5.4 Defining the ‘Chinese Students’ from Non-Chine...
Before exploring the Chinese students’ self-construction of their disciplinary identities in the next chapter, it is needed to see how the Chinese students in the current site are defined by the other participants.To do so, I interviewed three non-Chinese teachers from the School of IC and five international students with different nationalities.The findings and the relevant extracts are presented below.
First, all these three non-Chinese teachers were not satisfied with aspects of their Chinese students’ learning performance, stating that their English ability was an important issue.For example, Earl, a British teacher who taught Year 4, denied the impact of a ‘large Chinese culture’ (see Chapter 1), but commented on his Chinese students’ insufficient classroom participation as follows:
‘They didn’t participate as much as I wanted them to do, but I think it is because of language.Language issue is very important.For me, it is the most important issue.Of course there is [are] cultural differences, but it is [they are] not the completed shadow over the language issue.You know, people can’t speak English that very well, [and] culture doesn’t really matter.Similarly, if people could speak very good English, then you tend to find out that they tend to be quite articulate, quite open, quite willing to say quite a few things.So for me, language is the issue.’
However, like the other two teachers’ statements, he did not pessimistically view this as an unchangeable phenomenon.He said that, ‘once they have been discussing things in three years which is when I taught them in the third year, they pretty much got the idea of what to do’.
A similar result is also shown from the interviews with five non-Chinese students:language is the major problem causing unsuccessful communication between the international students and the Chinese students.Rather than challenging their English ability, these interviewees more negatively evaluate the Chinese students’ low willingness to use English outside the classroom.According to four out of five of these non-Chinese student interviewees, one of their reasons for studying in this university is to learn Chinese, and thus they hope that they can interact more with the Chinese students.‘But they do not want to speak English,’ they said.A paradox, really.
Another interesting finding associated with this negative attitude towards the Chinese students’ low motivation of using English outside the classroom is that these five international students hold different understandings and acceptance of the Chinese social and contextual cultures.Alice is a female Iranian who lived in China for eight years.Before that, she and her family had has lived in America for six years.She distinguished the general stereotypes of Chinese people from what she had been experiencing in the current Chinese context, by saying ‘I think the Chinese students I meet in this university are awesome...you can only compare and judge things while you experience the differences between the things’.Similarly, another female student from Malaysia evaluated the stereotypes of Chinese culture by recalling an event:
‘Before I came here, the others said, oh, why China?...But they haven’t experienced the things here.I just wish I could tell them how good China is, because I really like this place.They don’t get it, because they actually have never experienced coming to China.So you don’t learn, you don’t get it.That’s what I say about culture.We are influenced by TV.People are always stereotyped in TV drama.You can’t really take it.’
The three male international student interviewees did not positively evaluate Chinese culture; however, they commented that the Chinese students in the current institution were more international than their previous generations.However, there is a contradiction found in their statements about the desire of interacting with Chinese students and the actual happening.For example, Alexander, a Year 1 student from Russia who studied in the School of Business, explained his understanding of Chinese culture as follows:
‘The way of thinking, there is no big difference.They just need to be more open-minded...Be yourself !...Cultural difference is definitely not the right term, I think so.Because I have friends from all over the world...I don’t think such things, cultural differences, can be the realgap between the like international people.’
‘I just know they work hard.And they should be open-minded.But for Chinese culture, I don’t know that much about Chinese culture...’
When asked if he would like to make friends with Chinese people after finishing the study in this university, he gave the most explicit opinion that:
‘Now, the current moment, NO! I am not gonna do that.I mean they are really nice people, but we are not that close.After we get drunk together, we can.I mean how people can become friends if they do not get drunk together [laugh].Yeah, after that, maybe.Maybe I will have really nice Chinese friends, I can accept that.Like one guy in my class, he is really nice.We are really in good relationship...How can you expect people to break the gap between the international cultures, if you don’t go to night club together? This is true, I am telling you.’
【注释】
[1]The university selects the Chinese students with top grades (Division 1 in China College Entrance Examination) and a minimum score of 115 (out of 150) in the English test.