Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States: Unique, Ambitious, Global 3658406267, 9783658406264

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Glossary of Chinese Words and Expressions
Contents
List of Figures
1 Introduction
1.1 Chinese Students and International Mobility Trends
1.2 Research Overview
1.3 Research Questions
2 Methods
2.1 Study Design
2.2 Selection and Recruitment
2.3 Description of the Interviews
2.4 Data Analysis
2.5 Characteristics of Sample
2.6 Reflection
3 Identity
3.1 The Development of the Modern Concept of Identity
3.2 Giddens’ Reflexive Project of the Self
3.3 Critical Voices on Giddens’ Theory of Self-Identity
3.4 Giddens’ Theories in the Chinese Context
4 Chinese Education and Study Abroad
4.1 Classical Education
4.2 Missionary Education in China
4.3 Chinese Study Abroad in the 19th Century
4.4 Education and Study Abroad in the Early 20th Century
4.5 Education and Study Abroad 1949–1978
4.6 Chinese Study Abroad After 1978
4.7 Chinese Student Mobility: Contributing Factors
4.8 Chinese Students and the U.S. Context
5 The Self and the Family
5.1 The Family in Modern China
5.1.1 One-Child Policy
5.1.2 Intergenerational Dynamics
5.1.3 Gender
5.2 Autonomy and Decision-making in the Family
5.2.1 “It was my Idea—then I Convinced my Parents.”
5.2.2 “What can my father do? He can only pay for me”
5.2.3 “I’m kind of Independent, maybe you can tell”
5.2.4 “I just want to stay in my Safety Zone”
5.2.5 Discussion
5.3 Education and the Family in China
5.3.1 Cultural Model of Education
5.3.2 Dissatisfaction with the national Educational System
5.3.3 Idealization of “Western” Education
5.4 Narratives of Exceptionalism
5.4.1 “I don’t fit into the Chinese System”
5.4.2 “American Universities really value my other type of Skills”
5.4.3 Discussion
6 The Self and the Peer Group
6.1 Developments of Individualization
6.1.1 Loneliness, Isolation, and Competition
6.1.2 Positioning within the Peer Group
6.2 Enthusiastic Learner
6.2.1 Definition and Discourse
6.2.2 “I’m Curious about the Truth”
6.2.3 “I’m Interested in all Subjects—I Want to Choose What I Learn”
6.2.4 “I'm More Dedicated and Hard-Working than Others”
6.2.5 “I want to get an M.A. or Ph.D.”
6.2.6 “Others are Better than me”
6.2.7 Discussion
6.3 People Person
6.3.1 Definition and Discourse
6.3.2 “I Love People—I am Outgoing”
6.3.3 “I want to Influence People”
6.3.4 “I am Shy”
6.3.5 Discussion
6.4 Global Citizen
6.4.1 Definition and Discourse
6.4.2 “Global Citizen” in the Chinese Context
6.4.3 “I Really Like Learning Languages”
6.4.4 “Just See Where the Opportunities Come from”
6.4.5 Discussion
7 The Self and the Country
7.1 Literature and Media Review
7.2 Position as a 3rd Country Researcher
7.3 China—National Identity
7.3.1 China as an Emotional Space
7.3.2 China as a Political System
7.4 USA—a new National Identity?
7.4.1 USA as a Land of Freedom and Human Rights
7.4.2 USA as a Land of Racism and Violence
7.5 Discussion
8 Conclusion
References

Citation preview

Sarah Y. Köksal

Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States Unique, Ambitious, Global

Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States

Sarah Y. Köksal

Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States Unique, Ambitious, Global

Sarah Y. Köksal Ludwig Maximilian University Munich Munich, Germany Accepted Dissertation for the granting of a doctorate (Dr. Phil), Faculty of Philology and Literature, Department of American Studies, Chair for North American Cultural History, Empirical Cultural Research and Cultural Anthropology, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Munich, 2022

ISBN 978-3-658-40626-4 ISBN 978-3-658-40627-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer VS imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to everyone who has supported me during this journey. I would like to thank my adviser Prof. Dr. Hochgeschwender for his sincere interest in my topic, his many insightful comments, numerous recommendation letters he wrote on my behalf and his kindness and patience throughout this whole process. My second supervisor Prof. Dr. Ursula Prutsch has also given many thoughtful notes and helpful feedback during our colloquium sessions that I greatly appreciate. Fieldwork in the United States would not have been possible without the support of Prof. Dr. Thomas Gold who graciously welcomed me to the UC Berkeley Sociology Department in autumn 2019. His input was invaluable and contributed significantly to the successful implementation of my fieldwork. I loved listening to stories from his own study abroad adventure in China. I would also like to thank Dr. Thomas Eppel for generously connecting me to his Chinese students and telling them about my project. Without Prof. Gold and Dr. Eppel, I may have returned to Germany empty-handed. I am deeply appreciative of all they have done for me. Prof. Dr. Björn Alpermann was supportive in navigating the jungle of data and offered so much constructive feedback that I most certainly would have been completely lost without him. He has truly gone out of his way in guiding and reassuring me. For this, I am profoundly grateful. Furthermore, I would like to thank the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Council) and the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation who provided financial funding for this project. To the other Ph.D. students in Prof. Hochgeschwender’s colloquium and Dr. Klopfer’s colloquium: thank you for being my community; for your many insightful remarks. I am humbled and grateful to be on this journey with you. This journey has been made much easier and much more enjoyable by my husband Kit Yam, my companion at every step of the way. Our many conversations inspire

