chinese student in america
At the beginning of my college life, I had been received an invitation to a freshman party. There are a lot of incoming Chinese students also attended. But at the party, I found that many Chinese students are playing on their mobile phone or conversation with people who came from the same country. They don't try to communicate with American locals and can't enjoy the party.
Western culture always tends to be open and locals of American are also more than friendly, but many Chinese students are shy and quiet. As an example, most of us don't like to party because this seems chances are pretty low to find common topics with other people we met. We don't even know what actually does there. Even though already in the university of the United States more than six months, I still consider many Chinese students in the United States local cultural awareness lifestyle are unfamiliar, which also includes me. On the contrary, we are preferred to choose to meet other people from the same country because of common living habits, and communication convenience in an unfamiliar condition. We like to talk in our mother tongue between each other. This can make us more quickly have a sense of belonging, and we also have many common topics of communication. This is so natural because in the campus dining hall, I almost having a meal with my Chinese friends together every day, and I barely need to speak English. However, we always stick together. It seems like stay in our comfort zone. As the result, this causes we don't want to communicate with the local Americans students. Actually, it is meant that we are alive live in a small circle, and always communication with our native tongue. The problem of language makes us lose the normal ability to communication with people from other cultures, which makes us difficult to integrate ourselves into American society and adaptation intercultural communication.
Cultural differences are part of the intercultural communication barriers. It increases the likelihood of misunderstanding as well. When we communicate and cooperate with other students from diverse cultural backgrounds, if had a misunderstanding, difference, and even contradiction is normal because we all hold different cultural backgrounds and have distinct ideas. Therefore, we cannot ignore the importance of intercultural communication in our daily life. Intercultural communication offers the ability to across diverse cultures, which are increasingly important, as the world gets smaller. Nonetheless, getting smaller doesn't mean the world is becoming uniform. It means that we have more and more contact with people who from culturally diverse. In this way, we can resolve the difficulties and obstacles in intercultural communication between two different cultures, enhance our relationship through effective communication and mutual understanding.
For those students who from foreign countries, they are required to face many difficulties in the United States because they need to adapt to new life. This will bring great pressure to them. Such as me. When I just came to the United States, I can't be integrated into the new environment and always alone. I was scared of communication to others in the class, especially foreign students because I can't express my ideas clearly to them through English. So, this causes me difficult to make western friends because I always stay silent. At this time, I get to know the importance of communication. When I in a similar exotic environment, intercultural communication plays a significant role. I realized as long as you are able to communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds efficiently, you will understand and know each other better, thereafter further get to know more about the local culture, even though communicate with them will make you nervous, Possibly, someone will ask, what is the intercultural communication, and how to overcome communication barriers?
With the development of the globalization process, intercultural communication is attracting more and more people's attention and being ever more important. It most happens between people from different cultural backgrounds. Intercultural means people understand another different culture and communicate with others effectively. If you do not understand these differences, this will lead to failure of communication. Huge cultural differences have always been between American and Chinese students in college. We should learn how different cultures communicate because we can get contact of a large diversity of people from all over the world. In the college, intercultural is mainly reflected from getting along with teachers and students from different countries, cultural background, and languages. But it does not mean simple greetings through English. We should try to communicate to resolve differences, seek common ground while reserving differences and express own view or opinions through English. This can continue to encourage and support the smooth progress of intercultural communication.
Moving to a foreign country may need special preparation to get along with different cultural conventions in your new environment. If you are paying attention to intercultural details, you will discover many differences during your stay abroad. Many people expect that they will pick up intercultural differences naturally while they are in a new culture, and be well-prepared for such varied situations. For the last 5 years in the United States, I have been experiencing different intercultural traditions. Such as when we talk about Christmas, everyone seems to have their own ideal view of what "Christmas" should be all about and varies greatly from country to country. From my perspective, every nation has its own traditional festivals. Christmas such as Chinese new years, the most important part of both holidays are spending time with family and friends spending the evening together, enjoy in rich and glorious food and drink. This makes me discover one of the important ways to learn about more foreign cultures is celebrated local holidays. We should accept western cultures properly.
Culture as a shared learning experience. The intercultural communication promotes us to learn new things in a group of people from different cultures with backgrounds. College attracts students from all over the world to learn from one another and expand our world views. So, we are better prepared to enter the global workforce. The theme of our College Nine is International and Global Perspectives, recognize the importance of cultural competency. This offers all students opportunities to make meaningful, lifelong friendships and connections that extend beyond borders. We can live with roommates from countries other than their own and take part in fun, interactive environment that promotes intercultural skills. Intercultural communication can make us understand each other better, deepen our understanding of international and global perspectives. This is important in order to us and will have great influence on our future.
The United States has always been a friendly country while I live in here these years. As Chinese students, maybe I can't fully integrate into American society, I still always remind myself to learn about American local cultures, try to join social activities and make more foreign friends because this is the best way to adapt to foreign cultures. Cultural differences can create more communication to each other. At the beginning, one of the most important reasons that I choose study in America was to learn new language and experience different cultures. If don't try to communicate with foreigners, what's the point of studying in America? Actually, besides knowledge, we should make the best of our experience studying in the America and more understand everyone around us, understand others behavior and ways of thinking, learn how to appreciate each other's differences, and across the complex cultures, language barriers. In the process of contact with foreign cultures, we will have more opportunities to re-understanding ourselves and breaking own "small circles" for better integration in both university campus and local communities. At the same time, our college life will become more colorful and meaningful in the future.
