Don'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.
"Culture" goes way, way beyond "interesting food".
Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
31–40 of 121 posts
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#32Don'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.
Growing up in Canada I was always a big fan of multi-culturalism. However, I was very surprised at how much I have enjoyed mono-culturalism since I've moved to Japan (lived here about 8 years now).
As an immigrant, I have also chosen to try to join my adopted culture. I spend a great deal of time studying cultural practices. I wear traditional Japanese clothing most of the time in the summer (western clothes are better suited for winter, I have to say). I make traditional Japanese preserves, and live a traditional Japanese lifestyle (as much as my Japanese wife will let me, anyway...).
There are people here who are similarly interested in American culture. They want to learn about it and practice it and live it. My Canadian background makes me feel embarrassed to say it, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. While being able to experience outside cultures inside your own country is wonderful, also make sure to experience what makes your country great. Keep your culture and traditions alive, because they are important. There will be people from other countries who want to participate in that experience. Be sure to welcome them as well.
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#33"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's a UK comedy show from a few years ago called Little Britain that has this same thing happening in a recurring skit except with English. There was a British woman who claimed to never understand what an old Indian woman wearing a sari with an Indian accent was saying despite it being quite clear. I wonder whether this is some low level passive aggressive behaviour around the world due annoyance of dealing with a 'foreigner'.
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#34It 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…
There is nothing odd or hard to understand about it. The rule for mockery or jokes in the US is generally "you don't punch down." No cop has ever flipped out and shot an unarmed Asian kid based on stereotypes about how hard asians study. There is no such thing as "driving while Asian." Asians make more money on average than even white people, they live longer, etc. They are well represented in higher academia and high income professions. You'll find Asians in high income neighborhoods around the country. The country didn't fight a war over half of it trying to enslave Asians.
One of the things I've always found shocking about America, as an Asian immigrant myself, is how black people are treated as more foreign, in their own country, than actual foreigners. There are small pockets of unintegrated Asians (mostly first generation immigrants) but cities all over the country are highly segregated along black/white lines. If you really want to understand what makes American culture tick, live somewhere like Philadelphia or Baltimore for awhile.
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#35It 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…
If your roommates in college mock you for studying all day,they may be missing the point of college, and you may want different roommates anyway.
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Are you asking what is the connection between China and Mao?
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#37Don'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.
I think you implicitly assume adaptation meaning losing someone's identity with his/her own culture.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive, IMO. Quite on the contrary, I think in order to successfully adapt, you have to know where you stand in the first place. What fits you, what does not. It is an ever-going process, long and sometimes painful. But in the end, it will force you to better understand your own background, its virtue and weakness alike, and what difference has America bringing to it.
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#38Earlier 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…
There's a UK comedy show from a few years ago called Little Britain that has this same thing happening in a recurring skit except with English. There was a British woman who claimed to never understand what an old Indian woman wearing a sari with an Indian accent was saying despite it being quite clear. I wonder whether this is some low level passive aggressive behaviour around the world due annoyance of dealing with…
Cringe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpiAhxaE_oI
I don't think I've ever met anyone in England like this, but I can well believe they exist.
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#39"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.
Yet Americans would tell a stranger that they're tall, or occasionally short.
Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
#40It 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…
There is nothing odd or hard to understand about it. The rule for mockery or jokes in the US is generally "you don't punch down." No cop has ever flipped out and shot an unarmed Asian kid based on stereotypes about how hard asians study. There is no such thing as "driving while Asian." Asians make more money on average than even white people, they live longer, etc. They are well represented in higher academia and hig…
You just described institutional vs individual racism. The former is anchored in society and has deeper and multi generational damages.
A lot of people on the left now describe the latter as discrimination, arguing that only institutional discrimination can be called racism, which can make some discussion confusing.