"Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.:
Perhaps there are people here who have experienced this themselves? Also, the fact that it's being upvoted is evidence it's of interest to the community.
Ok sure. But instead of that experience we just have a very generalized article with some wild statistic. 40% of foreign students have no close friends? Really?
It's a garbage article that somebody is posting for up votes.
For me it touches on some things I experienced in college/grad school. Moreover the idea of "adjustment fatigue" is an interesting idea, and an interesting way to think about interactions you have with people from different cultural backgrounds. Do you only work with people from your exact cultural background? I don't, so I find these things interesting. Especially working in open source I often run into situations where friction is caused by cultural misunderstanding.
Sure, so how about a good article about it instead of this QZ garbage? Did you even read the article?
Chinese student is used to always having one answer but in America there are ambiguous answers.
Saudi student has to be around women and work with women. But it's different in Saudi Arabia
Really? Oh wait I forgot I have to have a absolutely mind-blowing statistic. Like you won't even believe this statistic. Click here to find out what it is!
It's like a more lengthy clickbait article targeted toward people like us. But it's just clickbait. Read for substance.
Of course I read it, I literally used the term "adjustment fatigue" from the end of the article.
Yeah, the article is pretty thin, but it's an interesting topic that can promote an interesting conversation. If you don't like it, flag it and upvote something else or submit a better article.
I'm sorry, but none of your suggestions here are good solutions to this article problem. Speaking up and calling the article out, which is what I'm doing, is preferable.
""Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link. If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. (Not all users see flag links; there's a small karma threshold.)""
The story isn't spam, or off-topic. It's bad. It's a really bad story that isn't worth reading. People are allowed to post things that are really stupid. I am allowed to point that out. Hopefully to save other people some time.
"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link. If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. (Not all users see flag links; there's a small karma threshold.)"
You literally broke the HN guidelines here. I agree that the headline is misleading, but nonetheless it promotes interesting discussions that can bring more value than the article itself.
Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
It's not a great article, you're right. But you've made the thread worse by complaining about it in a way that... made the thread worse. We share your concern for the quality of HN, but it's also important to let go sometimes.
Didn't you get the memo? Anything that's anti-Trump, pro-immigration, or shows how repressed foreigners are in the U.S. must be relevant to hackers. Granted, this is one of the better articles of this nature.
This is an article pointing to the difficulties of culture hacking: i.e. assuming the culture of one that's non-native to you. As an American engineer working in an Asian country, it was interesting to me to hear about the difficulties in cultural adjustments going the other way. It was also interesting to read about the stories of other people whip have had similar experiences. Both give me ideas on how I can better bridge the cultural gap that I experience in my everyday life here.
It takes a lot of courage to put yourself in a strange environment, away from familiar comforts and friends and family, into the care of strangers, to learn about a million faults they have, and then learn to love them anyway, and, most importantly, to really allow the experience to change you.
As a former international student, the first year was incredibly lonely as I used to be a deep introvert. The article mentions some of the obstacles but perhaps one of biggest ones is being able to communicate well with Americans. I used to be incredibly anxious about buying groceries simply because I talked very fast English with a heavy accent. I could talk but not communicate; which means that I could convey facts, but I couldn't strike up a conversation with a stranger, or make a joke. I didn't understand American sarcasm and would be alarmed by some of the things Americans said. And this is despite me having pretty good knowledge of English; I can only imagine how hard it must be for Chinese/Korean etc. students.
The best thing that happened to me was to get an internship in a company where my team was composed mostly of Americans. I learned how to talk slower and more importantly, slowly understood sarcasm as well. Perhaps most Americans don't realize just how much of a shared culture is needed for immigrants to understand before they can communicate effectively.
in my experience the split has to do more with east/west cultures than nationalities. americans are friendly and like to joke around, be sarcastic, and not take things too seriously unless you are dealing with personal safety or a lot of money. if you aren't like that, you're going to have a really hard time.
for example, in the first couple of years, a spanish (from spain) person is going to do a lot better than a russian.
Reading this, it just clicked where the "brash american cowboy" stereo type comes from. I've wondered about that for the longest time. We tend to play loosey goosey until there's a "reason" to get serious.
> I didn't understand American sarcasm and would be alarmed by some of the things Americans said.
Funny enough, this is the second time I have stumbled across an expat noting the eccentricity of American humour. How it's hard to make friends because their jokes are .. different. I wonder wherein the difference lies.
> I could talk but not communicate; which means that I could convey facts, but I couldn't strike up a conversation with a stranger, or make a joke.
I was born here and went to a university with a large percentage of international students (the highest percentage in the US? At least at one point.). I'm extremely introverted and oddly found it easier to talk to international students than American ones. Maybe they could tell that I was as uncomfortable as they were.
> I can only imagine how hard it must be for Chinese/Korean etc. students.
In the experience of some of my friends, it took them 4+ years (they finished their undergrad and started grad school) before they started talking to non-Chinese/Korean students. Though it's possible the science/math kids aren't a representative sample.
The political correctness statement is so spot on. I still struggle with that till now. People just don't want to talk about certain issues here it seems; a stark contrast to europeans
Political correctness was mentioned in the article:
> Typical campus discourse is often a minefield for newcomers, said a Norwegian student. “I find that Americans are generally very politically correct, and as a European, I think I’m used to being blunter and saying things right out. ..."
Politeness too. There are some cultures which are extremely blunt, no diplomacy or being indirect. For instance just going into a meeting and saying that someone's idea is dumb and they should do it X way instead. Most americans I know perceive this as "being a dick", but this is pretty normal discourse where they come from.
Questioning liberal ideas in a liberal place; try asking a question about anything related to gender, "born this way" narratives, third wave feminism, and you will be called a bigot.
I'm not even talking about making an assertion here; asking a question about these politics sparks huge responses in people.
I am a radical leftist and I have my complaints about gender identity politics and third wave feminism. I think you're confident about the world as you consider it to be, rather than how it actually is.
You're being super vague so I cannot give a good response. If you treat people as people, assume good faith, and ask genuine questions you'll be treated just fine.
I rarely find people on the conservative side of the political spectrum are actually interested in doing that, because they don't act like they think of gender non-conforming people as people. They might, but they certainly don't act that way. I'm gratified where I'm proven wrong, but such people are few and far between.
You expect to be proven wrong, which means you put the burden of proof on them, which combined with miscellaneous linguistic and cultural barriers might make foreigners seem more sexist than they really are.
>Asking an American how much they earn or how much they paid for something can be perceived as rude.
American here. Really? I agree about the first part (how much you earn), but not the second. Lots of people like to brag about how they scored a great bargain on something, or complain about how something cost too much. But it really depends on a lot of things: what it is, what your relationship to the other person is, etc. You wouldn't just ask some stranger on the street how much their phone costs, for instance.
> Lots of people like to brag about how they scored a great bargain on something
But if I ask how much they paid for something, and it was not a bargain, will they feel bad? Like I'm mocking them for their poor haggling skills or something?
I don't have a lot of experience with Americans. It's just something I heard from my English teacher.
It really depends on a lot of things. And obviously there's a big difference between asking someone, and them volunteering the information to you.
I wouldn't ask someone how much they paid for a car, for instance: it's a big-ticket item, and strangely enough it's still haggled over in this country even though most things are fixed-price. Same goes for a house. But something small, I might. Retail goods are usually about the same price everywhere, unless there was a sale or someone took advantage of some kind of promotion, so it's not like the price they likely paid is a big secret. If I want to know the price of the latest iPhone, I can look it up. So you're not going to be exposing anyone's poor haggling skills by asking how much they paid for a (normally) fixed-price item. But yeah, I wouldn't ask how much they paid for a house or car.
Not exactly political correctness in left vs right meaning but, where I am from, you would say something like "I would kill him/you" causally and no one will think twice. That sort of thing tends to freak out Americans (I know cause I said it) who tend to take it much more seriously. For me, it was just causal expression.
Americans expect you to show a lot more enthusiasm then Europeans and if you don't show it, they will consider you rude and act towards you accordingly. Every single question is "good question" - it seemed to be rude to say that some of them are not good questions even to third parties in social setting.
On political correctness: in my culture, I know maybe one person who would identify herself as feminist publicly. You are expected to dislike feminism even when you are pro-equality. It seems to be the opposite in American liberal campuses (tho radical feminism seems to be waaay more aggressive then anything I know in here). Moreover, what Americans consider "too revealing" seems "perfectly normal" to me. I have seen American boys react in surprising way toward girls that wore mini skirts that were short, but still within normal range to me.
So, if you want example of political correctness, people from here might consider it perfectly normal to blame feminity when woman does something stupid or just makes them angry - that definitely wont fly in many American groups. That does not necessary means the person who said it is sexist, I would even say actual sexist tend to be more careful over what they say in my experience. Nevertheless, American liberals would not accept such thing at all.
> people from here might consider it perfectly normal to blame feminity when woman does something stupid or just makes them angry [...] That does not necessary means the person who said it is sexist
I am going to be descriptive here. Non-judgemental. But: that... is sexist. By definition. It perpetuates the idea that "being a woman" is a thing that can be blamed for an action. Continuing to talk in that way perpetuates sexism.
> You are expected to dislike feminism even when you are pro-equality.
Again, this is structural/cultural sexism. You might not want to hear that, and you might not think it's a problem, but that's what it is. So when you enter a place where the culture is not accepting of that sexism, I don't know why you should expect not to have backlash if you continue to act like that.
I mostly wanted to distinguish "saying those things as verbal salad" from "really assuming girls are like that and/or raising girls to be like that". Kind of like with the "killed him" thing - the person saying the words does not really think about killing. As in, the person saying it would treat me equally while different more polite person might not say it out of politeness, but will treat me like the stereotype. The latter kind exist and is the bigger threat to me.
I am not saying that our culture does not have elements of sexism in it.
> Perhaps most Americans don't realize just how much of a shared culture is needed for immigrants to understand before they can communicate effectively.
I would also like to add to that: The fact that we have a culture. (That's often underplayed to seem "fair" to other cultures)
> I didn't understand American sarcasm and would be alarmed by some of the things Americans said.
Whoah. You just blew my mind. I didn't realize things like jokes and sarcasm could be a barrier for someone who technically understands otherwise understands English.
From the other side of the spectrum, while not American but being raised American, I have a sense of humor that's strongly sarcastic. It alienates me from non-native english speakers in my workplace.
This is spot on to me as well, apart from the internship. It didn't help that I don't socialize more. Public speaking was a nightmare which I thought I was speaking well but complete blank stare from the audience just added to my anxiety. To be honest, social media (reddit etc) has slowly helped me understand the culture and I like to think that I can atleast decently communicate now.
When I came to the US as an international student, I was basically invited to some event by the local church that they hold for all new international students. It was like a booster board to make new friends. It was incredibly helpful. Though I eventually stopped going since I am not religious and just make my own friends elsewhere over time.
It is the same for almost anybody studying in a foreign country. It takes a fairly high level of self-confidence to really put yourself out there and cultural/linguistic differences can be confusing to navigate. I myself have studied in 3 foreign countries and can say that it requires a lot of effort to make local friends.
Follow the source link and you find that 40% have no close American friends, which is different from "friends on campus". I checked the source looking for a baseline (how many domestic students have no close friends) and discovered that it was specifically about international students making friends with Americans.
> "Nearly 40 percent of the survey respondents had no close American friends and would have liked more meaningful interaction with people born here"
This is a very different result - still important, but the corrected stat and the free-response listed in the source make clear that we're looking at a different question than simple loneliness.
edit: The HN headline has been updated, which is great news. Now if only Quartz could meet the same standards...
