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When a Chinese PhD Student Meets a German Supervisor [pdf]
- denzil_correa 10y agoOne of my most important suggestions to Asian (Indian and Chinese in particular) students is to expand your horizons both professionally and personally. You are going to a new country - don't ONLY mingle around with your kind. There is a far broader experience to gain that will only help you professionally and personally in the future. There are many ways you can do it * Share an apartment with someone from a different country * Make acquaintances and talk to people outside work with diverse professions - don't stick to scientists ONLY * Try to understand difference between cultures Especially once you move to a new country, you have a great opportunity to understand difference between cultures. Don't miss it!
- xiaoma 10y agoYes, and the same advice applies to westerners living in Asia! Especially in cities like Shanghai or Hong Kong, there are westerners who live for decades without interacting with the local culture in a meaningful way.
- dorfsmay 10y agoNot just for people from Asia, this applies to anybody going to a different country. I'd add: stop reading and listening to news in your native language, stop switching devices to your native language, force the immersion experience try to live, eat, read like a local. Not being comfortable is part of learning.
- denzil_correa 10y ago> Not just for people from Asia, this applies to anybody going to a different country. I agree with you. That said, there is higher probability of Asian students being in Europe and USA for a Ph.D than vice versa (context of this post). Therefore, while the advice is indeed applicable to anyone - I prefer it to be directed in order to be more concrete. The reason being Asian societies (certainly Indian ones) are not individualistic in nature. Therefore, everyone tends to follow the crowd. There is a set pattern - school -> college -> job/Masters/Ph.D -> House -> Marriage -> Kids. A departure from the usual is not encouraged and even frowned upon.
- dorfsmay 10y agoBut even within the western world, even within Europe I've seen people going to a different country and immediately looking for people, restaurant and news source from their original country.
- chronic6l 10y agoThis is correct. There are many Asians here on HN (rightly so) trying to defend their culture. Western (European/American) culture advocates "getting out of your comfort zone" while Asian cultures do not. They discourage it.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago> Western (European/American) culture advocates "getting out of your comfort zone" Citation extremely needed.
- jack1243star 10y agoNo. A lot of us seek to immerse in a different culture by studying in a foreign country.
- zhemao 10y agoYeah, citation definitely needed. One of these groups is emigrating to places far from home in large numbers. The other is not.
- imron 10y agoGo and spend some time on a country like China. You have the exact same problem but in reverse - westerners sticking with an English speaking social group, living in areas with large numbers of other westerners and so on. The human experience is really quite universal.
- vorg 10y agoMany English-speakers who live in China quickly find that any attempts to mix freely with local Chinese people is inevitably followed up by hard-to-refuse invitations to personally tutor their sister's or manager's young child in English. It's easier to draw the line so that these "invitations" don't come.
- graeham 10y agoAnecdotally, I've seen this happen with pretty much any international group in a university environment when there is enough of concentration of that group to support an expat community. I don't think you have to totally abandon your previous culture, but I think part of living aboard (or universities in general) is experiancing new things outside the classroom or lab.
- wott 10y agoIt doesn't even take a concentration of a group of a specific origin. Take Erasmus students, for example, it's terrible. They come from various countries, so they do not speak the same mother language and do not share an identical culture; but they'll always stay together, always speak in English and not in the local language, and almost never mix with locals students or others locals (except the local drug dealer of course).
- tormeh 10y agoFormer Erasmus student here and I want to say that it's brilliant. Sure, you don't really end up living like a local, but you get to know people from all over Europe and the rest of the world. That's a great thing in and of itself. No need for locals. Sure, if you get to know locals that's great as well, but not doing so is not in any way "terrible".
- usrusr 10y agoHaving only experienced it from the outside (observing perfectly functional flocks if "Erasmusses" not making local contact here, seeing friends join such flocks abroad) I even feel tempted to say "you learn a lot about all kinds of countries, except for the one you go to". The intensity of socialising inside those groups is staggering and part of the lack of contact with the local population might well be that those just can't compete in being as interesting: answering "here" to the conversation starter "where are you from" instantly makes you the least interesting person in the room. Kind of like the backpacker hostel vibe.
- jacalata 10y ago
- robaato 10y agoA decade or two back I met the daughter of a friend in Italy. She was English and studying Italian as part of her university degree in Wales. She complained that she wasn't really learning that much. One part was hard for her to change - being fair and blond. However, apart from that, she had chosen to go to Florence - one of the few places where people did speak a fair bit of English. She also shared a flat with an English girl friend. They both remarked that one of the other guys on their course was also in Florence but they never saw him - he had joined rugby club and socialised only with locals - funnily enough his Italian had gotten much better...