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Acknowledgements

me and lighten our journey together. I dedicate this book to my two biggest supporters, my father Kemal and my mother Anita. My father was the first to believe in me and encouraged me to pursue the Ph.D. when I didn’t believe in myself yet. Without his unwavering reassurances, this book probably wouldn’t exist and for that I am eternally thankful. My deepest gratitude goes out to my parents for all they have done for me. Thank you for visiting me during fieldwork, for your generosity, and most importantly, for being there, always. Your support is the backbone of my life. In the vastness of space and the immensity of time, it is my greatest joy to share a lifetime with you both. Finally, I would like to thank the students who trusted me with their stories and struggles and allowed me to base this dissertation on their lived experiences.

Glossary of Chinese Words and Expressions

Notes on transcription: Transcription follows the Pinyin system of transcription used in the People’s Republic of China and recognized internationally. Occurrences of Chinese terms transcribed using the older Wade Giles system such as in historical literature have been converted to Pinyin (except for direct quotations). All Chinese terms are written in cursive and not capitalized. Names, institutions, organisations and places are capitalized and not written in cursive. In order to avoid confusion and due to the numerous homophones in the Chinese language, the Chinese characters has been included alongside the transcriptions. The tonal indications have been omitted except in cases where they are relevant to the meaning or context. in order of appearance 关系guanxi: network, connections. 四书五经Sishuwujing; four books and five classics. 书院Shuyuan; government-operated academies. 四叔Sishu; private schools 重点zhong dian; key point 改革开放 gaige kaifang; reform and opening 鼓励留学生, 欢迎回国, 来去自由guli liu xiu sheng, huangying hui guo; Support for foreign study, welcome of return and freedom of movement 中产阶级zhongchan jieji; middle class 中产阶层zhongcan jieceng; middle strata 孝xiao; filial piety 一个不少, 两个正好, 三个多了, yi ge bu shao, liang ge zheng hao, san ge duo le; One Child isn’t too few, two are just fine, and three are too many

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Glossary of Chinese Words and Expressions

晚 稀 少wan, xi, shao ; later, longer, fewer 青年- qing nian; youth 初中chuzhong; junior high school 高中gaozhong; senior high school 高考gaokao; university entrance exam 初考chukao; senior high school entrance exam 人才rencai; human talent 面子mianzi; face

Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Chinese Students and International Mobility Trends . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Research Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 3 5 14

2 Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Study Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Selection and Recruitment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Description of the Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Characteristics of Sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17 17 21 24 30 32 35

3 Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 The Development of the Modern Concept of Identity . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Giddens’ Reflexive Project of the Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Critical Voices on Giddens’ Theory of Self-Identity . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Giddens’ Theories in the Chinese Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39 40 44 51 52

4 Chinese Education and Study Abroad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Classical Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Missionary Education in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Chinese Study Abroad in the 19th Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Education and Study Abroad in the Early 20th Century . . . . . . . . 4.5 Education and Study Abroad 1949–1978 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 Chinese Study Abroad After 1978 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 Chinese Student Mobility: Contributing Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 Chinese Students and the U.S. Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57 58 61 64 67 69 71 73 76 ix

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5 The Self and the Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 The Family in Modern China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 One-Child Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.2 Intergenerational Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.3 Gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Autonomy and Decision-making in the Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 “It was my Idea—then I Convinced my Parents.” . . . . . . . 5.2.2 “What can my father do? He can only pay for me” . . . . . 5.2.3 “I’m kind of Independent, maybe you can tell” . . . . . . . . 5.2.4 “I just want to stay in my Safety Zone” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Education and the Family in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Cultural Model of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.2 Dissatisfaction with the national Educational System . . . . 5.3.3 Idealization of “Western” Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Narratives of Exceptionalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 “I don’t fit into the Chinese System” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.2 “American Universities really value my other type of Skills” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The Self and the Peer Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Developments of Individualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.1 Loneliness, Isolation, and Competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.2 Positioning within the Peer Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Enthusiastic Learner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 Definition and Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 “I’m Curious about the Truth” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.3 “I’m Interested in all Subjects—I Want to Choose What I Learn” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.4 “I’m More Dedicated and Hard-Working than Others” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.5 “I want to get an M.A. or Ph.D.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.6 “Others are Better than me” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.7 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 People Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Definition and Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.2 “I Love People—I am Outgoing” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.3 “I want to Influence People” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85 86 87 90 92 95 97 98 100 103 104 109 110 112 118 120 121 126 127 131 132 134 138 139 139 141 143 145 146 148 149 151 151 152 156

