Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student

"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. I.e. You should be careful how you express your opinion/thoughts to an elder.

Similarly, in China, it took me a bit to adjust to how direct Chinese people were about certain topics. For example, they will call you "fat" or call out many personal flaws that we would not do in America. (I know this is counter to the traditional thinking that Chinese are very withdrawn).

Similarly, with language, Japanese people will rarely call out any grammar/pronunciation error. Instead, they will ask a question, or give a gesture that you have to read into and infer from. 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. They don't mean it personal, they are just more open to this sort of direct personal criticism.

The author also mentioned jokes. I can relate to this, learning the language, let alone the culture is hard enough. Often times, humor is even harder as it requires a deep understanding of both language and culture.

Like the other said, the list goes on and on, but these things take so many years to adapt to and overcome. They are huge barriers to cultural integration.

I have a lot of respect for foreigners who even attempt to integrate with our culture (and vice versa).

p.s. I admit, I have gained some weight, so the criticism is deserved :)

Thanks for the read, Kenny! I can't imagine the constant transition between western, Chinese, then Japanese culture, though I'm sure it must be very rewarding to you through it all!

I grew up multicultural. Austrian mum, Indian dad; Swissman weekending in Saudi Arabia then moving to Cupertino and studying at ASU. I never belonged in one place and saw that as a weakness. But heterogeneity has strength. It forces you to reconcile values from their primitives. This is tough, but I think it makes you stronger.

I remember everyone who shat on me. Swimming against a culture is different from being a contrarian. One is challenging the fundamental premises of a people; the other is innovating within them. The former is biologically designed to hurt.

Corollary: call your friends when they are fired. I remember everyone who called me when I quit my first job.The congratulations? Can't remember one.

TL;DR Engage where others aren't engaging. At a minimum, you will reap rare cognitive primitives.

OP here. The hardships can definitely be turned into a strength, one that is hard for mono-cultured people to grasp. I also had a rough childhood, and I somewhat held a grudge on my parents for it. But now, I feel like I am reaping those cognitive benefits you so speak of :)

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 white roommates who mocked me in the story was actually a hardcore Bernie supporter who stood up for black culture at the drop of a dime, so I found it curious that he viewed people of my culture so negatively.