- gohrt 10y agoHow does being fair and blonde impede learning?
- pedrosorio 10y agoPresumably, Italians are less likely to use Italian to communicate with "fair and blonde" women.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sotojuan 10y agoHeh, this hits close to home. My alma mater's international students did the opposite of what you advise. Whether it was lunch, class, or any kind of social activity it was impossible to spot anything but groups of Chinese students from the same area or university. My roommate was a Chinese international and because we lived together he was sort of forced to come out of his shell. He'd be the first to tell you it helped him a lot!
- noobermin 10y agoGoing to keep it 100. In my university, often Chinese students hang out together, join groups with Chinese advisors, etc. It's understandable to want to associate with your in-group, but it certainly does hurt to broaden one's horizons.
- paradite 10y agoWhile I agree with your advice, there is one important point that you missed. The fact that Chinese and Indian students tend to form cliques or enclaves, is a perfectly normal and natural behavior, because of the sheer large number of students in the same community. Do not mistake this as "Chinese and Indians are not good at mingling with the locals because of their mindset and culture." It is mostly just because their social circle is large enough to sustain itself in a typical overseas community. In fact, it requires much more effort for them to get out of the comfort zone than students from countries that do not have so many students studying overseas. Another easy way to see it is that, they literally have a "larger comfort zone" to jump out of. To put it into perspective, consider a US college where there is only a few Chinese or Indian students, chances are they will naturally interact more with locals. Then consider a group of exchange students in an Asia university, chances are they are going to be mingling around within themselves all day with minimal interactions with locals. So my point is, do not judge them negatively because of this, and do put in some extra effort in reaching out to them if you are kind enough and want to change the status quo.
- chronic6l 10y ago> To put it into perspective, consider a US college where there is only a few Chinese or Indian students, chances are they will naturally interact more with locals. No, they aren't. Your original premise is incorrect. Those Chinese and Indian students are going back to their dorms/apartments and watching TV shows in their own languages and communicating with friends/families back home. The number has nothing to do with it. It's all about culture.
- msie 10y agoIt's really hard to socialize no matter what culture you come from. It's just human nature to seek safe environments. Also one has their priorities. Party or do well in school? I question how you can be so sure of your assertion.
- paradite 10y agoYour observations may be true, but in this case there are more than one possible explanations apart from the numbers. First, like you said, the cultural issue makes them more reserved and less open to others. But it can also be a pure personality issue, or a mixture of both. Secondly, it could simply be a result of some prior events, like failed attempts to overcome language barrier, unwelcoming attitudes from local students, or even discrimination in some cases. All these could contribute to such things happening, and I think it is usually a mix of factors, not just culture.
- frozenport 10y agoMy Chinese friend (25+) wanted to get married, so he had to choose how to spend the small amount of social time a PhD afforded. He could either try the American system which involves a lot of time at the gym and years of soul searching, not to mention racial bias. Obviously, he choose the Chinese way which involves recommendations from friends and more traditional views, that accepts that a male might spend 10 hours a day working. The guy went from virgin to hitched in a year and a half, and can still keep up high work productivity.
- tacomonstrous 10y agoWow, such efficiency!
- noobermin 10y agoProbably a culture thing, but social fit is more than getting a partner.
- shostack 10y agoBut the real question is whether he is as happy as he would have been had he persevered and did it the other way.
- KaoruAoiShiho 10y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/asianamerican/comments/58oqvk/i_dont_work_with_chinese_sorry/ https://www.reddit.com/r/asianamerican/comments/58oqvk/i_don...
- noobermin 10y agoIt's true, any foreigner in any group will face push back. It's tough, but it's human nature. To be fair, I wouldn't do that because that makes no sense to me personally.
- teekert 10y agoMy nr. 1 tip would be: Don´t say you understand when you don´t. I have had many wonderful experiences with Asian students always fun conversations and every single one I met was quite social from the start. But almost everyone I know has at least one story of a Chinese student doing nothing for days or weeks because they say they know what to do but don´t. I understand the cultural differences but try to be honest about what you know. Personally I consider it a form of strength to know your own weaknesses, I think many people in the west do.
- yodsanklai 10y agoJust wondering, have you ever lived in a foreign country? your advice sounds reasonable, but it can be very difficult to implement. It's easy to blame foreigners for not willing to mix with other people, but it's much harder than what it seems. Think how sometimes people have a hard time making friends when they move to a new city in their own country.