Contents

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6.3.4 “I am Shy” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Global Citizen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.1 Definition and Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.2 “Global Citizen” in the Chinese Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.3 “I Really Like Learning Languages” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.4 “Just See Where the Opportunities Come from” . . . . . . . . 6.4.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

158 160 161 161 163 167 172 174

7 The Self and the Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Literature and Media Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Position as a 3rd Country Researcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 China—National Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.1 China as an Emotional Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.2 China as a Political System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 USA—a new National Identity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4.1 USA as a Land of Freedom and Human Rights . . . . . . . . 7.4.2 USA as a Land of Racism and Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

179 179 181 183 184 187 192 192 194 196

8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

199

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

211

List of Figures

Figure 1.1 Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure Figure

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 4.1

Figure 4.2 Figure 5.1

Growth in international or foreign enrolment in tertiary education worldwide (1998–2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Initial Coding of relevant themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Self-Positioning on the Meso-Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Self-Positioning on the Macro-Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Geographical overview of the students’ hometowns . . . . . . . . Students’ Area of Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interviewees’ Phase of Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Students from the first detachment of the Chinese educational mission after arriving in San Francisco in 1872 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students from China . . . . . . . . A poster advertising the one-child policy: “Carry out family planning, implement the basic national policy.” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4 31 32 33 33 34 35

65 77

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1

Introduction

To be a good ex/current friend for R. To be one last inspired way to get back at R. To be relationship advice for L. To be advice for my mother. To be a more comfortable hospital bed for my mother. To be no more hospital beds. To be, in my spare time, America for my uncle, who wants to be China for me. To be a country of trafficless roads & a sports car for my aunt, who likes to go fast. To be a cyclone of laughter when my parents say their new coworker is like that, they can tell because he wears pink socks, see, you don’t, so you can’t, can’t be one of them. To be the one my parents raised me to be— a season from the planet of planet-sized storms. To be a backpack of PB&J & every thing I know, for my brothers, who are becoming their own storms. To be, for me, nobody, homebody, body in bed watching TV. To go 2D © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Y. Köksal, Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1_1

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Introduction

& be a painting, an amateur’s hilltop & stars, simple decoration for the new apartment with you. To be close, J., to everything that is close to you— blue blanket, red cup, green shoes with pink laces. To be the blue & the red. The green, the hot pink.1 The Chinese American poet Chen Chen describes the often awkward positioning process that pondering central identity questions entails. He touches upon themes that will also be discussed in this thesis: our position within the family, the community of friends, or the imagined community of the nation. He asks not only: “Who am I?” but also, “Who do I aspire to be?” He artistically shows the added challenge of navigating several cultures which young Chinese in America are confronted with. Questions of identity and belonging are urgent for this group as well as intriguing for me as a researcher who has chosen this topic for my Ph.D. project. I first became interested in this topic while working for an international NGO in Beijing in 2015. I spent most of my days conversing with young Chinese as part of my organization’s educational activities. Their shared dreams to study in the United States were surprising for me. While the appeal of world-class American universities was understandable, I was puzzled as to why these teens didn’t first strive to study on the beautiful campuses of their nation. There were plenty of excellent institutions to choose from, after all. Their stories of relentless familial pressure and grueling entrance examinations opened my eyes to the grim reality. The notorious case of Yunyao “Helen” Zhai, Xinlei “John” Zhang, and Yuhan “Coco” Yang in 2016 fueled my curiosity to explore the complexities of the study abroad experience in more detail. The teens living without their families in southern California’s San Gabriel Valley are currently serving prison time for the torture, kidnapping, and assault of a fellow student.2 Even though they attended an expensive private high school and lived in material luxury, their situation was nonetheless taxing from a social and emotional point of view. Their 1 Chen Chen, When I Grow up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities. (Hexham, Norththumberland: Bloodaxe Books, 2019). 2 Catie L’Heureux, “A Group of Teens Living by Themselves in Los Angeles Are Going to Prison for Starting a Bullying Ring,” The Cut, July 12, 2016, https://www.thecut.com/2016/ 07/chinese-parachute-students-la-california-sentenced.html. Accessed 16.7.2021.

1.1 Chinese Students and International Mobility Trends

3

case exemplifies that students are challenged to form a stable identity and sense of belonging as well as the dire incidents that can occur if they do not manage to do so. This group of students is also exemplary of the trend of young Chinese and young people all over the world, increasingly choosing to study outside of their home countries, which will be introduced in the following section.