Yeah, that's a totally different statement, with utterly different implications. To be honest, I'm impressed that 60% do have American friends... that's a pretty solid majority.
The data is highly distorted by a large fraction of foreign students being Canadians. "Hey guys lets watch hockey tonight" and a fondness for maple syrup in the cafeteria isn't a major cultural road bump, compared to say a dude fresh out of Saudi Arabia who barely speaks English.
Also the study carefully avoids discussing the stats for the Americans so there's no useful comparison (intentionally?). Is that the same ratio? I wouldn't be shocked. I took some weekend/night classes and those folks are samurai with lives outside class and barely enough time for assignments and homework and existing social relationships, so in those classes I would not be surprised to see 90%-plus of students having no student friends at all. When I was finishing up my degree a couple decades ago I had a wife and kids and a house and a full time job and zero interest in going to a kegger with some kids almost young enough to be my own kids, and after a full days work and a four hour lab and having to go to work early the next morning there's no way I could stay awake for a kegger anyway.
I also took some specialty classes at a tech college and their students have nothing at all to do with each other socially as near as I can tell. A nineteen year old kid living in moms basement, a 40 year old retired disabled army vet living in a house, and a 30 year old single mom working three jobs and living in an apartment walk into a bar together sounds like the start of a joke but it was pretty accurate description of tech school. Socializing with classmates seems to be a purely 18-22 residential/dorm/greek thing. And thats still a lot of kids... but gotta be realistic, its maybe only 3/4 of total students, maybe even less.
I am so old that I know that inserting a 21 year old legal drinking age in the middle of the prime college socializing years of 18-22 must have quite an effect. That must be very weird for foreign kids from countries without drinking age hangups. What I have had a beer with my pizza for two years now back home what do you mean that I go to jail? What I am here in your country illegally and everyone thinks thats great and its illegal to kick me out but I want un cerveza after class and they act like I am felon? Crazy americans... crazy americans.
>I also took some specialty classes at a tech college and their students have nothing at all to do with each other socially as near as I can tell. A nineteen year old kid living in moms basement, a 40 year old retired disabled army vet living in a house, and a 30 year old single mom working three jobs and living in an apartment walk into a bar together sounds like the start of a joke but it was pretty accurate description of tech school. Socializing with classmates seems to be a purely 18-22 residential/dorm/greek thing. And thats still a lot of kids... but gotta be realistic, its maybe only 3/4 of total students, maybe even less.
Sooooo true. It's become, for all intents and purposes, a series of parallel universes that just happen to occupy the same space.
This completely invalidates the headline! Go study in Japan or anywhere, and you will see that foreign students mostly hang out with each other. Certainly their close friends will be fellow foreign students. This is mostly because local students already have an established friend group.
Besides, many are on short exchange programmes. How close friends can you really become during a 1-2 year exchange? How many of those 40% had just arrived on the last couple of months?
> This is mostly because local students already have an established friend group.
I don't think that's correct, at least outside small countries. I certainly didn't find it unusual when all my school friends went to different universities. Two others from my school were at the same place I was, but they weren't friends of mine.
My university was in London, and had a very large proportion of foreign students. Many of the Chinese students hung out together. The Europeans (including the British) and other westerners mixed together, divided more by interests and age than nationality. Some groups (South Asians, Japanese) mixed with some British students with similar ancestry.
I ran a social club for a couple of years. The students on short exchanges, like ERASMUS, seemed to make much more effort to join in with clubs, teams and societies, since they were only there for a few months.
I was thinking of students who go abroad after a couple of years. I suppose in the US and UK it is more common for foreign students to start from the beginning with the locals.
As for socializing with people from your own country vs. locals and others, I observed two factors:
1) If you are from a big country, it's easier to stay with your own countrymen. If you are from Belgium or something, you have to find friends from other countries.
2) International students motivation tends to vary between adventure/experience and opportunity/academics. Those who are abroad for the experience are more motivated to get out and meet different people. This is largely orthogonal with introversion/extroversion. But, students from rich countries more often moved for the experience, as the opportunities were similar back home. Students from poorer countries are more often motivated to get a better education and future opportunities, and may have more pressure from home to focus on their studies.
> If you are from Belgium or something, you have to find friends from other countries.
But country boundaries are not the only cultural divisions, and national/international is not a simple dichotomy. Belgians in the US might hang out with other Western Europeans but continue to spurn Americans.
In general, I've found that people will not invest as much in a friendship given an upfront, known shelf life (duration of grad school, year abroad, etc.) unless they are bound by a similar constraint. How often does chatting with someone on a plane lead to a life-long friendship?
This is true for a lot more than friendships. It's less rational than I think you try to give it credit for in your last sentence.
How long were you at your last job? Let's say you spent 3 years and 2 months there. Let's make an assumption and say that your time there was a positive one for your colleagues, and that you left with no animosity and—specifically—no animosity about the timing or circumstances of your departure.
Now let's suppose, though, that you walked in on your first day knowing that you would end up spending 3 years and 2 months there, down to the date of your departure, and during introductions you let your colleagues (including management) know about the limit on your time there. Let's call this version of you You'.
The way this would play out is that You' could make the exact same moves as you in every situation, and yet will be given much fewer opportunities and find much smaller success, despite there being no difference between you and You', save for this small discrepancy. As a result, your colleagues and the company will end up getting much less value from You' than they get from you.
People are bad at maximizing the resources available to them.
This definitely seems true. Although, it seems that a shared experience of a known duration can create a stronger bond. Lots of people make strong friendships during specific time-bound periods (high school, college, military tour).
I think there's an omission in your argument. The reasonableness of not forming a friendship given limited time constraints is based on time being a limited resource, e.g. it'd be better to spend time on other friendships. In your argument, you didn't analyze whether the time saved by not befriending You' was "better" spent reinforcing other friendships or whatever else. The company may have received less value from You', but the rest of the team may have increased their own value by forming stronger friendships. It's not necessary that this will be the case, but it's a non-trivial assumption to make that befriending "you" is the best allocation of resources. It all depends on the shape of the friendship-strengthening-to-company-value function.
I teach at a midwest college and I worry about my international students. Some of them do great but too many of them struggle and I don't have the skills or even the time to help them. I try to make sure that they get mixed into groups with the students from the USA in the hopes of encouraging the creation of friendships but I often feel like the university is just taking their international tuition and not doing enough to help them.
Thank you. As a former international student, I really appreciated the efforts that were made by our faculty to help us integrate. Many of the friends I made, both from the US and from other countries were from the informal events and clubs that the faculty organized outside of class hours.
As a foreign student, thank you. Among close American friends, some of them were acquired through my class projects. Although it might not be the most effective channel, it definitely makes a difference.
I think the best the school could do is to make the students stay in dorms with shared rooms when they come to study. Roommates, in my anecdotal experience, are among the best channels to acquire friends. If the school doesn't have the policy in the first place, then perhaps there is little that anyone could do to help, if the students don't make it a priority.
Exactly. Close friends? I'd guess it's at least 20-25%.
College can be a weird place. Personally I had a lot of people I hung out with for a semester or two, but nobody I liked enough to truly be friends with.
Before I got into software development I worked for a South Korean company that helped high-level students get into American and Canadian universities.
The single biggest source of stress for myself and the other westerners working there is that the administration's (and the parents'!) only goal was to get these kids into a school, and absolutely no thought was given to acclimating them to a different culture or teaching them the skills they would need to thrive in a very different educational system and social climate.
We (the foreign teachers) would try to sneak cultural lessons in and hold extra classes about how to join campus organizations and social clubs, and we'd always get in trouble with the management because "it wasn't important".
There's a very real sense in East Asia that once you get into an American university that you'll become successful, but some of the brightest kids are coming back to their home countries with a 2.7GPA, a memory of crushing loneliness, and many tens of thousands of dollars wasted. It's a solvable problem that no one is really interested in even examining.
I'd say many expat europeans or americans in Asia (Shangai, south korea) don't make any effort in making close native friends. Many of them prefer to hang out with people from their own country, or other western people. Only a few think about "acclimating to a different culture or learn new skills they would need to thrive in a very different educational system and social climate".
That's very true, but you're talking about a totally different thing here. There's a big difference between an (ostensibly) self-reliant adult looking for work/adventure/cheap booze and a kid fresh out of high school tossed into a totally different world and expected to "become successful" with little to no guidance.
* It was incredibly easy to meet other foreigners, and not necessarily westerners, far from that actually. I now have genuine friends on every continent.
* Since you're on the same boat, you can relate. Given how unique the work and life environment can be, it's nice to be able to talk with people who'll understand you.
* Making native friends isn't easy, even when you're making real efforts.
I don't have an unlimited amount of energy I can put into socializing, so after a short while I stopped trying too hard. Even the Korean friends I made before my move weren't too interested in hanging out once I lived there.
I think his comparison is perfectly valid. It's not one of East Asian vs US culture; it's one of coming from one culture to living in a very different one.
He's discussing the same situation mentioned in the article, but in reverse.
"Salad bowl" was a trendy metaphor in the 90s for the United States, which is much more in line with "mosaic." Personally I find mosaic to be a more term.
The problem with "melting pot" was that in melting everything becomes indistinct and bland, where as in a salad bowl, the pieces remain distinct but work together as a whole to make enhance the entire salad.
But is assimilation (i.e., the melting pot) as it relates language, culture and values still expected of immigrants in the US to the same degree as it used to be?
Honestly, I don't know. I know what I want to be true, and I know what I see in my own experience, but I don't know if it is nationally true.
I live in Silicon Valley and am married to an immigrant, and live next door to a house where I don't believe everyone that lives in it speaks English. Meanwhile, a man that ran on a campaign on explicit xenophobia and implicit white nationalism is now president.
In my world, it's not. I mean a common language is just a pragmatic thing. After all, you're not going to move up the economic ladder without knowing the lingua franca. I certainly wouldn't expect to have the job I have now in say Korea, because I can't speak or read Korean.
My family has gone to Dia De Los Muertos events, and no one in our family has any ties to Mexico. At the same time, I grew up in the rural midwest where one of the biggest regional events was Fiesta Italiana, and there aren't any Italian immigrants left, and the people left with Italian surnames don't know anything more about Italy or Italian culture than I do.
Most people live in the cities, and deal with immigrants and foreign cultures on a daily basis. The people that live in the rural area don't, and they're the ones that elected him. So who says who's right?
Ah, OK, I think I see your original point: the US isn't as culturally homogeneous as East Asian nations.
While I think that's true, I still think the original point that OP made was valid: you're going from a culture that you're very very used to, into one that's radically different. I think that comparison is still valid in this context. Unless there's another layer to your statement that I'm not seeing...?
I wonder how much it comes from the culture in Korea. I've been living in Tokyo for 3 years, and although I never to the university here, I my observations in the country are that:
* Korean people tend to stick together and don't mix much with other nationalities
* Chinese people integrate so well that their Japanese friends and acquaintances barely notice they are not Japanese. And as they are not afraid to speak in English they're able to make English speaking friends too.
* Unless they had some exposure to western countries, many Japanese people tend to be superficially friendly due to keeping their public persona separated from their true feelings (the 2 concepts of tatemae vs honne). And this not specific to making international friends, as they have themselves the same difficulty making Japanese true friends.
* English speaking foreigners tend to hang out together or with English speaking Japanese people, unless they're introduced through a friend to Japanese people who can't speak English.