- denzil_correa 10y ago> Just wondering, have you ever lived in a foreign country? Yup - I am currently living in Germany. I am well traveled too. I never said it is easy. I just wanted to get across the point that the benefits are worth the costs.
- cerved 10y agoSpeaking from my own experience having lived abroad in multinational environments half my life, cliques tend to form whenever a shared culture/heritage is sizable enough to form a community (usually starting at around a dozen) in a foreign enviroment
- xorgar831 10y agoI've seen this from every country in school and job settings, the common thread is that people are interested in just what they're there for, no more. Travelers and "world stuarts" OTOH are there to do just the opposite, and embrace wherever they are. But most end up in other countries out of circumstance and would have prefered to stay in their own country.
- maverick_iceman 10y agoWow, look at the amount of condescension! Only Indian and Chinese students need to broaden their horizons, not White students, right? Asians need to understand the difference between cultures, Whites being superior of course don't need to understand anything like that! Why are you assuming that all Indian and Chinese students behave exactly alike? Do you think diversity of behavior is to be found among Caucasians only? You also didn't consider the issue of latent racism at all. A lot of times fresh off the boat Asian students get rebuffed by Whites if they try to develop contact. Often it takes the form of making negative comments about their home countries - how poor/regressive/authoritarian they are. Nobody likes getting badmouthed. This is one of the reasons they form so called cliques. Sorry to call you out, but I'm sickened by your racism.
- code_sardaukar 10y agoI think most of the people making these comments would identify as anti-racist. Furthermore, they would be shocked by similar comments addressed to students from Africa, the Middle East or Latin America. Personally I think everything said about Asian students is true, I just wish we could be as open and realistic when discussing other cultures, rather than simply blame "racism" when people from other cultures encounter difficulties. It's a general pattern that comments that would be considered "racist" when applied to any other non-White culture, are ok when applied to Asia (see the constant flood of orientalist articles about Japan on HN).
- countryqt30 10y agoAlso a very cool read for a Swiss guy (Zurich) who moved to Beijing :D.
- xeed 10y agoAny mirrors?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sasvari 10y agoit works for me, but you can access the content also via google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fkops.uni-konstanz.de%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F123456789%2F35697%2FZhang_0-349300.pdf&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fkops.uni-konstanz.de%2Fbitstream%2Fhandle%2F123456789%2F35697%2FZhang_0-349300.pdf&gs_l=serp.3...7133.8378.0.8607.6.6.0.0.0.0.66.225.5.5.0....1...1c.1.64.psy-ab..1.0.0.irVMbpPfhzo&pbx=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sclient=psy-ab&...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- zaloi8 10y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20161022193854/https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/bitstream/handle/123456789/35697/Zhang_0-349300.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20161022193854/https://kops.uni-...
- jimmywanger 10y agoIt's hard to start from scratch in a language. Chinese and German share virtually no roots. For instance, if an English speaker started a PhD program in German, he can probably figure out some stuff since there are a lot of cognates and the writing system is similar. Sure, you'll sound like a sedated five year old, but you can figure out where stuff is in stores and how to ask for things, and grammatically you'll be in the same zip code. Coming from Chinese, you really are starting from nothing. You're doing a lot of memorizing, not only of vocabulary but word order.
- bad_alloc 10y agoEspecially if you pursue a degree in a technical field, German quickly gets wierd. You encounter a lot of long, composite words ("Doppelkupplungsgetriebe" or "Motorsteuerungseinheit") for which the language is already famous for. Then there also are old terms like "Krampe", "Tülle" or "Flansch" (staple, sleeve and a widened section of a pipe), which are just standing terms for a certain part but are absolutely nonobvious and hard to find in dictionaries. I'm a native German speaker and only recently learned about Tüllen. Add regional dialects to that which often contain grammatical shifts and even more obscure synonyms for high German words and you'll get a lot of cunfused foreign students.
- maxerickson 10y ago"Krampe" and "Flansch" look a lot like crimp and flange to me. If I've understood "Krampe" correctly, crimp is a better word than staple.
- Leon 10y agoGood call on crimp / krampe, I was trying to identify the origin by phonetics on that one. Using krampe as a noun for the action of what something does or have happen to it sounds like a German language thing to do.
- maxerickson 10y ago
- wslh 10y agoAre there good resources for learning how to culturally communicate with customers from different cultures? Even reddit groups where we can participate. I am not talking about speaking multiple languages but being multicultural. Since 2003, I have been working directly with customers from more than 30 countries but there are cases when I am stuck at the project requirements phase in an already sold service. For example, I am talking with a customer in Malaysia to do something that seems almost impossible because of regulatory issues. He understands the difficulty but it seems like he cannot engage in a logical discussion about this and definitely change his idea. In a way he respects me but thinks I can do some magic to overcome regulatory issues with software only. If I were talking with a typical American customer he would realize that the problem doesn't have a solution earlier on and would try to reformulate the requirements. BTW, any recommendation will be helpful!