1.1

Chinese Students and International Mobility Trends

In recent years, U.S. colleges have seen a rise of Chinese students who form the largest proportion of international students (31%). Undergraduate enrollment has increased more than eightfold in just six years.3 Chinese students now also constitute the largest group of international students in several European countries (including Germany.4 ) as well as in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The Covid-19 pandemic, while temporarily making international relocation cumbersome, has not deterred these youngsters. Overall, they constitute a significant portion (17.5%) of internationally mobile students.5 However, venturing abroad in pursuit of academic rigor or immersion in a new language is a desirable option for more and more people worldwide. Indeed, the number of internationally mobile students has increased in all parts of the world in the 20th century. The rehabilitation of Europe and the continent’s economic development after the Second World War crucially contributed to this trend. The end of the cold war, as well as the economic boom in Japan and other East Asian countries, further solidified this.6 Since the 1990 s, globalization and the onset of modern technology

3

Institute of International Education IIE, “Open Doors Report,” 2020, https://www.iie.org/ Research-and-Insights/Open-Doors/Data/International-Students/Leading-Host-Institutions. Accessed 24.9.2021. 4 Jin Sun, Die Universität Als Raum Kultureller Differenzerfahrung: Chinesische Studenten an Einer Deutschen Hochschule, Europäische Hochschulschriften. Reihe XI, Pädagogik, Publications Universitaires Européennes. Série XI, Pédagogie; European University Studies. Series XI, Education, Bd. 996 = vol. 996 = vol. 996 (Frankfurt am Main; New York: Lang, 2010), 4–5. 5 Institute of Statistics UNESCO, “Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students,” 2021, http://uis. unesco.org/en/uis-student-flow. Accessed 25.3.2020. 6 Niels Klabunde and Jürgen Henze, Wettlauf um internationale Studierende: Integration und interkulturelle Hochschulentwicklung in Deutschland und Kanada, Perspectives of the other (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2014), 33.

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Introduction

have been driving factors.7 Between 1990 and 1995 the yearly amount of people seeking education abroad has quadrupled. The total amount of international students rose to 3,3 Million by 2009 and to 5,3 million by 20178 which is strongly disproportionate to the overall growth of the worldwide population.9 Studying abroad has become a key differentiating experience for young adults enrolled in tertiary education. It provides opportunities to access quality education, acquire skills that may not be taught at home and get closer to labor markets that offer higher returns on education. It is also seen as a way to improve employability in globalized labor markets.10

Figure 1.1 Growth in international or foreign enrolment in tertiary education worldwide (1998–2017). OECD, Education at a Glance 2019: OECD Indicators, Education at a Glance (OECD, 2019), https://doi.org/10.1787/f8d7880d-en, 231, B6.2

The skills needs of increasingly knowledge-based and innovation-driven economies have spurred demand for tertiary education worldwide, while local education capacities have not always evolved fast enough to meet growing domestic demand. Rising wealth in emerging economies has further prompted children 7

Yu Chen, Verbessern Chinesische Studierende Ihre Sprechfertigkeit Im Deutschen Während Des Fachstudiums in Deutschland? Eine Empirische Untersuchung Unter Berücksichtigung Sozialer Aspekte, Duisburger Arbeiten Zur Sprach- Und Kulturwissenschaft; Duisburg Papers on Research in Language and Culture, Bd. 91 = v. 91 (Frankfurt am Main; New York: Lang, 2012). 8 Institute of Statistics UNESCO, “Education: Outbound Internationally Mobile Students by Host Region,” 2020, http://data.uis.unesco.org/Index.aspx?queryid=172. Accessed 25.3.2020. 9 Klabunde and Henze, Wettlauf um internationale Studierende, 26. 10 OECD, Education at a Glance 2019: OECD Indicators, Education at a Glance (OECD, 2019), https://doi.org/10.1787/f8d7880d-en.

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of the growing middle classes to seek educational opportunities abroad. At the same time, economic factors (e.g., costs of international flights), technological factors (e.g., the spread of the Internet and social media to maintain contacts across borders), and cultural factors (e.g., use of English as a common working and teaching language) have made international mobility more affordable and less irreversible than in the past.11

1.2

Research Overview

The phenomenon of young Chinese increasingly pursuing education abroad has not gone unnoticed by researchers. Indeed, scholars in a multitude of fields have investigated Chinese international students. According to Kehm and Teuber, this is a sign of enhanced academic interest on the topic of internationalization of education.12 The following section aims to give a succinct overview of the most significant trends in this research field. The growing presence of Chinese students on higher education campuses and their effect on the curriculum, staff, and teaching environment has been examined in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand,13 and in a smaller scope in France and Germany14 as well as 11

