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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

#81

Post by [deleted] »

future1979 wrote: post #29
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…

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.

[deleted]

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#83

Post by [deleted] »

leemailll wrote: post #63
rz2k wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't criticism and self-criticism[1] integral to overturning respect for traditional social superiors and making personal dignity more dependent on political compliance?[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-criticism#Communism

Do you know China is not just the mainland?

[deleted]

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#84

Post by peteretep »

shaobo wrote: post #43
gaius wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you asking what is the connection between China and Mao?

He is asking why are you overthinking this? People in China have put the cultural revolution behind them, it might be helpful for others to do the same when attempting to psychoanalyse present day Chinese behaviours. Your weight, your age and how much you earn are not taboo subjects in China, so people will bring them up in casual conversations.

    > People in China have
    > put the cultural 
    > revolution behind them
You should solicit the opinions of some Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Singaporean Chinese about that.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#85

Post by dutchieinfrance »

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…

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.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#86

Post by peteretep »

tentsive wrote: post #19
throwaway776834 wrote: post #15

Earlier 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?

Let's use the equally arbitrary "Finnish Litmus Test": In the group text they joked that I would go out and play ice hockey all day, only listen to death metal, eat exclusively pickled fish...

Just sounds funny to me. Almost like a history of oppression is an integral factor in this, and joking about the diligence and work ethic of a group that's found huge success via those is different from joking about a group that's been literally enslaved, marginalised, and overtly oppressed by the group the jokers belong to.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#87

Post by Retric »

russdill wrote: post #72
rayiner wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That Asians don't encounter racism in the aspect of salary inequality is false. Yes, on average Asians earn more. However, once you control for education or examine individuals with the same qualifications, Asians actually earn less than whites.

Diminishing returns may play a role in this.

To use extremes, if 1% of a population has a PHD then holding a PHD may be a proxy for other desired things. If 99% of a population has a PHD then it's less useful as a proxy.

PS: On it's own a few years of post secondary education don't actually mean much, so a large chunk of the value is as a proxy.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#89

Post by sporkenfang »

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.

Paris is famous for it, though I've been to several parts of France and didn't have much issue... old people definitely tried to correct my accent but that's fine by me.

Re: Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

#90

Post by dutchieinfrance »

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.

Actually, if you come across as a "stereotypical American" then, yes, I can imagine you ran into this. Cf. the movie "A Good Year", where Russell Crowe instructs Americans in a French restaurant to go to McDonald's because they're being obnoxious (apparently).
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