- paradite 10y agoThis is quite off-topic, but one logical and appropriate thing to do is approach a consultancy firm in Malaysia that specialize in business development/regulation/IT to learn how to talk in their "native language".
- wslh 10y agoYes thanks. I am not doing exactly this but contacting an American who is well versed in Malayan culture, language, and has studied there. Beyond this, I think it is interesting to fomalize cultural differences to learn how to handle these situations.
- gohrt 10y agoMaybe he assumes you can ignore or bribe your way through regulatory issues?
- tormeh 10y agoI think the key to multicultural communication is to drop assumptions. There's a lot of things in our native culture that we take for granted that's not applicable elsewhere. That's alright; it would be exhausting otherwise. Elsewhere we assume that people are more dissimilar than they are. You know the saying "strong opinions loosely held"? My advice in the general case is to assume that everyone's like you are (humans are really similar), but to drop assumptions at the slightest sign that they might be untrue. "They" eat, sleep and fuck (the last one varies on an individual but not a cultural basis). That's all you know. Anything else is an assumption that you should be ready to drop. For example: If you're eating dinner with them and they start taking food from your plate, then your new assumption is that that's normal. In that example the opposite case is harder to deal with: You start eating of their plates and after 2 minutes you realize that no one else does the same and they're all looking at you weirdly. You can mitigate this by trying to err on the side of timidness in all matters until you see what "they" do. You've worked up a lot of confidence during you adult life because you understand how society works and you've stopped making an ass of yourself regularly like in your teens; forget that - you're back to square one. Reading up on the culture is obviously of great help. I think The Economist has a series of podcasts called "Doing business in [city]" which deal with these kinds of things as well as airports and all that shit. In your specific case you're obviously having communication problem, as you say. I'd suggest finding a way to communicate one-on-one where there's little chance of either of you losing face or being embarrassed by having your conversation shown to others. Lots of great diplomacy have been done in bathroom stalls. Anything that leaves a paper trail is a no-no. Video chat might work, but only if they assume you're not recording. I don't know about Malaysia, but in many south-east Asian cultures people are very concerned about losing face, looking dumb or even admitting that there's something they don't know. It also means that they can see that you're not lying to please an observing third party. Once you've found that venue you need to make it clear to them that the two of you are having a communication problem, and that you need to talk about it. Maybe they are assuming that you can get around the law in the US because the law can be circumvented in Malaysia? I don't know, check corruption stats for Malaysia, but that's what it sounds like to me. In many south-east Asian cultures people also speak very indirectly, so he might be well aware that you can't solve the problem with software, but he's kind of asking that you do it anyway in a wink-wink kind of way. Similarly, you saying it's impossible could have been interpreted as you being unwilling, not unable, to do it. Maybe he even thinks that you want something extra to skirt the law and you're now the unwitting part of an incredibly discreet price negotiation. The possibilities are endless.
- zhemao 10y agoI find it kind of funny that a guide for Chinese and German academics is written in Chinese and English. Is there even a German translation of this, or did the authors just assume that German academics are all proficient in English anyways?
- vazamb 10y agoI have yet to meet a professor that is not at least able to read English fluently. Their pronunciation might be terrible but they can at least understand.
- zhemao 10y agoAlso the guide on German cultural expectations for Chinese is pretty hilarious. The thing about always making appointments and staying in queues is very different from how it is in China. Also, do Germans seriously need to separate out green glass, clear glass, and brown glass bottles? Do Germans need to keep 7+ bins in their homes as well, or do they just separate it out later?
- GavinMcG 10y agoWhen I was an exchange student we had 5 bins. Most of the glass (beer bottles, of course) you'd be returning for a deposit.
- germanier 10y agoThe queue paragraph was interesting because that is one thing we Germans don't do very well compared to other countries. But yes, there are separate containers on the street for brown, clear, and other glass (not to mention the deposit you pay for certain bottles that you get back when returning them to the store). Seven different bins might be a bit much but every one I know has separate bins for packaging, paper, bio waste, and non-recyclable waste in their home (that's not something you want to separate later on) – these are the ones that are collected separately by the garbage collection service. The rest (like bottles and batteries) usually gets no extra bin.