OECD, 231; Brendan Cantwell, “Are International Students Cash Cows? Examining the Relationship Between New International Undergraduate Enrollments and Institutional Revenue at Public Colleges and Universities in the US” 5, no. 4 (2015): 14. 12 Barbara M. Kehm and Ulrich Teichler, “Research on Internationalisation in Higher Education,” Journal of Studies in International Education 11, no. 3–4 (September 2007): 260–73, https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315307303534. 13 Ling Cao and Tingting Zhang, “Social Networking Sites and Educational Adaptation in Higher Education: A Case Study of Chinese International Students in New Zealand,” The Scientific World Journal 2012 (2012): 1–5, https://doi.org/10.1100/2012/289356; Yuan Cheng, Education and Class: Chinese in Britain and the United States (Aldershot [England]; Brookfield, USA: Avebury, 1994); Rita Chi-Ying Chung, Frank H. Walkey, and Fred Bemak, “A Comparison of Achievement and Aspirations of New Zealand Chinese and European Students,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 28, no. 4 (July 1997): 481–89, https://doi. org/10.1177/0022022197284006; Sue McGowan and Lucy Potter, “The Implications of the Chinese Learner for the Internationalization of the Curriculum: An Australian Perspective,” Critical Perspectives on Accounting 19, no. 2 (February 2008): 181–98, https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.cpa.2005.12.006; Johanna L. Waters, Education, Migration, and Cultural Capital in the Chinese Diaspora: Transnational Students between Hong Kong and Canada (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2008); Lloyd L. Wong, ed., Trans-Pacific Mobilities: The Chinese and Canada (Vancouver Toronto: UBC Press, 2017). 14 Jun He, “Zum Vergleich Des Studienstandorts Deutschland Und Frankreich Für Die Chinesen.,” Das Hochschulwesen 62, no. 6 (2014): 191–95; Sun, Die Universität Als Raum

6

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Introduction

in other countries such as Korea15 , Thailand, Russia16 , Japan17 , and Myanmar18 . The literature reviewed in this section, however, focuses on the context of Chinese studying in North America. Due to the vast amount of scholarly literature available, I have chosen to figuratively follow in the students’ footsteps to organize it, meaning I begin with their decision-making in China, proceed to their experiences upon arrival, and conclude with studies dealing with their plans after graduation. Firstly, prominent scholars such as sociologists Vanessa Fong19 and Dennis Yang20 have discussed the push-pull factors leading to educational sojourns. Comparative studies have looked into the specific draw of an overseas education

Kultureller Differenzerfahrung; Jiani Zhu, “Academic Adjustment of Chinese Students at German Universities,” December 18, 2012, https://doi.org/10.18452/16638. 15 Qinlan Lin and Ling Gao, “Study on Paths of Affect Factors on Adaption to University Life of Chinese International Students in Korea —Choosing Korean Training Chinese Students as Main Investigation Objects,” Engineering 05, no. 10 (2013): 158–62, https://doi.org/ 10.4236/eng.2013.510B034. 16 Svetlana Sablina, Hannah Soong, and Anna Pechurina, “Exploring Expectations, Experiences and Long-Term Plans of Chinese International Students Studying in the Joint SinoRussian Degree,” Higher Education 76, no. 6 (December 2018): 973–88, https://doi.org/10. 1007/s10734-018-0256-z. 17 Liao Chi Yang, Li En Min, and Wang Xue Ping, Kua yue jiang jie: liu xue sheng yu xin Hua qiao = Transiting boundaries: Chinese students and new migrants in Japan 跨越疆界: 留学生与新华侨 = Transiting boundaries: Chinese students and new migrants in Japan / 主编廖赤阳; 副主编李恩民, 王雪萍, She hui ke xue wen xian chu ban she, liu xue ri ben cong shu 2 (Beijing, 2015). 18 Juan Chen, “An Analysis of Chinese Phonetic Errors of Chinese Students in North Myanmar,” Modern Linguistics 09, no. 01 (2021): 75–81, https://doi.org/10.12677/ML.2021. 91012. 19 Vanessa Fong, Paradise Redefined: Transnational Chinese Students and the Quest for Flexible Citizenship in the Developed World. (Stanford: Stanford Univeresity Press, 2011). 20 Dennis Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undergraduate Students at American Universities (Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: Lexington Books, 2016).

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7

versus domestic institutions.21 Mei Fong22 , Fengshu Liu23 and most recently, Yingyi Ma24 also investigated the changing role of education as contributing to a family’s decisions to send their offspring abroad. Bodycott25 examined the parents’ role in the decision-making process. This line of research often constructs Chinese students and their families as customers or as the world’s largest floating academic potential, which could lead to intensive competition.26 Once arrived at their destination of choice, international students face many challenges such as finance, housing, lack of social network and support, competence in the English language, and homesickness as well as adjusting to different cultures and classroom requirements.27 How students cope and adapt has been researched in the fields of psychology and medicine, as well as nutritional science. Chinese international students have been of interest in regard to the acculturation processes they go through and how it affects their mental health.28 It has been shown that social connectedness with Americans mediated the links between 21