I would say because Japanese takes so much of Chinese in terms of their writing system and numbers, the Chinese have a running start. Sure, it may be considered basic Kanji to the Japanese, but arriving to Japan and knowing immediately 2000 (or so, I don't have an exact number, I made it up.) of the basic Kanji is key to survival -- all you need to pick up then is the grammar rules and hiragana/katakana which are just 72 chars each so 144 total.
I, myself have fallen into the English foreigner trap. It's exhausting to make Japanese friends, that in the end you really don't get anywhere with, casually.
I've gravitated towards existing hobbies, and soon will enter a bekka. I still want to blame my non-existing Japanese for my lack of true Japanese friends.
A great deal of that is probably the tension between the two countries - Koreans tend to feel it far more personally (they were the ones invaded, after all). Having lived in Seoul for the same amount of time I'd say the same thing, only about Japanese. I'd say you're on the money about Chinese folks, though. Chinese people bring the party with them, for sure.
Koreans have a saying about their neighbors:
"The Chinese love you rudely. The Japanese hate you politely."
As an American in Beijing, I didn't know many other Americans. True, I hanged out with foreigners (westerners, non-Chinese Asians, and Taiwanese who were basically considered foreigners), but I also hanged out with Chinese, heck, my whole team at work was Chinese with only me as the foreigner.
When I was studying Chinese in PKU, it was similar. Part of the problem was that the university wasn't really setup to mix foreigners with Chinese students: we were studying at PKU, but using very different facilities. Of course, if you made an effort, you made friends, some of which I have today (incidentally, almost all of them went abroad to the USA as PKU undergrads tend to do).
That's cause most of them have an Asian fetish. They don't really care about the culture or language, just the women. Don't believe me? Go to any bar in Asia and tell me what you see.
Not absorb American culture seems like a gross mischaracterization. It's not so much not absorbing (which is a losing battle unless you cloister yourself off), as much as not forgetting or not passing on parts of your own culture.
I assume much of this is due to language or cultural barriers, even if it's mostly perceived and not a legitimate barrier. Not surprising that most foreign students congregate with one another, but they're missing out on part of the experience of studying abroad surely. This goes both ways BTW, US students studying abroad in many countries experience the same thing as well.
I spent a year in US as a foreign student. From my previous experiences (internships in UK and Germany), I knew it would be difficult to make friends with "locals". In UK, I was in a dorm during the summer with a private room, shared bathroom and kitchen. Most people were eating in their room. I finally made friend with one british guy as he was cooking. He told me later he didn't think he would make friends during the short summer session, even less with a foreigner. His girlfriend owned a pub, I had a great summer!
In the US, I didn't realize it would be even more difficult because 90% of the students in MS are foreigners in the college I attended. Anyway, I decided that the best way to make American friends was to be with them all day long. I joined a fraternity on campus.
This was not easy. Most fraternities never had a foreign student, except the one I was accepted in. Because my english was not great, I focused all my time on 1 fraternity to increase my chances of being accepted. I was the only foreigner in all fraternities this week.
It was not always easy, but it was worth it. I joined while doing my MS, all my brothers where freshmen. We had very different work load and about 4-year difference. But I did make friends with all of them. I spent Christmas with one of my friend's family (I didn't leave the US for winter break). It was a great experience.
I'm rather an introvert. But when you travel in a foreign country, you have to talk to strangers all the time. Expectations are also lower when you don't master the language fully. You have to be very direct and explicit in your communications.
> In UK, I was in a dorm during the summer with a private room, shared bathroom and kitchen.
That's a shame. The kitchens were the most social spaces at my university. I think taking hot food into rooms was forbidden -- in any case, few did so.
I remember giving my views on plans for new dorms at my university, which were planned to use small kitchens shared between 4-6 students. I, and many others, objected -- they were replacing buildings with large kitchens, shared with 20 or more students. Much better for meeting people and making friends. It opened after I'd graduated, but judging by the pictures, the kitchens are for about 12-14 people, possibly more :-)
I was a foreign student, and I ended up assimilating by becoming friends with first gen Americans (children of immigrants). Once I got used to a handful of cultural norms (took about a year or two), it became easy to interact with Americans directly.
Today my closest friends are the ones I made in college.
When I was in college, circa 20 years ago, I studied Korean. (I had a friend growing up who was Korean, and he taught me swear words and such, and I figured if I ever got the chance to study I would.)
Anyway, I was 6 months into a language course that was heavily populated by US-born Korean students who were taking it for the easy A... I needed a tutor to keep up so I reached out to the teacher who introduced me to a few Korean exchange students.
They lived in their own apartment, not the dorms. They cooked their own food, didn't go to the cafeterias. Fast forward a bit, my fraternity had a charity event and I invited a few of them... was a casual invite, said something like, "Hey we're doing this thing, tell your friends!"
A week later at the charity concert like 60 Korean exchange students showed up. Every single one of them was dressed in a tux or evening gown. Totally classed up the place. Had no idea there were that many exchange students until that night.
And they were all really appreciative of the invite. Basically said no one had invited them to any events on campus before... I met some new folks, knew just enough Korean at that point to ingratiate myself and get invited out drinking after the event... and quickly realized I was playing checkers at a chess tournament when it came to drinking with Koreans. Ha.
Made some friends out of the deal, but it wouldn't have happened without everyone going outside of their comfort zone a bit.
I went to UC Berkeley in the 80's and I found it a sterile and unfriendly environment. Maybe it was me. I had one friend from all the classes I took. One. I had a lot friends from working in the CS department.
I think the reason was the hyper-competitiveness between students. It doesn't foster any sort of cooperation.
It's unbelievable impressive from my experience. I've only travelled and studied within Europe but I would say, foreign students pretty much never have close native friends. But then again in the US there is no language barrier.
Fwiw 10 years ago I was organizing weekly dance parties in a college town. 80% of our attendance was foreign students. Nightly I would have kids from all over the world profusiosly thanking me. The bulk of the complements were in one way another "thank you so much for putting this on I feel like I'm home. I don't get American culture but I get this." 10 years later I still have people coming up to me randomly thanking me saying they've stuck around because of friends they made.
In my limited experience I feel there's a real cultural mis-match with kids from other countries coming here to study. Most of the kids I met were from huge cities and the shock of being in a small college town was in many was too much for them. That and the greek system was overtly hostile to them.
On side a note it's humorous what many kids take back with them from their time in America. It's worth doing an image search of "American party" to see what I mean.
Well I'm speaking from experience and this in no way will apply across all schools or groups. As such I know of some great organizations which have great missions and members and do great work. That said at this particular university which was largely greek, the largest fraternities and sororities were the largest offenders of indoctrinated and systemic racism which had subsequently seeped into the school culture and administration as a whole. That school has had numerous national scandals as a direct result. The scandals are just the instances that get reported and they're just the tip of the iceberg. Daily life for the kids I knew was fraught with fear and apprehension. It's also one of the reasons why I think when we were doing our parties we had so many foreign kids come out and respond the way they did.
What part of the country was this? I find this hard to believe on the west coast or parts of the east coast (NYE/Boston). If you're talking the South or midwest then ok it makes sense.
When I was in school, international students had a week prior to orientation with their own orientation. They formed friend groups from this orientation, so it's not too surprising that they would stick to those friend groups rather than then branching out to the people they have less in common with the following weeks.
Yep. Through the orientation they are also introduced to organizations on campus that provide outings and other social activities specifically just for these people who happen to have nothing much in common besides being international students. It's kind of a weird idea, honestly: oh you're from Belarus, you're from Indonesia, and you're from Peru? Here are a bunch of activities you can all participate in for free or cheap, that are ostensibly mostly about exposing you to the local culture & attractions, but without having to interact with local students or other local people.
Further, students from some countries have the option of a critical mass of their compatriots to hang out with, which I'm sure is a tempting comfort to rely on. >30% and >15% of international students are from China and India respectively: http://www.iie.org/Services/Project-Atlas/United-States/Inte...
I wonder if they tried to normalise how different people and different cultures define what is meant by "close friends". I mean I'd probably say that I've made maybe 4 close friends in my entire life (5 if you count my wife), half of which I've lost contact with, without ever really feeling I'm lacking friends, acquaintances and people to hang out with.
What does close friends mean? A lot of relationships in the US are based on "activity" partners[0]. Someone to go out with, sharing a same hobby, passions etc. Close friends in other countries means a lot more than just activity partners.
I had the same experience in grad school, I only had "activity" partners, than what I would call close friendships with Americans. It always felt "distant". It's sadly true even today.
[0] I couldn't find the relevant article that discussed about this, specifically in the American context.
Yes the most American website ever is meetup.com go search the meetups in your area and at least 95% if not 100% are what you DO at work or when not at work, and almost none exist to BE someone or to hang out with an identity. The only identity groups will be like "something area singles group". I find it typically American that all americans aspire while not wanting to appear aspirational, so lots of americans want to start a business, but none would ever be caught dead at a meetup called "we want to start our businesses" or "we want to lose weight", americans can have "gym buddies" to hang out with cool bros but never "weight loss buddies" because that sounds very aspirational. Perhaps Americans are too pessimistic to be caught sounding that optimistic, I donno. Its a pity, you'd think meetup would be a good place for "I wanna learn (some technology)" but thats as unamerican as possible because its identifying as wanting to learn something as opposed to physically doing something, and even worse its aspirational.
Also it never fails to amuse me that they'll be about one hiking group per half million people in a metro area and they all claim they're the "real group" the "fun group" the only "active group". Something to do with Dunbar's number you just can't have 1000 americans work together they have to make smaller tribes and pretend the other tribes don't exist. All a bunch of foolishness. Sometimes I think meetup.com is all an elaborate stunt by some grad student gathering anthropological data about Dunbars number.
It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency:
Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace
Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed)
Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification)
Level 4: Can do all of the above passively, being able to pick up valuable information just by overhearing conversation without focused metal effort
Level 5: Ability to do all of the above in a noisy and hectic situation (like a party, sporting event, etc)
It's really, really hard to make good friends without getting to Level 4 or 5. I work with many people for whom English is a second language. At work they don't miss a beat and are great teammates. But it can fall apart in a social setting. Once there are 5 overlapping streams of conversation stuffed full of cultural references these coworkers of mine very frequently lose track of the conversation and become quieter and quieter over time.
I bet you'd find that this 40% number is much different for students studying abroad in a country where their native language is common. My US friends who moved to the UK or Australia had no problem making friends.
There's only so much you can learn from books and TV shows. One might have Shakespeare's vocabulary and mastered the intricacies of grammar, but there's no substitute for prolonged interaction with native speakers in achieving (near-)native proficiency in a language. Studying abroad is one of, if not the easiest way to get there.
I've met several people who have moved here to New Zealand specifically to learn better English. It's immensely difficult to learn another language when you have nobody to talk to. Reading and writing proficiency are easy, but the spoken component is just so difficult.
No amount of studying outside of the native environment will give you the skill level necessary to easily maintain social conversations once you're in it.
English is not my native language. However, I went to a school that had a specific emphasis on English: we had 5 hours of it per week in the first three grades, gradually ramping up to 6 in middle school and 7 in high school, and adding English literature on top of that. We wrote numerous essays, listened to recordings of native speakers, and spent a lot of time talking and listening to each other.
