What
I experienced during my college life was totally different than my life when I
stay with my parents. I have lived with my parents in China for 18 years since
I was born. I have never left them more than a week before I attend college. It
was really challenge for my family during the first year I stayed in United
States. This is because my parents have prepared everything for me and I just
need to study before I attend college. When I go to university, I need to do
everything all by myself and my parents will not help me anyway. So our
communication was a little different than we used to do.. So there are many
conflicts during the time I studied in the United States. This is way I want to
choose international students as my main audience to interview because I really
want to know what other international students’ life like.
(This is a photo of my hometown, Qingdao,China)
I
can give my own example to show the difficulty at the beginning stage when I
come to the United States. I adopt much more western culture value than eastern
traditional culture value, but my parents still live in my hometown and didn’t
change their value as much as I did. One example would be my major. Since I
live on campus and I was the only foreigner in my dorm, I observe how Americans
behave and doing things every day. All the friends around me choose their major
in terms of their own preference. But I have to choose one of the majors under
the business department because my father’s preference. I feel unequal and we
negotiate and communicate this topic many times. We talked about this issue for
many times and key thing for us to deal with that is bring new information into
the conversation. We both do many researches about the majors and other things
about the current economy situation and the future of the job market. As a
result, we got a deal- I can choose my preference as my minors.
For
people like me who study abroad for a while and going to graduate soon, we met
the time to make another big decision in our life. This is a new turning corner
and the reasons I choose this group to interview and study is that the amount
of this group of people is increasing fast and it has becoming a social
phenomenon whether they went back home or stay in the country they studied. I
interviewed three people studied in UNL and will going to graduate this May.
Two of them are undergraduate students and the other is graduate student. It is
a difficult choice for every international student to decide whether they
should stay or not.
According
to Martin & Nakayama (2009), W-curve theory is “a theory of cultural
adaptation suggests that sojourners experience another U- curve upon returning
home.” (p. 331). Although these students
have not went back home yet, their concerns and ideas about their future
reflect this theory quite a lot. All of them told me that they actually
experienced the difficulty during the time they visited their family during
school breaks and they can even image some difficult situations after graduate
because they need to suit their hometown again(personal observations, March, 1st
, 2012) !
It
is harder for people to experience W- curve theory than the U- curve theory
because people will not prepare for it that much. Of course, students can image
some situations and they have prepared emotionally to face those challenges.
But when those problems really come, they find it is not the results they
expected to have. For example, one of my interviewees, which is also my friend,
did an internship in hometown last summer. He said he will never forget the
time he spent in the office and with those co-workers. This is not because the
environment and those co-workers are not friendly. The reason is that those
people have their own ways to do business and hanging out with friends. The way
he treated with people in the United States is not work at all in China. The
internship was just lasts for one month and he had to quit because he did not
want to continue be an outsider in that office (Shu Wang, personal
communication, March 5th, 2012). As Martin and Nakayama said, “the
person who returns home is not the same person who left home” (p. 332).
We do need confidence to face the future of intercultural
communication world, but we need to be aware that there always have things to
learn about others’ culture. To suits other’s culture is difficult and that’s
not only my personal experience. But I also see this special experience in the
other way- challenge. We are not like those people who are the same age as us
in our hometown. We can do many things that they have never experienced before
and I believe this independence is the best gift for every student study
abroad. Neither the U-curve theory nor the W-curve theory includes the benefit
from study abroad experience when those students come back to home. The truth
is they do face difficulties to suit their home again and people are not the
same one who left home, but abroad experiences bring those people more mature thoughts
and experienced minds to solve problems and suit the new environment, it just
takes time and their own effect.
Through the whole semester I have applied many terms to
the blog and give examples that I have experienced, this help me a lot to
understand them deeply. As a member of those international students, I do have
some advices that may work if someone wants to go back to their home country
and need to suit the country’s environment again. First, ask help, especially
from family members. Although we leave home for years, families are still the
most familiar people we have in the world. Talk to them and we will find the
right way to live comfortable. Second, talk to people. Sometimes people think
others do not like them, but the truth is we do not talk to others and they
think we do not want to know them. Conversations
help people solve the lonely situations. Third, make friends. Make friends with
different people is the fastest way to let people suit the new environment and
get used to it. Your friends will treat you in the local way and we just need
to balance our mind to accept it.
References:
Personal observations,
March 1st, 2012
Maritn, J. N., &
Nakayama, T. K. (2010). Intercultural Communication in Contexts (Fifth ed., pp.
185-187). New York, NY: Mcgraw-Hill.
Shu Wang, personal
communication, March 5th, 2012
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