Baoyan Cheng, Aiai Fan, and Min Liu, “Chinese High School Students’ Plans in Studying Overseas: Who and Why,” Frontiers of Education in China 12, no. 3 (September 2017): 367–93, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-017-0027-0; Patrick Lo et al., “Chinese Students’ Motivations for Overseas versus Domestic MLIS Education: A Comparative Study between University of Tsukuba and Shanghai University,” College & Research Libraries 80, no. 7 (2019): 1013–35, https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.80.7.1013. 22 Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016). 23 Fengshu Liu, Modernization as Lived Experiences: Three Generations of Young Men and Women in China, First Edition, Youth, Young Adulthood and Society (New York: Routledge, 2019). 24 Yingyi Ma, Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020). 25 Peter Bodycott, “Choosing a Higher Education Study Abroad Destination: What Mainland Chinese Parents and Students Rate as Important,” Journal of Research in International Education 8, no. 3 (December 2009): 349–73, https://doi.org/10.1177/1475240909345818. 26 Jürgen Henze and Jiani Zhu, “Current Research on Chinese Students Studying Abroad,” Research in Comparative and International Education 7, no. 1 (March 2012): 90–104, https:// doi.org/10.2304/rcie.2012.7.1.90. 27 Linda Tsevi, “Survival Strategies of International Undergraduate Students at a Public Research Midwestern University in the United States: A Case Study,” Journal of International Students 8, no. 2 (April 1, 2018): 1037, https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v8i2.131. 28 Ying Xu et al., “The Contribution of Lifestyle Factors to Depressive Symptoms: A CrossSectional Study in Chinese College Students,” Psychiatry Research 245 (November 2016): 243–49, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2016.03.009; Yu-Wen Ying, Peter Allen Lee, and Jeanne L. Tsai, “Attachment, Sense of Coherence, and Mental Health among Chinese American College Students: Variation by Migration Status,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 31, no. 5 (September 2007): 531–44, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2007.01.001;

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Introduction

adherence to the host culture and psychosocial adjustment or depression.29 Other studies have explored the correlation between attachment to parents or peers and depressive symptom level after migrating.30 Furthermore, Chinese students’ adaptation to the new educational environment has been a topic in pedagogy and educational sciences. It has been hypothesized that the Chinese have difficulty adapting due to their difference in learning and thinking styles. However, this has later been criticized as culturalizing because it measures students against Western standards and ideals of learning.31 Numerous studies have examined the challenges of communication between faculty and Chinese students, among undergraduates but also among doctoral students who often have a closer, highstakes relationship with their faculty supervisors.32 Among the issues that have

Jing Zhang and Patricia Goodson, “Acculturation and Psychosocial Adjustment of Chinese International Students: Examining Mediation and Moderation Effects,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 35, no. 5 (September 2011): 614–27, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. ijintrel.2010.11.004; Zhongheng Zhang and Juan Xu, “Chinese Graduate Students’ Adaptation to Learning in America: A Cultural Perspective,” JOURNAL OF CHINESE OVERSEAS, 2007, 12. 29 Zhang and Goodson, “Acculturation and Psychosocial Adjustment of Chinese International Students.” 30 Ying, Lee, and Tsai, “Attachment, Sense of Coherence, and Mental Health among Chinese American College Students.” 31 Hongyu Cheng, Heidi L. Andrade, and Zheng Yan, “A Cross-Cultural Study of Learning Behaviours in the Classroom: From a Thinking Style Perspective,” Educational Psychology 31, no. 7 (December 2011): 825–41, https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2011.608526; HongYu Cheng and Shu-Yi Guan, “The Role of Learning Approaches in Explaining the Distinct Learning Behaviors Presented by American and Chinese Undergraduates in the Classroom,” Learning and Individual Differences 22, no. 3 (June 2012): 414–18, https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.lindif.2011.12.009; LI Jin, “Mind or Virtue: Western and Chinese Beliefs about Learning,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 14, no. 4 (2005): 190–94. 32 Shiyou Wu et al., “Exploring Factors for Achieving Successful Educational Attainment among Chinese Doctoral Students in the United States,” Journal of International Students 10, no. 2 (May 15, 2020): 244–64, https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v10i2.844; Andrea G. Trice, “Faculty Perceptions of Graduate International Students: The Benefits and Challenges,” Journal of Studies in International Education 7, no. 4 (December 2003): 379–403, https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315303257120; Li Jin and Jason Schneider, “Faculty Views on International Students: A Survey Study,” Journal of International Students 9, no. 1 (January 18, 2019): 84–96, https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v9i1.268; Chris R Glass et al., “Uneven Experiences: The Impact of Student-Faculty Interactions on International Students’ Sense of Belonging” 5, no. 4 (2015): 15; Shelley Rose Adrian-Taylor, Kimberly A. Noels, and Kurt Tischler, “Conflict Between International Graduate Students and Faculty Supervisors: Toward Effective Conflict Prevention and Management Strategies,” Journal of Studies in