Then I went to study in a college in a country where English is a native language. I could read and write easily - better than natives in many cases, in fact (I'll never forget a rant that our elderly ethics teacher gave to me in private about how, based on the essays she was grading, only people with non-Anglo names could spell "its" vs "it's" right consistently). I could also speak fast while remaining perfectly understandable, and showing only a very subtle, hard-to-identify accent - that's where those hours of listening to tapes and talking with other students to polish pronunciation really paid off.
But for the life of me, I couldn't understand half of what people were saying. It was either too fast, or it was in an accent or dialect that was too unfamiliar to parse easily, or it was too casual (shortening or outright dropping many things that are always there in writing); and often, all of these at once. I had to ask people to slow down and repeat things - made all the more confusing because I spoke at a much faster pace (as I was taught to) than what I could follow.
It took about two months for everything to really click to the point where I could follow any conversation, and a lot longer than that before it stopped being a conscious mental effort.
By now I have probably spent 1000 hours learning (as part of a formal process), reading, listening, writing and speaking English. Probably a lot more, but let's go with that estimate. The actual language learning part was probably 20%, the rest was acquiring cultural references.
I'm trying to do the same for French, where I'm probably around level 2 or 3, and damn, I had forgotten how long it takes to "load the cart".
In my opinion, native speakers actually "become" "native" in a lesser degree because they were born to parents speaking that language and in a higher degree because they went through school in that language. All the basic lessons at school that everybody learns, all those initial social interactions, day in, day out, in the language they will use for the rest of the life.
It's a lot harder to squeeze those in later on, especially since the interlocutors become less and less accommodating.
Yes. This one of many reasons doing extensive reading of easy texts, children's stories and then later consuming TV and radio is so important. So many learners tend to take the approach of making a giant deck of flash cards or using an app like Duolingo and never get that much authentic input.
Going to school is probably the surest way to ensure that you do get all of the above, though it's not the only way. In the future, VR will give learners the quantity of practice and input that the world just doesn't have the patience to.
Also, massive amounts of conversation with natives. It turns out that most people are more than happy to talk about their childhood reminiscences with a foreigner, or explain the complicated rivalries between their home town and the next town over.
Most people love talking about themselves; as a foreigner, you are in some ways uniquely equipped to be a good listener. Wherever you go in the world, you'll find lonely people who are glad of the company.
I'm American, lived in Brazil for 8 years, became totally fluent in Portuguese, worked at a local company, etc.
After about 5 years, I realized that no matter how much vocabulary I learned, how perfect my grammar was, or how reduced my accent was -- I would never get the references to childhood cartoons, or any of another 1,000 things that came from growing up there. And it's actually crazy how much of casual conversation revolves around all these things.
And finally coming back to the States, it was all just so easy -- such a luxury to have a whole shared cultural history with people I'd hang out with, so many jokes to make, so much richness to the conversation. Social conversation felt "full" again.
That's what they never tell you when you learn a new language -- the language alone isn't enough.
Addition: the funny thing is, I have a lot of non-American friends who get all (or most) of the American cultural references, because so many of them revolve around TV/movies, and those are exported around the globe. So part of the American so-called "melting pot", I suspect, is helped by the worldwide ubiquity of our entertainment culture.
This is the reason I rent old videos of "Anpan man" (a Japanese cartoon for 2-4 year olds), etc. I learn karaoke from the 80's and 90's (and even enka!). But even still, after nearly a decade in Japan, most of my social connections are actually my wife's friends and family.
It is quite interesting, though. My biggest goal in learning Japanese was to make a friend who could not speak English. That's what led me down my path. I think without that focus, it would have been quite difficult. Also a bit strange that my first real Japanese friend was actually the person who became my wife. For the first 3 years, we spoke only Japanese, but now her English is so good that we hardly ever speak Japanese :-P
You sir have yellow fever (asian fetish), along with 90% of the white guys in Asia. You probably won't admit it though. But seriously, if you didn't like Japanese women would you really be studying Japanese back when you started?
It is interesting that it is so much easier to make friends with someone where they is sexual interaction (not necessarily actual sex right now - can be the possibility of sex in the future). It's not something conscious but the attraction/chemistry seem to smooth over the cultural and language barriers.
Source: my own life and similar anecdotes to yours.
I can relate to what you're saying. I'm American, born to English-speaking parents. But my father worked for the US State Department, and I spent almost the entirety of my childhood overseas. We moved from country to country (mostly SE Asia), and each location had its own unique challenges and delights.
But. The most difficult move for me, by far, was the one that took us back home to the states. Suddenly, and for the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people that all spoke a language I could understand. But I understood nothing of what they were saying! Every joke, every reference... I had no idea what anyone was talking about, and it was awful.
It took me many years to get to the point where I was able to at least recognise the references, even if I didn't experience the things referenced. I still feel like a foreigner most places I go.
I don't say this with any sadness or regret. I feel I gained more than I lost. I loved my childhood, and the lessons I learned. But some were more painful than others, and the lessons in the difference between linguistic and cultural fluency were some of the sharpest.
And the best way to learn, practice and improve for the last two levels is to get involved, which means the ones need more chances are more likely to be separated from the group and this is very discouraging. Instead, babies and toddlers generally get more patient guides. That's a more important reason for adult second language learners. The general solution I can think of is to have a private coach to help them learn with feedback and correction so that learners are more likely to catch the limited chances to begin to get involved with groups. High quality chat bot could be a more affordable option for most learners, if the bot is good enough, which I'm not familiar with.
Cultural norms, customs, and the fact that on many campuses, there are quite a number of foreigners, making it more difficult for the social scene to absorb.
US/UK and Australia are all basically the 'same culture' as far as people outside the Anglosphere is concerned.
> US/UK and Australia are all basically the 'same culture'
While indeed similar, a story on that: a friend at a high-end consulting firm here in Australia told of a US colleague who was over for a 6-month secondment. At the end of the visit, he apparently said "I wish I had known at the start that the people making fun of me probably liked me, and the people being perfectly polite probably didn't..."
> At the end of the visit, he apparently said "I wish I had known at the start that the people making fun of me probably liked me, and the people being perfectly polite probably didn't..."
That's not really a cultural difference. It's just basic social skills in America too.
Excuse the language, but Australia (Aussie/Kiwi here!) is where you call you friends "cunts" and your enemies "mate". So I can understand someone's confusion!
As an Australian living in the US it was probably odder: I'd make fun of people that I thought were friends... which probably drove them away; while I'd be polite to people I didn't like.
My spouse always said she had a problem that people thought she was being genuine when she was being sarcastic, and sarcastic when she was being genuine: she even got told off at work about it.
It's not just raw skill but fatigue from the mental exertion of using a foreign language all day. You take classes in a foreign language all day and it's very hard to spend the evening hours also exerting yourself linguistically. I can empathize with the desire to just take it easy using your native tongue after a long day of keeping up with academics in a non native language.
I think this is the case. When a relative of mine went to Germany as an exchange student she very much intended (as the program advises) to make a lot of non-English-speaking friends. But speaking German was effort for her in a way that speaking English isn't, and after awhile she naturally gravitated toward other English speakers when she was ready to relax.
that's pretty demeaning. there's certainly overlap, however that's mostly US TV and movies being exported, which also happens in other (non-English speaking) countries. but each has a distinctive culture, with different TV shows, music, artists, celebrities, politicians, words, lifestyles etc.
now, speaking english with ease does make it easier to pick up on the differences. but it still takes effort to engage with people. i've seen people from other countries integrate easily because they were either very socially aware or simply made the effort, regardless if they spoke the local language with ease. this happens in countries and with people that aren't the UK, US, or Australia or from there.
Calling the US, UK and Australia "identical cultures" is pretty bad, just because they all speak English? True, they share common history, but they also have so many other influences that they're quite different. E.g. Wales, a country in the UK, even has it's own language which is still taught in schools and used officially everywhere.
And it's also the reason why throwing an immigrant in English classes won't actually assimilate them. You can't teach Levels 4 and 5 without driven students and a welcoming populace.
Learning English in school is not the same as absorbing the culture, language, and social conventions in the real-world.
I know many people that knew flawless conversational English before immigrating but they were utterly baffled by some cultural conventions and turns of phrase not covered in class.
It's a bit of a catch-22 because you need a high level of interaction with native speakers to be able to get to Level 4/5, but it's intimidating and difficult to do so.
Most of the international students I've interacted that pushed through this were really, really social to begin with.
I'm not a social person by nature, but when I decided I wanted to learn Spansh, I had to go out of my way to talk to Spanish with people I didn't know. It was scary, embarrassing, and at times depressing, but my desire to learn the language overcame my fear of social embarrassment. I'm now trying to do the same thing with Portuguese.
There are ways to force interaction, but if the student doesn't understand how to learn or doesn't have the desire, then they'll never be able to comfortably speak with people. They don't have to be really social (it certainly helps), they just have to want it enough.
That may also be a result of how Erasmus programs are structured. At least here in Czech Republic, Erasmus students tend to take classes taught in English, not classes taken by local students, so they interact with many other exchange students but not with locals.
I would think it is even more extreme with Erasmus students.
My thoughts about this are:
Erasmus students stay for a very limited time- 1 or two semesters and leave then. Forming real friendships take longer.
I have only so much time to meet and catch up with friends. Taking away from that time to invest in short term relations is a problem.
Erasmus student have other priorities than "natives". First is partying, second is partying and maybe third is university. From my experience regular students do not have the time to go out partying that much resulting in different peer groups.
Similarly, I made a good number of friends who were international students by playing intramural soccer. I suppose you could say soccer is a common language.
'For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.' - H. L. Mencken
American society is massively socially segregated by race and class, more so than in many other countries. I can form friendships with people with zero language in common, but it took me several years in the US to build a community of American friends despite being a native English speaker and a highly literate one at that.
I've been using HN daily for about 8 years. There are about 5 usernames I recognize because I'm wowed by their knowledgable responses. Then there are about 5 usernames I recognize because I go wow, that guy is always an argumentative abrasive jerk. Yours is one of the 5 in the second category. Your need to include the Mencken quote is a small example of what pushes you down into that category. Perhaps the reason you find it difficult to make friends in the real world isn't race, class, segregation, or language, but personality. People who lead with positivity, and the expectation that will be able to make friends probably do a lot better at it.
American society is as good as it gets when it comes to inclusion. No other country, except maybe for Canada, had to deal with multiculturalism as much.
Humans are complicated social creatures by nature. There will always be cliques, competitiveness, the us against them mentality, etc. It's who we are. It's what got us here.
Interesting but they seem to be treating all cultures the same rather than weighting the relative differences between cultures. Papua New Guinea may have a lot of cultures, but they are a lot more similar than Indian and French cultures for example.
> No other country, except maybe for Canada, had to deal with multiculturalism as much.
There is a Christian majority country in the world that also has a ~15% Muslim minority, and it's not even particularly geographically confined. It's not US or Canada.
Curiously, it's also not a particularly inclusive country. Which just goes to show that multiculturalism doesn't necessarily translate to inclusiveness - it can also encourage silos.
That hasn't been true since 1917. There are plenty of citizens in Russia who hail from other religious or ethnic groups, and they aren't any worse for it in terms of political rights.
The difference is how it is handled. Russia is structured as a federal republic, in which some constituent entities are explicitly designated as national republics. Those have their own official state language (in addition to Russian on the federal level), their own regional constitutions and laws etc.
But it also means that for the titular ethnicity, when they're outside of such a regional republic, they can face an attitude of "we don't do these things here, and if you really want to, you can go back home and do them there". In other words, different cultures are siloed rather than amalgamated.
This is oversimplified, because there's still plenty of amalgamation in practice - it's inevitable when people live and work and intermarry. But it's definitely very distinct from e.g. Canadian multiculturalism.