- 10y ago
- theparanoid 10y agoThe fallacy of sunk cost - "the result of his careful consideration was that he could never give up, because he had already invested too much." Ming should have quit. An instructive example is the Chinese physics PhD student who exploited the system for his own benefit, http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science.
- sliverstorm 10y agoYou could read that part different ways- if some of his "investment" was allowing other doors to close (such as becoming a salaryman), then truly, he has "invested" too much to turn back.
- rahrahrah 10y ago> It seems to be a norm for Chinese students to “report only the good news but not the bad news” when they talk to their supervisors, as reporting bad news could be seen as complaining. In Germany, reporting bad news is as important as reporting good ones. Yup, I've seen this.
- alecco 10y agoThat's for Asians in general. But it's creeping into US with the Smile-or-die push everywhere.
- internaut 10y ago> But it's creeping into US with the Smile-or-die push everywhere. Including Hacker News. "Speak the truth to power!" "Oh, and be polite." ... Then it comes to the point you don't know if anybody agrees with you or not because they're being so coy.
- karyon 10y agoI don't see how speaking the truth and being polite could ever rule each other out. In fact, HN is the one place where i've seen the phrase "I disagree" the most often. Not because people are so disagreeable, but because they openly, and politely, state their disagreement if there is any.
- internaut 10y ago> I don't see how speaking the truth and being polite could ever rule each other out. Saying something negative or critical can be interpreted as being being impolite. It happens all the time. There is a spectrum of civility and we're ascending that spectrum towards political correctness, not away from it. How I know this is: If you articulate your premise, don't use abusive language, but still are attacked for taking a bite out of something, then there is a bias. This is natural. I have it. You have it. We all have it. The social world is in constant conflict with reality. In fact it seems like some kind of game for people to increasingly be in denial of the extremely obvious so they can score points and be social climbers. The result is a world where you have to have Straussian interpretations of everyday speech. > In fact, HN is the one place where i've seen the phrase "I disagree" the most often. Not because people are so disagreeable, but because they openly, and politely, state their disagreement if there is any. I disagree! Well not quite. HN is better than most places where geeks gather to ponder thoughts. It is still heading in the wrong direction. This is a testable proposition. Make a list of five to ten statements, right now, that contravene majority held opinions. You don't have to agree with the statements and indeed you probably won't. Poll somebody to check if you're doing it right. Then post those statements on an active current thread on HN and see what happens. You are likely to find that tone policing goes way beyond merely preventing spam and maintaining some kind of civility.
- gohrt 10y agoMay we assume that the Chinese side (how Chinese students get funded to go to Germany, etc) applies pretty well to Chinese students at other nations' universities as well?
- xoher 10y agoIt is mentioned in the first line that this is the second book in the series. Anybody knows where I can find the first book?
- raphman 10y agohttps://kops.uni-konstanz.de/handle/123456789/23719 https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/handle/123456789/23719 (Advice for (new) professors, only in German)
- reyherb 10y agoI am also a foreigner living in Konstanz, Germany. I've been here for the last 10 years and i can tell you out of experience the people around the Bodensee area (lake Constance) have a complete different mentality compared to those living in larger cities like Frankfurt, Munich, Hamburg, Köln or even Berlin. -One thing i know works very well in Germany is that you need to learn their language and culture. Try to understand how these people think and why they think like that. That will make your life easier. -As foreigners we also want meet and mingle with our own kind. And that's okey because it's the best way to beat homesick. However, sometimes it's also recommendable to mingle with other foreigners from other countries. Find out what works for them. At the university for example, you could find such English speaking people like the Americans, UK citizens and even established Africans living and working in that area. -Also, thankfully there are 'meetups' nowadays. You are able to meet and connect with local and international people with different professional backgrounds
- LeanderK 10y agowhat i never understood is why learning the language and culture is not the immediate #1 priority, i think its the only way to really integrate and prosper in an foreign country. Of course there are more pressing issues (getting a place to sleep, get to know you working environment and responsibilities), but i would dedicate every second i can to practice the language and understand the culture (not in the academic sense).
- wsy 10y agoIt seems so, but in Germany it is not #1 priority. In my research lab in Germany, we were PhD students from about 15 countries, and the work language was English. This is very common for science and engineering research. So a student from China can either spend time learning German to improve his/her social life, or spend time reading and writing in English to achieve better academic results. Usually it is difficult enough for them to become fluent in English, which is necessary to publish papers. Guess what happens.
- nshm 10y agoThe language of this book looks like it is targeted to a mid-school teenager. Not sure about German students, but I would expect someone with masters degree to know a lot more than this. At least a guy should be familiar with German history/culture/philosophy/literature.