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9

received a lot of attention, accusations of plagiarism– or in other words, diverging definitions of ownership and approaches to academic writing—should be mentioned.33 Cultural adaptation has in several cases been researched in connection with the use of social networking sites. As internet censorship has made most foreign social networking sites unavailable in China, students’ acceptance of and immersion in the aforementioned sites has been viewed as an unambiguous marker of cultural adaptation by some researchers.34 Cultural adaptation and specifically acculturative stress have been of interest to scientists in psychology who have devised a number of studies on students’ mental health.35 In a more critical light, the intercultural studies field has looked into stereotypes

International Education 11, no. 1 (March 2007): 90–117, https://doi.org/10.1177/102831530 6286313. 33 Qing Gu and Jane Brooks, “Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism,” System 36, no. 3 (September 2008): 337–52, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2008.01.004; Robert M O’Connell and Nuerzati Resuli, “Academic Challenges for Chinese Transfer Students in Engineering,” Journal of International Students 10, no. 2 (May 15, 2020): 466–82, https:// doi.org/10.32674/jis.v10i2.674. 34 Eric Forbush and Brooke Foucault-Welles, “Social Media Use and Adaptation among Chinese Students Beginning to Study in the United States,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 50 (January 2016): 1–12, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2015.10.007; Jin-Liang Wang et al., “The Relationships among the Big Five Personality Factors, Self-Esteem, Narcissism, and Sensation-Seeking to Chinese University Students’ Uses of Social Networking Sites (SNSs),” Computers in Human Behavior 28, no. 6 (November 2012): 2313–19, https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.07.001; Chen Yang, “US-Based Social Media Use and American Life: A Study of Chinese Students’ Acculturation and Adaptation in America,” Global Media and China 3, no. 2 (June 2018): 75–91, https://doi.org/10.1177/2059436418783765; Steven Fraiberg and Xiaowei Cui, “Weaving Relationship Webs: Tracing How IMing Practices Mediate the Trajectories of Chinese International Students,” Computers and Composition 39 (March 2016): 83–103, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2015.11.005. 35 Nasih Othman et al., “Perceived Impact of Contextual Determinants on Depression, Anxiety and Stress: A Survey with University Students,” International Journal of Mental Health Systems 13, no. 1 (December 2019): 17, https://doi.org/10.1186/s13033-019-0275-x; Alberta Gloria and Tamara Ho, “Environmental, Social, and Psychological Experience of Asian American Undergraduates: Examining Issues of Academic Persistence,” Journal of Counseling and Development 81 (Winter 2003): 93–105; Huan Chen, Usenime Akpanudo, and Erin Hasler, “How Do Chinese International Students View Seeking Mental Health Services?,” Journal of International Students 10, no. 2 (May 15, 2020): 286–305, https://doi.org/10. 32674/jis.v10i2.765; Justin A. Chen et al., “Chinese International Students: An Emerging Mental Health Crisis,” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 54, no. 11 (November 2015): 879–80, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2015.06.022; Xu et al., “The Contribution of Lifestyle Factors to Depressive Symptoms.”

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Introduction

and knowledge about U.S. and China among this group.36 Academic achievement, self-efficacy, and persistence of Chinese students have also been widely researched.37 Another strand of research has taken a more positive approach and thematized transformations and learning opportunities38 as well as the rich contributions Chinese students make to the university environment.39 As found by Anke Li, Chinese undergraduates at North American universities reported that their close friends are mainly Chinese due to a deeper emotional connection and being able to communicate in their mother tongue. A common reason for only interacting with non-Chinese peers in the classroom was the lack of shared interests and different preferences in free-time activities, e.g., drinking alcohol.40 Li’s study is part of a larger body of research problematizing Chinese students’

36

R. David Arkush, ed., Land without Ghosts: Chinese Impressions of America from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present, 1st paperback printing (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1993); D. Han, D. Chen, and C. Fang, “Images of the United States: Explaining the Attitudes of Chinese Scholars and Students in the United States,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 6, no. 2 (June 1, 2013): 183–207, https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/pot007; Carola McGiffert, ed., Chinese Images of the United States, Significant Issues Series, v. 27, no. 3 (Washington, D.C: CSIS Press, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2005); Racheal A. Ruble and Yan Bing Zhang, “Stereotypes of Chinese International Students Held by Americans,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 37, no. 2 (March 2013): 202– 11, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2012.12.004; Yali Zhao, Xiaoguang Zhou, and Lihong Huang, “Chinese Students’ Knowledge and Thinking about America and China,” The Social Studies 99, no. 1 (January 2008): 13–22, https://doi.org/10.3200/TSSS.99.1.3-22. 37 Gloria and Ho, “Environmental, Social, and Psychological Experience of Asian American Undergraduates: Examining Issues of Academic Persistence”; Shengjie Lin, Carlton J. Fong, and Yidan Wang, “Chinese Undergraduates’ Sources of Self-Efficacy Differ by Sibling Status, Achievement, and Fear of Failure along Two Pathways,” Social Psychology of Education 20, no. 2 (June 2017): 361–86, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-017-9367-0; Samuel S. Peng and Deeann Wright, “Explanation of Academic Achievement of Asian American Students,” The Journal of Educational Research 87, no. 6 (July 1994): 346–52, https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00220671.1994.9941265. 38 Glen Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia” (Dissertation, Adelaide, University of Adelaide, 2010). 39 Tang T. Heng, “Different Is Not Deficient: Contradicting Stereotypes of Chinese International Students in US Higher Education,” Studies in Higher Education 43, no. 1 (January 2, 2018): 22–36, https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2016.1152466. 40 Anke Li, “University Integration of Chinese Undergraduate Students: I Never Tended to Break the Bubble [to Make Friends with Local Students]. I Think I Already Passed That Phase When in High School. The Role of Secondary School Experience in Social Integration of Chinese Undergraduate Students in Canada and the United States,” Journal of International Mobility N6, no. 1 (2018): 153, https://doi.org/10.3917/jim.006.0153.