That's actually the point the previous poster is trying to make. It's easy to have an inclusive society when everyone in that society is the same, and it's difficult to have one when there is so much cultural variation within it. One of the things that can be said for the U.S. is that it is fairly inclusive considering how diverse it is.
My decade of living in London suggests otherwise, on both the notion of inclusion and the claim that no other country has dealt so much with multiculturalism, which just sounds uninformed to me.
I'm not convinced that language is actually such an essential aspect. Cultural similarity seems like a much bigger one.
For example, I've seen Indians with great English struggle a lot more to fit in and acclimate than French students with poor English but more shared cultural touchstones. As an American, I've found it to be much easier to make friends with Europeans than with students from non-Western cultures—even after controlling for English levels.
I agree to this. As a Non western student I never had any American friends in Collage. After more than a decade living in the US I still don't have any. Primarily because I am introverted but culturally I care less about American sports and music (two big cultural domains).
Edit: Another important factor (at least during collage) is the financial one. As a student from a poor country I had far less financial resources to afford a life style that American students enjoy. For example, I couldn't afford to go out or have a Car.
> but culturally I care less about American sports and music
Culturally I do not even understand this fascination with sports; we watch football (soccer) when there is some worldcup on and our country is playing but besides that the whole highschool quarterback and rooting for your teams all seems like wasted time to me. That might be cultural.
But I always turned that into a strength when making friends. If most people do something like watch sports or listen to music I do not like, I find the people that do not; those will be a niche. But I do not seek them out in obvious places with all likeminded people; when I go to AUS or US (and certainly when I was younger and looking for (girl)friends more) I go to sports bars and or clubs (where they will play music I do not like); in those places there will be 1-2 people like me that were dragged along or went along with their friends and who will be bored. Those end up talking with me and sometimes become good friends (two American ex girlfriends and many good friends, some I still do business with like that).
I am American and could care less about football, it does limit a lot of guy relationships if you don't care about watching sports. Playing sports is so much fun though, and a way better way to meet people.
Yes, it is all taste etc; I like doing sports (I don't like ball sports, but that's just taste); weights/martial arts etc and I still make friends that way. But watching... I just don't understand it, but I won't argue it either; it's just not my taste. It does prevent a lot of interaction though as so many Americans & Australians are fanatical about supporting / watching and I just do not get it at all. I go to my own bar when the EK/WK (europe cup/world cup) are on but I just pass out in boredom after 10 minutes. It's just a matter of taste; I end up outside talking with spouses that came with others who cannot watch either. It's fine. It's opportunity; got permanent clients for my business like that more than once like that.
That's true. I couldn't care less about televised sports and professional athletes. Watching a game on T.V. feels like watching someone else's vacation videos. I'd rather get outside and do both activities myself.
That being the case, guy conversations that start out, "Hey, did you see the game last night?" typically end in awkward silence when I say, "No."
I'm a non-American native English speaker and "I could care less.." confused me until I had it explicitly explained to me. I took it as some kind of inversion of "I couldn't care less" which I had heard plenty. It still doesn't make any sense (if you could care less, it's implicit that you care to some degree, right..?) but at least I get it now.
you do know that many Americans don't focus heavily on American sports and music? As someone who was born in the USA and raised, I have zero interest in sports. Music, I have a fleeting interest due to it's global acceptance.
Financially, not all Americans are rich or come from 2 income households. Alot of 18yr olds+ celebrate independence by moving out, taking a crappy local job at a fast food or retail and still, make American friends.
Introvertness isn't an issue, did you actually try? There are so many clubs that allow anyone to join and be friends. From meetup.com to local bookclubs.
But, we're also forgetting the big issue. Being American isn't like most countries in the world where you're born into a homogenous society. If you've lived more than a decade in the USA, and are a citizen, congratulations! You're a citizen, if any of your friends who aren't native born but also become naturalized, congratulations they're Americans!
Of course, I, know nothing of your background, so the above is all assumptions.
But, I felt like having to write this, as I wrap up spending 6 months in Japan.
>After more than a decade living in the US I still don't have any. Primarily because I am introverted but culturally I care less about American sports and music (two big cultural domains).
I'm a white American guy. I don't give two shits about American sports (or any other sports for that matter). The very best you can do is talk me into watching hockey, maybe, but I haven't done that in years (and that's more of a Canadian sport anyway).
As for music, what kind? There is no "American music". People who like rap probably don't like country, and vice-versa, for example. Lots of Americans have zero interest in pop. When I was in college, I didn't like any of those three, only rock and metal. It did affect which friends I had at the time though. But rock and metal in particular aren't American, they're Western, as a lot of it comes from Europe and UK.
But yeah, it's kinda hard to keep a friend if you have nothing in common with them. And this doesn't just apply to relationships between people from different countries; even within the same country it makes it hard to find friends. Notice how divided rural and urban Americans are now, or how big the racial divide is between white and black people. And that's people who all grew up in America, speak the same language, etc. The cultural values are so different that they don't form many strong friendships across these boundaries.
I'd say that the cultural differences between Chinese and Japanese are easily as big as the cultural differences between Chinese and Americans or between Japanese and Americans. So, no they would not be hanging out between each other because of similarity of culture.
If it were the language barrier that was the issue then actually between Chinese and Japanese students while the spoken language is very different, they can sort of communicate between each other via writing.
It actually is but obviously varies from person to person and from one environment to other.
I am from Eastern Europe and did my degree in England. In the first year, I lived in university halls and out of 8 people in the flat (including me), 6 people were English. It was really really hard initially because I could understand only about half of what they were saying because of the accents, so it was hard to participate and much easier to just browse internet in my room.
However, I picked up the language really quickly since I was very often surrounded by native speakers so all was good at the end, just the initial couple of months were really tough.
Indeed. My experience as an Indian grad student in Seattle was a miserable one to say the least; now I think of Americans as pretentious jerks who spare no moment to talk about "diversity" & "equality" and all these things, when in reality they are biologically just as "racist" as the red-necks.
I realized after a while to understand that what people really meant (in practice) was only that they were against the public display of insult, that one ought to be treated with a modicum of politeness. After the pleasantries, most folk just ignored you as if you didn't exist (or would talk behind your back). Some folk stood out and were just outright obnoxious for no reason.
Oddly, I developed a dislike for meeting the same non-Indian people twice. Meh. I wasn't annoyed because of these differences - I do believe they're biological - but I wish the discourse was more rooted in reality, which would've led to me to make better choices. I may not like Trump supporters, but hey I think they're atleast being honest you know. I now think of liberals as being hypocrites who use words to break apart communities and atomize people (more true of India than the US - but that's another story).
This is not to say that Americans aren't decent people - that they are - but there is a lot of pretension in that society. India is by comparison more than tolerable on that metric (if you keep away from the Westernized lot).
Corporate America can be very friendly upfront and brutal to murderous once you're out of sight. It's not about race but position and how people decide to obtain and maintain it. In other situations they may not have spoken with you simply for lack of knowing what to talk about together. The first times a newcomer comes to any gathering they're usually quiet and less interacted with by the group. At least that's how I remember things going in school and gaming. Plus cities create their own brutishness over scarce resources.
About people being instantly friendly and then ignoring you later on, I've heard the exact same thing from french students in America. In France, people will generally be very polite upfront but not overly friendly. Friendship has to be build over time (nothing is valued more than decade-long friendships, it is the subject of many french movies). I think many other (western) European cultures are similar in that respect, so it might be an American thing (in the spirit "everything has to happen now or never").
This notion is simplistic and unsupported by the article. The article mentions nothing about language proficiency and plenty about cultural adjustment, specifically about how peers and teachers interact with one another. There is a lot more cultural overlap with UK and Australia.
I have spent years living abroad and am utterly unconvinced by this argument.
The people who are easiest to befriend are not those with the best language skills, they are those with the same cultural (or sometimes religious) values. At least that has been a very consistent, reliable way of modelling this phenomenon of human behaviour in my travels.
A very obvious example is that alcohol is a large part of Western, and now, some Eastern cultures; but people whose religion and culture strictly abhores it will have a harder time being happy among a group of Western friends.
Other values around sex and relationships are more subtle but of real importance.
Further, pushing the limits of what's PC to say, the fact is many cultures have a "we need to stick together," or "we stick together to preserve our culture" attitude that ends up also drawing boundaries around social circles based on race due to culture.
Very close relationships, such as romantic relationships, on the other hand quickly approach the point where language fluency becomes absolutely necessary. But friends to do activities with on the other hand--I love it when people are speaking other languages, have different reactions and place different significance on events. It adds spice to life and opens your eyes to see other ways of viewing things the same way you always had.
I have to disagree on: "A very obvious example is that alcohol is a large part of Western, and now, some Eastern cultures; but people whose religion and culture strictly abhores it will have a harder time being happy among a group of Western friends."
Alcohol was always big in Eastern cultures. It's just not dominated because it is always considered an old people thing, not what young people do.
>It's just not dominated because it is always considered an old people thing, not what young people do
Yes, well that's true, but now it's part of youth culture so I think we're actually in agreement on that. However, what I'm not sure about is South East Asia..? I believe in places such as the Phillipines, drinking culture was largely introduced by the West, but I'm not sure about that.
I think it really depends on what period of history you are talking about and also what you mean by "West". The Philippines is, of course, currently dominated by the Roman Catholic religion, but in pre-hispanic days there were local animist religions. I don't actually know that much about Philippine history, but every other culture in the area had a rich tradition of alcoholic drinks. These days there are a lot of countries where drinking is frowned upon, but these are mostly Islamic countries. Before the countries became Islamic, the indiginous cultures very certainly drank a lot.
Now the question is whether the idea that drinking alcohol is a bad idea is a Western idea or an Eastern idea really depends on where you think the middle east is. But the far east has historically been quite keen on drinking.
Even though Buddhism does not really look at drinking as a great thing, I can't think of any officially Buddhist country that banned drinking. Japan was Buddhist for hundreds of years and even banned eating meat (though I don't think it was widely observed). But drinking remained a big part of the culture.
So my impression is quite the opposite of yours. SE Asia has historically been quite fond of drinking alcohol, but has seen prohibition relatively recently. That prohibition has mostly come out of the middle eastern cultures moving east, rather than the other way around.
A few comments below disagree with you, but my experience is exactly as you described it, and I am a native English speaker in Norway, where everyone speaks English (although not nearly as well as the media or the locals wold have you think). When it comes to following along at a noisy social event or when there are many conversations happening simultaneously I fall somewhere between 3 and 4 on the list. Cultural references and expressions can easily boot me from a conversation as I lose the thread and have to start thinking about the conversation instead of partaking naturally. There is little in the way of real cultural differences between the UK and Scandinavia but enough to make a person feel like an outsider. This often leads to me abandoning social interactions.
Although this could be a factor, I have to disagree on this. Before any foreign student is given admission to an American University you need to take TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). You need this to be a high score to get admitted and depending on the country, you need to show this score at the American Embassy to get a student Visa. Unless it is some exchange program ALL foreign university students can speak English on a conversational level.
I am from Nigeria, where English is the National language. I grew up visiting America as a child because my parents grew up there for some portion of their lives. So even with all my linguistic advantages I still bonded more with other International students faster and better than I did with Americans (regardless of race).
