9 ms·

One of my most important suggestions to Asian (Indian and Chinese in particular) students is to expand your horizons both professionally and personally. You are

• xiaoma 10y ago
  Yes, 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 ago
  Not 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 ago
      But 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 ago
        This 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 ago
          No. A lot of us seek to immerse in a different culture by studying in a foreign country.
        • zhemao 10y ago
          Yeah, citation definitely needed. One of these groups is emigrating to places far from home in large numbers. The other is not.
        • imron 10y ago
          Go 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 ago
            Many 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 ago
    Anecdotally, 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 ago
      It 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 ago
        Former 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 ago
          Having 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 ago
    A 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 ago
      How does being fair and blonde impede learning?
      • pedrosorio 10y ago
        Presumably, Italians are less likely to use Italian to communicate with "fair and blonde" women.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
• sotojuan 10y ago
  Heh, 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 ago
    Going 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 ago
  While 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 ago
      It'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 ago
      Your 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 ago
  My 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 ago
    Wow, such efficiency!
  • noobermin 10y ago
    Probably a culture thing, but social fit is more than getting a partner.
  • shostack 10y ago
    But 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 ago
  https://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 ago
    It'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 ago
  My 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 ago
  Just 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 ago
  Speaking 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 ago
  I'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 ago
  Wow, 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 ago
    I 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).