than black people do. So if a white person makes a negative comment it's going to appear as societally "punching down" much further if it targets a black person vs a Chinese person.
Basically it seems worse if you reinforce stereotypes against a group that is already struggling.
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Humour can be used as a social prompt - someone on Tinder might make a joke about fashion if they want to make sure their date wears nice clothing, for example. It can also be used as a plausibly deniable way of telling someone you're worried about something - "I hope you're not a craigslist scammer" or "as long as my Christmas gift isn't socks or books". I wonder if his roommates were attempting to give him some soc…
Well, let's use the "Black Litmus Test" to see if it sounds more like stereotypical racism or just humor: "In the group text, they joked that I would go out and play basketball all day, only listen to rap and hip hop, coming back late at night, and even joked that they should all move out because of me..." Would this be an okay use of humor to ease their discomfort?
I don't think the mockery received by the OP was okay, so no, that wouldn't be okay either.
Having said that, firstly, understanding why a bad behaviour happens is important in stopping it: maybe students should meet their roommates earlier, or get introduced to them over the phone, or get pamphlets titled "How Not To Alienate The Person You Will Live With For The Next Year", or something.
Secondly, the OP is talking about people who were raised in a totally different culture. "Black" in the context you're talking about presumably means black Americans, who live in the same country as you, speak the same language as you, and get the same TV as you. As someone from outside America, I'm quite happy that the cultural differences between us exist, because they make life interesting - however, they can be an obstacle to communication.
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#28"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…
Chinese people will call you out very directly, maybe even embarrass you in front of people to the point where you are too shy to speak I wonder if this is an inherent Chinese thing or a Maoist thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session
It is not a Maoist thing. Why you think the two would have any connection?
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#29"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…
Interesting comment on being called fat. I'm a bit, shall we say, big boned. And I experienced two odd instances where a Chinese person I barely knew casually remarked how fat I was. It was otherwise a pleasant conversation and had me a bit confused. If a stranger said that to you in America, it would certainly be considered mean.
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#30Don't adapt. Best part of the US for me is all the other cultures living in it. Pho soup, Ethiopian pancakes, Burmese cuisine. Please don't adapt.
Adapting doesn't necessarily mean assimilating -- it can be "code-switching" in a cultural sense.