I would say the issue I found was cultural, basic things like sense of humor differs. What a Nigerian finds funny is not always the same thing an American would find funny and vice versa.If you cannot laugh together, you have a problem. Same with etiquette, some things a Nigerian may do might be seen as rude to an American but a sign of love in Nigeria. The second issue I found is that Americans don't have a lot of curiosity beyond their own culture. A lot of Americans have the idea America is the best country in the world, so what could they learn from anyone else when they push the world forward, so there is a lack of interest to understand others perspectives and there is a gap.
I personally worked hard to have American friends and I have life long ones today both white,black, latino and Asian American friends but this did not come easy. This took about 10 years of open-mindedness and extroversion that was not always reciprocated.
>But it can fall apart in a social setting. Once there are 5 overlapping streams of conversation stuffed full of cultural references these coworkers of mine very frequently lose track of the conversation and become quieter and quieter over time.
Hmm, this sounds exactly like me. And I'm a white American guy (obviously, English is my first and pretty much only language, unless you count the German I learned in high school where I don't even meet your level 1).
I'd say I'm at your level 4 with English. When there's too many people talking, I'm unable to discriminate. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, if the relative volumes are different enough I can (so in a bar if someone is talking into my ear and the other conversations are in the background, I can make it out though I'll ask for a lot of repeats), but my big problem is in the workplace, where people for some reason insist on carrying out multiple loud conversations in the same room, right next to each other, and seem to have no concept (unlike the bar-goers) that it's really really hard to follow one conversation when the other one is right next to you at the same volume.
Yet another reason I totally regret going into engineering and software, and wish I had gone into something else where I'd get an office.
40% of US students in the US have no close American friends on campus too. We all went to college. Come one. That is how it is. I wouldn't call the dude saying hi to me everyday the room next door ma friend. They are all just living around me. We all have to pretend to be nice to each other because none of us wants trouble. Sure we do hang out or get drunk at the party. But we are not friends.
The only true friend I got is my college sweet heart.
309 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 249 ms ] threadWhy is this on HN?
It's a garbage article that somebody is posting for up votes.
Chinese student is used to always having one answer but in America there are ambiguous answers.
Saudi student has to be around women and work with women. But it's different in Saudi Arabia
Really? Oh wait I forgot I have to have a absolutely mind-blowing statistic. Like you won't even believe this statistic. Click here to find out what it is!
It's like a more lengthy clickbait article targeted toward people like us. But it's just clickbait. Read for substance.
Yeah, the article is pretty thin, but it's an interesting topic that can promote an interesting conversation. If you don't like it, flag it and upvote something else or submit a better article.
""Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link. If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. (Not all users see flag links; there's a small karma threshold.)""
The story isn't spam, or off-topic. It's bad. It's a really bad story that isn't worth reading. People are allowed to post things that are really stupid. I am allowed to point that out. Hopefully to save other people some time.
"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link. If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. (Not all users see flag links; there's a small karma threshold.)"
That's all I have on the topic.
> If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link
You literally broke the HN guidelines here. I agree that the headline is misleading, but nonetheless it promotes interesting discussions that can bring more value than the article itself.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It's not a great article, you're right. But you've made the thread worse by complaining about it in a way that... made the thread worse. We share your concern for the quality of HN, but it's also important to let go sometimes.
The best thing that happened to me was to get an internship in a company where my team was composed mostly of Americans. I learned how to talk slower and more importantly, slowly understood sarcasm as well. Perhaps most Americans don't realize just how much of a shared culture is needed for immigrants to understand before they can communicate effectively.
for example, in the first couple of years, a spanish (from spain) person is going to do a lot better than a russian.
Funny enough, this is the second time I have stumbled across an expat noting the eccentricity of American humour. How it's hard to make friends because their jokes are .. different. I wonder wherein the difference lies.
I was born here and went to a university with a large percentage of international students (the highest percentage in the US? At least at one point.). I'm extremely introverted and oddly found it easier to talk to international students than American ones. Maybe they could tell that I was as uncomfortable as they were.
> I can only imagine how hard it must be for Chinese/Korean etc. students.
In the experience of some of my friends, it took them 4+ years (they finished their undergrad and started grad school) before they started talking to non-Chinese/Korean students. Though it's possible the science/math kids aren't a representative sample.
> Typical campus discourse is often a minefield for newcomers, said a Norwegian student. “I find that Americans are generally very politically correct, and as a European, I think I’m used to being blunter and saying things right out. ..."
I'm not even talking about making an assertion here; asking a question about these politics sparks huge responses in people.
I rarely find people on the conservative side of the political spectrum are actually interested in doing that, because they don't act like they think of gender non-conforming people as people. They might, but they certainly don't act that way. I'm gratified where I'm proven wrong, but such people are few and far between.
American here. Really? I agree about the first part (how much you earn), but not the second. Lots of people like to brag about how they scored a great bargain on something, or complain about how something cost too much. But it really depends on a lot of things: what it is, what your relationship to the other person is, etc. You wouldn't just ask some stranger on the street how much their phone costs, for instance.
But if I ask how much they paid for something, and it was not a bargain, will they feel bad? Like I'm mocking them for their poor haggling skills or something?
I don't have a lot of experience with Americans. It's just something I heard from my English teacher.
I wouldn't ask someone how much they paid for a car, for instance: it's a big-ticket item, and strangely enough it's still haggled over in this country even though most things are fixed-price. Same goes for a house. But something small, I might. Retail goods are usually about the same price everywhere, unless there was a sale or someone took advantage of some kind of promotion, so it's not like the price they likely paid is a big secret. If I want to know the price of the latest iPhone, I can look it up. So you're not going to be exposing anyone's poor haggling skills by asking how much they paid for a (normally) fixed-price item. But yeah, I wouldn't ask how much they paid for a house or car.
Americans expect you to show a lot more enthusiasm then Europeans and if you don't show it, they will consider you rude and act towards you accordingly. Every single question is "good question" - it seemed to be rude to say that some of them are not good questions even to third parties in social setting.
On political correctness: in my culture, I know maybe one person who would identify herself as feminist publicly. You are expected to dislike feminism even when you are pro-equality. It seems to be the opposite in American liberal campuses (tho radical feminism seems to be waaay more aggressive then anything I know in here). Moreover, what Americans consider "too revealing" seems "perfectly normal" to me. I have seen American boys react in surprising way toward girls that wore mini skirts that were short, but still within normal range to me.
So, if you want example of political correctness, people from here might consider it perfectly normal to blame feminity when woman does something stupid or just makes them angry - that definitely wont fly in many American groups. That does not necessary means the person who said it is sexist, I would even say actual sexist tend to be more careful over what they say in my experience. Nevertheless, American liberals would not accept such thing at all.
I am going to be descriptive here. Non-judgemental. But: that... is sexist. By definition. It perpetuates the idea that "being a woman" is a thing that can be blamed for an action. Continuing to talk in that way perpetuates sexism.
> You are expected to dislike feminism even when you are pro-equality.
Again, this is structural/cultural sexism. You might not want to hear that, and you might not think it's a problem, but that's what it is. So when you enter a place where the culture is not accepting of that sexism, I don't know why you should expect not to have backlash if you continue to act like that.
I mostly wanted to distinguish "saying those things as verbal salad" from "really assuming girls are like that and/or raising girls to be like that". Kind of like with the "killed him" thing - the person saying the words does not really think about killing. As in, the person saying it would treat me equally while different more polite person might not say it out of politeness, but will treat me like the stereotype. The latter kind exist and is the bigger threat to me.
I am not saying that our culture does not have elements of sexism in it.
Otherwise, in social situations, people who are sensitive towards it are holding others hostage to it. You're only a hostage if you allow it.
I would also like to add to that: The fact that we have a culture. (That's often underplayed to seem "fair" to other cultures)
Whoah. You just blew my mind. I didn't realize things like jokes and sarcasm could be a barrier for someone who technically understands otherwise understands English.
Follow the source link and you find that 40% have no close American friends, which is different from "friends on campus". I checked the source looking for a baseline (how many domestic students have no close friends) and discovered that it was specifically about international students making friends with Americans.
> "Nearly 40 percent of the survey respondents had no close American friends and would have liked more meaningful interaction with people born here"
This is a very different result - still important, but the corrected stat and the free-response listed in the source make clear that we're looking at a different question than simple loneliness.
edit: The HN headline has been updated, which is great news. Now if only Quartz could meet the same standards...
Also the study carefully avoids discussing the stats for the Americans so there's no useful comparison (intentionally?). Is that the same ratio? I wouldn't be shocked. I took some weekend/night classes and those folks are samurai with lives outside class and barely enough time for assignments and homework and existing social relationships, so in those classes I would not be surprised to see 90%-plus of students having no student friends at all. When I was finishing up my degree a couple decades ago I had a wife and kids and a house and a full time job and zero interest in going to a kegger with some kids almost young enough to be my own kids, and after a full days work and a four hour lab and having to go to work early the next morning there's no way I could stay awake for a kegger anyway.
I also took some specialty classes at a tech college and their students have nothing at all to do with each other socially as near as I can tell. A nineteen year old kid living in moms basement, a 40 year old retired disabled army vet living in a house, and a 30 year old single mom working three jobs and living in an apartment walk into a bar together sounds like the start of a joke but it was pretty accurate description of tech school. Socializing with classmates seems to be a purely 18-22 residential/dorm/greek thing. And thats still a lot of kids... but gotta be realistic, its maybe only 3/4 of total students, maybe even less.
I am so old that I know that inserting a 21 year old legal drinking age in the middle of the prime college socializing years of 18-22 must have quite an effect. That must be very weird for foreign kids from countries without drinking age hangups. What I have had a beer with my pizza for two years now back home what do you mean that I go to jail? What I am here in your country illegally and everyone thinks thats great and its illegal to kick me out but I want un cerveza after class and they act like I am felon? Crazy americans... crazy americans.
Sooooo true. It's become, for all intents and purposes, a series of parallel universes that just happen to occupy the same space.
Besides, many are on short exchange programmes. How close friends can you really become during a 1-2 year exchange? How many of those 40% had just arrived on the last couple of months?
I don't think that's correct, at least outside small countries. I certainly didn't find it unusual when all my school friends went to different universities. Two others from my school were at the same place I was, but they weren't friends of mine.
My university was in London, and had a very large proportion of foreign students. Many of the Chinese students hung out together. The Europeans (including the British) and other westerners mixed together, divided more by interests and age than nationality. Some groups (South Asians, Japanese) mixed with some British students with similar ancestry.
I ran a social club for a couple of years. The students on short exchanges, like ERASMUS, seemed to make much more effort to join in with clubs, teams and societies, since they were only there for a few months.
As for socializing with people from your own country vs. locals and others, I observed two factors:
1) If you are from a big country, it's easier to stay with your own countrymen. If you are from Belgium or something, you have to find friends from other countries.
2) International students motivation tends to vary between adventure/experience and opportunity/academics. Those who are abroad for the experience are more motivated to get out and meet different people. This is largely orthogonal with introversion/extroversion. But, students from rich countries more often moved for the experience, as the opportunities were similar back home. Students from poorer countries are more often motivated to get a better education and future opportunities, and may have more pressure from home to focus on their studies.
But country boundaries are not the only cultural divisions, and national/international is not a simple dichotomy. Belgians in the US might hang out with other Western Europeans but continue to spurn Americans.
That is not a right comparison. The U.S is not Japan.
How long were you at your last job? Let's say you spent 3 years and 2 months there. Let's make an assumption and say that your time there was a positive one for your colleagues, and that you left with no animosity and—specifically—no animosity about the timing or circumstances of your departure.
Now let's suppose, though, that you walked in on your first day knowing that you would end up spending 3 years and 2 months there, down to the date of your departure, and during introductions you let your colleagues (including management) know about the limit on your time there. Let's call this version of you You'.
The way this would play out is that You' could make the exact same moves as you in every situation, and yet will be given much fewer opportunities and find much smaller success, despite there being no difference between you and You', save for this small discrepancy. As a result, your colleagues and the company will end up getting much less value from You' than they get from you.
People are bad at maximizing the resources available to them.
I think the best the school could do is to make the students stay in dorms with shared rooms when they come to study. Roommates, in my anecdotal experience, are among the best channels to acquire friends. If the school doesn't have the policy in the first place, then perhaps there is little that anyone could do to help, if the students don't make it a priority.
Missing important data for contrast: How many non-foreign have no close friends on campus.
College can be a weird place. Personally I had a lot of people I hung out with for a semester or two, but nobody I liked enough to truly be friends with.
* It was incredibly easy to meet other foreigners, and not necessarily westerners, far from that actually. I now have genuine friends on every continent.
* Since you're on the same boat, you can relate. Given how unique the work and life environment can be, it's nice to be able to talk with people who'll understand you.
* Making native friends isn't easy, even when you're making real efforts.
I don't have an unlimited amount of energy I can put into socializing, so after a short while I stopped trying too hard. Even the Korean friends I made before my move weren't too interested in hanging out once I lived there.
Remember the U.S is a nation of immigrants.
He's discussing the same situation mentioned in the article, but in reverse.
Contrast that to Canada, where the term we used was "mosaic" (when I was growing up in the 70s & 80s).
The problem with "melting pot" was that in melting everything becomes indistinct and bland, where as in a salad bowl, the pieces remain distinct but work together as a whole to make enhance the entire salad.
I live in Silicon Valley and am married to an immigrant, and live next door to a house where I don't believe everyone that lives in it speaks English. Meanwhile, a man that ran on a campaign on explicit xenophobia and implicit white nationalism is now president.
In my world, it's not. I mean a common language is just a pragmatic thing. After all, you're not going to move up the economic ladder without knowing the lingua franca. I certainly wouldn't expect to have the job I have now in say Korea, because I can't speak or read Korean.
My family has gone to Dia De Los Muertos events, and no one in our family has any ties to Mexico. At the same time, I grew up in the rural midwest where one of the biggest regional events was Fiesta Italiana, and there aren't any Italian immigrants left, and the people left with Italian surnames don't know anything more about Italy or Italian culture than I do.
Most people live in the cities, and deal with immigrants and foreign cultures on a daily basis. The people that live in the rural area don't, and they're the ones that elected him. So who says who's right?
His words and his choice of advisors speak for themselves.
While I think that's true, I still think the original point that OP made was valid: you're going from a culture that you're very very used to, into one that's radically different. I think that comparison is still valid in this context. Unless there's another layer to your statement that I'm not seeing...?
I, myself have fallen into the English foreigner trap. It's exhausting to make Japanese friends, that in the end you really don't get anywhere with, casually.
I've gravitated towards existing hobbies, and soon will enter a bekka. I still want to blame my non-existing Japanese for my lack of true Japanese friends.
Koreans have a saying about their neighbors: "The Chinese love you rudely. The Japanese hate you politely."
When I was studying Chinese in PKU, it was similar. Part of the problem was that the university wasn't really setup to mix foreigners with Chinese students: we were studying at PKU, but using very different facilities. Of course, if you made an effort, you made friends, some of which I have today (incidentally, almost all of them went abroad to the USA as PKU undergrads tend to do).
As my Indian parents say, these white people just drink alcohol and have sex all day.
In the US, I didn't realize it would be even more difficult because 90% of the students in MS are foreigners in the college I attended. Anyway, I decided that the best way to make American friends was to be with them all day long. I joined a fraternity on campus.
This was not easy. Most fraternities never had a foreign student, except the one I was accepted in. Because my english was not great, I focused all my time on 1 fraternity to increase my chances of being accepted. I was the only foreigner in all fraternities this week.
It was not always easy, but it was worth it. I joined while doing my MS, all my brothers where freshmen. We had very different work load and about 4-year difference. But I did make friends with all of them. I spent Christmas with one of my friend's family (I didn't leave the US for winter break). It was a great experience.
I'm rather an introvert. But when you travel in a foreign country, you have to talk to strangers all the time. Expectations are also lower when you don't master the language fully. You have to be very direct and explicit in your communications.
That's a shame. The kitchens were the most social spaces at my university. I think taking hot food into rooms was forbidden -- in any case, few did so.
I remember giving my views on plans for new dorms at my university, which were planned to use small kitchens shared between 4-6 students. I, and many others, objected -- they were replacing buildings with large kitchens, shared with 20 or more students. Much better for meeting people and making friends. It opened after I'd graduated, but judging by the pictures, the kitchens are for about 12-14 people, possibly more :-)
Today my closest friends are the ones I made in college.
Anyway, I was 6 months into a language course that was heavily populated by US-born Korean students who were taking it for the easy A... I needed a tutor to keep up so I reached out to the teacher who introduced me to a few Korean exchange students.
They lived in their own apartment, not the dorms. They cooked their own food, didn't go to the cafeterias. Fast forward a bit, my fraternity had a charity event and I invited a few of them... was a casual invite, said something like, "Hey we're doing this thing, tell your friends!"
A week later at the charity concert like 60 Korean exchange students showed up. Every single one of them was dressed in a tux or evening gown. Totally classed up the place. Had no idea there were that many exchange students until that night.
And they were all really appreciative of the invite. Basically said no one had invited them to any events on campus before... I met some new folks, knew just enough Korean at that point to ingratiate myself and get invited out drinking after the event... and quickly realized I was playing checkers at a chess tournament when it came to drinking with Koreans. Ha.
Made some friends out of the deal, but it wouldn't have happened without everyone going outside of their comfort zone a bit.
I think the reason was the hyper-competitiveness between students. It doesn't foster any sort of cooperation.
how does this compare to foreign students in Canada, Germany, UAE, UK
In my limited experience I feel there's a real cultural mis-match with kids from other countries coming here to study. Most of the kids I met were from huge cities and the shock of being in a small college town was in many was too much for them. That and the greek system was overtly hostile to them.
On side a note it's humorous what many kids take back with them from their time in America. It's worth doing an image search of "American party" to see what I mean.
Further, students from some countries have the option of a critical mass of their compatriots to hang out with, which I'm sure is a tempting comfort to rely on. >30% and >15% of international students are from China and India respectively: http://www.iie.org/Services/Project-Atlas/United-States/Inte...
I had the same experience in grad school, I only had "activity" partners, than what I would call close friendships with Americans. It always felt "distant". It's sadly true even today.
[0] I couldn't find the relevant article that discussed about this, specifically in the American context.
Also it never fails to amuse me that they'll be about one hiking group per half million people in a metro area and they all claim they're the "real group" the "fun group" the only "active group". Something to do with Dunbar's number you just can't have 1000 americans work together they have to make smaller tribes and pretend the other tribes don't exist. All a bunch of foolishness. Sometimes I think meetup.com is all an elaborate stunt by some grad student gathering anthropological data about Dunbars number.
I bet you'd find that this 40% number is much different for students studying abroad in a country where their native language is common. My US friends who moved to the UK or Australia had no problem making friends.
English is not my native language. However, I went to a school that had a specific emphasis on English: we had 5 hours of it per week in the first three grades, gradually ramping up to 6 in middle school and 7 in high school, and adding English literature on top of that. We wrote numerous essays, listened to recordings of native speakers, and spent a lot of time talking and listening to each other.
Then I went to study in a college in a country where English is a native language. I could read and write easily - better than natives in many cases, in fact (I'll never forget a rant that our elderly ethics teacher gave to me in private about how, based on the essays she was grading, only people with non-Anglo names could spell "its" vs "it's" right consistently). I could also speak fast while remaining perfectly understandable, and showing only a very subtle, hard-to-identify accent - that's where those hours of listening to tapes and talking with other students to polish pronunciation really paid off.
But for the life of me, I couldn't understand half of what people were saying. It was either too fast, or it was in an accent or dialect that was too unfamiliar to parse easily, or it was too casual (shortening or outright dropping many things that are always there in writing); and often, all of these at once. I had to ask people to slow down and repeat things - made all the more confusing because I spoke at a much faster pace (as I was taught to) than what I could follow.
It took about two months for everything to really click to the point where I could follow any conversation, and a lot longer than that before it stopped being a conscious mental effort.
By now I have probably spent 1000 hours learning (as part of a formal process), reading, listening, writing and speaking English. Probably a lot more, but let's go with that estimate. The actual language learning part was probably 20%, the rest was acquiring cultural references.
I'm trying to do the same for French, where I'm probably around level 2 or 3, and damn, I had forgotten how long it takes to "load the cart".
In my opinion, native speakers actually "become" "native" in a lesser degree because they were born to parents speaking that language and in a higher degree because they went through school in that language. All the basic lessons at school that everybody learns, all those initial social interactions, day in, day out, in the language they will use for the rest of the life.
It's a lot harder to squeeze those in later on, especially since the interlocutors become less and less accommodating.
Yes. This one of many reasons doing extensive reading of easy texts, children's stories and then later consuming TV and radio is so important. So many learners tend to take the approach of making a giant deck of flash cards or using an app like Duolingo and never get that much authentic input.
Going to school is probably the surest way to ensure that you do get all of the above, though it's not the only way. In the future, VR will give learners the quantity of practice and input that the world just doesn't have the patience to.
Most people love talking about themselves; as a foreigner, you are in some ways uniquely equipped to be a good listener. Wherever you go in the world, you'll find lonely people who are glad of the company.
Exactly as I was reading this sentence I heard someone use the idiom in English, "You're in the home stretch". A bit of a comical coincidence.
After about 5 years, I realized that no matter how much vocabulary I learned, how perfect my grammar was, or how reduced my accent was -- I would never get the references to childhood cartoons, or any of another 1,000 things that came from growing up there. And it's actually crazy how much of casual conversation revolves around all these things.
And finally coming back to the States, it was all just so easy -- such a luxury to have a whole shared cultural history with people I'd hang out with, so many jokes to make, so much richness to the conversation. Social conversation felt "full" again.
That's what they never tell you when you learn a new language -- the language alone isn't enough.
Addition: the funny thing is, I have a lot of non-American friends who get all (or most) of the American cultural references, because so many of them revolve around TV/movies, and those are exported around the globe. So part of the American so-called "melting pot", I suspect, is helped by the worldwide ubiquity of our entertainment culture.
It is quite interesting, though. My biggest goal in learning Japanese was to make a friend who could not speak English. That's what led me down my path. I think without that focus, it would have been quite difficult. Also a bit strange that my first real Japanese friend was actually the person who became my wife. For the first 3 years, we spoke only Japanese, but now her English is so good that we hardly ever speak Japanese :-P
Source: my own life and similar anecdotes to yours.
But. The most difficult move for me, by far, was the one that took us back home to the states. Suddenly, and for the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people that all spoke a language I could understand. But I understood nothing of what they were saying! Every joke, every reference... I had no idea what anyone was talking about, and it was awful.
It took me many years to get to the point where I was able to at least recognise the references, even if I didn't experience the things referenced. I still feel like a foreigner most places I go.
I don't say this with any sadness or regret. I feel I gained more than I lost. I loved my childhood, and the lessons I learned. But some were more painful than others, and the lessons in the difference between linguistic and cultural fluency were some of the sharpest.
edit: combined two sentences into one.
Cultural norms, customs, and the fact that on many campuses, there are quite a number of foreigners, making it more difficult for the social scene to absorb.
US/UK and Australia are all basically the 'same culture' as far as people outside the Anglosphere is concerned.
While indeed similar, a story on that: a friend at a high-end consulting firm here in Australia told of a US colleague who was over for a 6-month secondment. At the end of the visit, he apparently said "I wish I had known at the start that the people making fun of me probably liked me, and the people being perfectly polite probably didn't..."
That's not really a cultural difference. It's just basic social skills in America too.
My spouse always said she had a problem that people thought she was being genuine when she was being sarcastic, and sarcastic when she was being genuine: she even got told off at work about it.
us, uk and australia are identical cultures. us and india or us and china is not even comparable.
Its not just language, its common cultural memes that bond people.
now, speaking english with ease does make it easier to pick up on the differences. but it still takes effort to engage with people. i've seen people from other countries integrate easily because they were either very socially aware or simply made the effort, regardless if they spoke the local language with ease. this happens in countries and with people that aren't the UK, US, or Australia or from there.
sorry , Certainly not my intention. I am curious why you say this though.
I know many people that knew flawless conversational English before immigrating but they were utterly baffled by some cultural conventions and turns of phrase not covered in class.
Most of the international students I've interacted that pushed through this were really, really social to begin with.
There are ways to force interaction, but if the student doesn't understand how to learn or doesn't have the desire, then they'll never be able to comfortably speak with people. They don't have to be really social (it certainly helps), they just have to want it enough.
https://thepienews.com/news/erasmus-students-local-friends-e...
And they mostly DO know english and the local language (in fact that's a common reason to do it).
My thoughts about this are: Erasmus students stay for a very limited time- 1 or two semesters and leave then. Forming real friendships take longer.
I have only so much time to meet and catch up with friends. Taking away from that time to invest in short term relations is a problem.
Erasmus student have other priorities than "natives". First is partying, second is partying and maybe third is university. From my experience regular students do not have the time to go out partying that much resulting in different peer groups.
American society is massively socially segregated by race and class, more so than in many other countries. I can form friendships with people with zero language in common, but it took me several years in the US to build a community of American friends despite being a native English speaker and a highly literate one at that.
Not what I was saying at all. Perhaps you should reread my comment, or alternatively ignore it if my opinions upset you.
Humans are complicated social creatures by nature. There will always be cliques, competitiveness, the us against them mentality, etc. It's who we are. It's what got us here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et...
There is a Christian majority country in the world that also has a ~15% Muslim minority, and it's not even particularly geographically confined. It's not US or Canada.
Curiously, it's also not a particularly inclusive country. Which just goes to show that multiculturalism doesn't necessarily translate to inclusiveness - it can also encourage silos.
(Well, and possibly others - that's just the one that I know of, there may well be others.)
Its Multiculturalism has always been about hadling Subjects who could become Citizens by Russifying.
The difference is how it is handled. Russia is structured as a federal republic, in which some constituent entities are explicitly designated as national republics. Those have their own official state language (in addition to Russian on the federal level), their own regional constitutions and laws etc.
But it also means that for the titular ethnicity, when they're outside of such a regional republic, they can face an attitude of "we don't do these things here, and if you really want to, you can go back home and do them there". In other words, different cultures are siloed rather than amalgamated.
This is oversimplified, because there's still plenty of amalgamation in practice - it's inevitable when people live and work and intermarry. But it's definitely very distinct from e.g. Canadian multiculturalism.
For example, I've seen Indians with great English struggle a lot more to fit in and acclimate than French students with poor English but more shared cultural touchstones. As an American, I've found it to be much easier to make friends with Europeans than with students from non-Western cultures—even after controlling for English levels.
Edit: Another important factor (at least during collage) is the financial one. As a student from a poor country I had far less financial resources to afford a life style that American students enjoy. For example, I couldn't afford to go out or have a Car.
> but culturally I care less about American sports and music
Culturally I do not even understand this fascination with sports; we watch football (soccer) when there is some worldcup on and our country is playing but besides that the whole highschool quarterback and rooting for your teams all seems like wasted time to me. That might be cultural.
But I always turned that into a strength when making friends. If most people do something like watch sports or listen to music I do not like, I find the people that do not; those will be a niche. But I do not seek them out in obvious places with all likeminded people; when I go to AUS or US (and certainly when I was younger and looking for (girl)friends more) I go to sports bars and or clubs (where they will play music I do not like); in those places there will be 1-2 people like me that were dragged along or went along with their friends and who will be bored. Those end up talking with me and sometimes become good friends (two American ex girlfriends and many good friends, some I still do business with like that).
That being the case, guy conversations that start out, "Hey, did you see the game last night?" typically end in awkward silence when I say, "No."
“I could care less about $THING” and “I couldn't care less about $THING” mean the same thing. Each means that the speaker does not care about $THING.
Financially, not all Americans are rich or come from 2 income households. Alot of 18yr olds+ celebrate independence by moving out, taking a crappy local job at a fast food or retail and still, make American friends.
Introvertness isn't an issue, did you actually try? There are so many clubs that allow anyone to join and be friends. From meetup.com to local bookclubs.
But, we're also forgetting the big issue. Being American isn't like most countries in the world where you're born into a homogenous society. If you've lived more than a decade in the USA, and are a citizen, congratulations! You're a citizen, if any of your friends who aren't native born but also become naturalized, congratulations they're Americans!
Of course, I, know nothing of your background, so the above is all assumptions.
But, I felt like having to write this, as I wrap up spending 6 months in Japan.
I don't think you understand introvertedness.
You may not know but as a foreign student you are not allowed to work outside campus. Those jobs are also limited and hard to get.
I'm a white American guy. I don't give two shits about American sports (or any other sports for that matter). The very best you can do is talk me into watching hockey, maybe, but I haven't done that in years (and that's more of a Canadian sport anyway).
As for music, what kind? There is no "American music". People who like rap probably don't like country, and vice-versa, for example. Lots of Americans have zero interest in pop. When I was in college, I didn't like any of those three, only rock and metal. It did affect which friends I had at the time though. But rock and metal in particular aren't American, they're Western, as a lot of it comes from Europe and UK.
But yeah, it's kinda hard to keep a friend if you have nothing in common with them. And this doesn't just apply to relationships between people from different countries; even within the same country it makes it hard to find friends. Notice how divided rural and urban Americans are now, or how big the racial divide is between white and black people. And that's people who all grew up in America, speak the same language, etc. The cultural values are so different that they don't form many strong friendships across these boundaries.
The alcohol doesn't care what language you speak.
But from what I've seen, the various East Asian groups don't interact much. And each group speaks their own native language.
If it were the language barrier that was the issue then actually between Chinese and Japanese students while the spoken language is very different, they can sort of communicate between each other via writing.
I am from Eastern Europe and did my degree in England. In the first year, I lived in university halls and out of 8 people in the flat (including me), 6 people were English. It was really really hard initially because I could understand only about half of what they were saying because of the accents, so it was hard to participate and much easier to just browse internet in my room.
However, I picked up the language really quickly since I was very often surrounded by native speakers so all was good at the end, just the initial couple of months were really tough.
I realized after a while to understand that what people really meant (in practice) was only that they were against the public display of insult, that one ought to be treated with a modicum of politeness. After the pleasantries, most folk just ignored you as if you didn't exist (or would talk behind your back). Some folk stood out and were just outright obnoxious for no reason.
Oddly, I developed a dislike for meeting the same non-Indian people twice. Meh. I wasn't annoyed because of these differences - I do believe they're biological - but I wish the discourse was more rooted in reality, which would've led to me to make better choices. I may not like Trump supporters, but hey I think they're atleast being honest you know. I now think of liberals as being hypocrites who use words to break apart communities and atomize people (more true of India than the US - but that's another story).
This is not to say that Americans aren't decent people - that they are - but there is a lot of pretension in that society. India is by comparison more than tolerable on that metric (if you keep away from the Westernized lot).
The people who are easiest to befriend are not those with the best language skills, they are those with the same cultural (or sometimes religious) values. At least that has been a very consistent, reliable way of modelling this phenomenon of human behaviour in my travels.
A very obvious example is that alcohol is a large part of Western, and now, some Eastern cultures; but people whose religion and culture strictly abhores it will have a harder time being happy among a group of Western friends.
Other values around sex and relationships are more subtle but of real importance.
Further, pushing the limits of what's PC to say, the fact is many cultures have a "we need to stick together," or "we stick together to preserve our culture" attitude that ends up also drawing boundaries around social circles based on race due to culture.
Very close relationships, such as romantic relationships, on the other hand quickly approach the point where language fluency becomes absolutely necessary. But friends to do activities with on the other hand--I love it when people are speaking other languages, have different reactions and place different significance on events. It adds spice to life and opens your eyes to see other ways of viewing things the same way you always had.
Alcohol was always big in Eastern cultures. It's just not dominated because it is always considered an old people thing, not what young people do.
Yes, well that's true, but now it's part of youth culture so I think we're actually in agreement on that. However, what I'm not sure about is South East Asia..? I believe in places such as the Phillipines, drinking culture was largely introduced by the West, but I'm not sure about that.
Now the question is whether the idea that drinking alcohol is a bad idea is a Western idea or an Eastern idea really depends on where you think the middle east is. But the far east has historically been quite keen on drinking.
Even though Buddhism does not really look at drinking as a great thing, I can't think of any officially Buddhist country that banned drinking. Japan was Buddhist for hundreds of years and even banned eating meat (though I don't think it was widely observed). But drinking remained a big part of the culture.
So my impression is quite the opposite of yours. SE Asia has historically been quite fond of drinking alcohol, but has seen prohibition relatively recently. That prohibition has mostly come out of the middle eastern cultures moving east, rather than the other way around.
I am from Nigeria, where English is the National language. I grew up visiting America as a child because my parents grew up there for some portion of their lives. So even with all my linguistic advantages I still bonded more with other International students faster and better than I did with Americans (regardless of race).
I would say the issue I found was cultural, basic things like sense of humor differs. What a Nigerian finds funny is not always the same thing an American would find funny and vice versa.If you cannot laugh together, you have a problem. Same with etiquette, some things a Nigerian may do might be seen as rude to an American but a sign of love in Nigeria. The second issue I found is that Americans don't have a lot of curiosity beyond their own culture. A lot of Americans have the idea America is the best country in the world, so what could they learn from anyone else when they push the world forward, so there is a lack of interest to understand others perspectives and there is a gap.
I personally worked hard to have American friends and I have life long ones today both white,black, latino and Asian American friends but this did not come easy. This took about 10 years of open-mindedness and extroversion that was not always reciprocated.
Hmm, this sounds exactly like me. And I'm a white American guy (obviously, English is my first and pretty much only language, unless you count the German I learned in high school where I don't even meet your level 1).
I'd say I'm at your level 4 with English. When there's too many people talking, I'm unable to discriminate. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, if the relative volumes are different enough I can (so in a bar if someone is talking into my ear and the other conversations are in the background, I can make it out though I'll ask for a lot of repeats), but my big problem is in the workplace, where people for some reason insist on carrying out multiple loud conversations in the same room, right next to each other, and seem to have no concept (unlike the bar-goers) that it's really really hard to follow one conversation when the other one is right next to you at the same volume.
Yet another reason I totally regret going into engineering and software, and wish I had gone into something else where I'd get an office.