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self-segregating behavior and nationalist tendencies.41 Chinese researchers, most notably Heng in her essay “Different is not Deficient”42 and Ma in her book “Ambitious and Anxious”43 have criticized this approach as unfairly generalizing Chinese students and over-simplifying complex identity negotiation processes. The experience of returned American-educated Chinese and their integration into the domestic labor market has been of interest, particularly among Chinese economists and social scientists.44 A well-researched issue is the contrast between the perception of an American education as a road to career success or high-return investment and the actual positioning of returned graduates in the job market. Compared to their Chinese-educated peers, they may lack relevant (关系;

41

Vicki Jingjing Zhang, “The Multiple Forces Behind Chinese Students’ Self-Segregation and How We May Counter Them” 11, no. 2 (2018): 17; Yige Dong, “How Chinese Students Become Nationalist: Their American Experience and Transpacific Futures,” American Quarterly 69, no. 3 (2017): 559–67, https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2017.0050; Yi Zhu and Mary Bresnahan, “‘They Make No Contribution!’ Versus ‘We Should Make Friends with Them!’—American Domestic Students’ Perception of Chinese International Students’ Reticence and Face,” Journal of International Students 8, no. 4 (October 1, 2018), https://doi.org/ 10.32674/jis.v8i4.221; Xiaoting Xu and Hong Jiang, “Investigation of Patriotic Consciousness of Overseas University Students,” Journal of Anhui Agricultural University (Social Science Edition) 27, no. 2 (March 2018): 137–40; Fen Lin, Yanfei Sun, and Hongxing Yang, “How Are Chinese Students Ideologically Divided? A Survey of Chinese College Students’ Political Self-Identification,” Pacific Affairs 88, no. 1 (March 1, 2015): 51–74, https://doi. org/10.5509/201588151; Henry Chiu Hail, “Patriotism Abroad: Overseas Chinese Students’ Encounters With Criticisms of China,” Journal of Studies in International Education 19, no. 4 (September 2015): 311–26, https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315314567175. 42 Heng, “Different Is Not Deficient.” 43 Ma, Ambitious and Anxious. 44 Shu Fan Wen, “Return Migration and Economic Turmoil: Experiences of Repatriated Chinese Professionals in Shanghai, China,” Dialectical Anthropology 37, no. 3–4 (December 2013): 363–82, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-013-9322-1; Zhang Yufa, “Returned Chinese Students from America and the Chinese Leadership (1846–1949),” Chinese Studies in History 35, no. 3 (April 2002): 52–86, https://doi.org/10.2753/CSH0009-4633350352; Chiang YungChen, “Chinese Students in America in the Early Twentieth Century: Preliminary Reflections on a Research Topic,” Chinese Studies in History 36, no. 3 (April 2003): 38–62, https://doi. org/10.2753/CSH0009-4633360338; Huiyao Wang, Dang Dai Zhongguo Hai Gui =: Contemporary Chinese Returnees, Di 1 ban, Hai Gui Tui Dong Zhongguo Cong Shu (Beijing Shi: Zhongguo fa zhan chu ban she, 2007).

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Introduction

connections; network)45 or work experience many employers value.46 Age discrimination is also a factor, especially for middle-class families, where students have to balance part-time jobs or need extra time for language fluency which may prolong their stay and “cost their valuable youth”.47 Some upper-middleclass families have tried to avoid this problem by sending their children abroad at a younger age. However, this phenomenon of “parachute kids” and “astronaut families”, which includes parents staying in the home country to provide financial stability while the offspring attends school abroad, has been more prevalent among Taiwanese and Korean families.48 It has only recently and rarely been practiced by Chinese families. For political scientists, the career paths, leadership roles, and contribution to modernization the students have had after their return to China has been of interest. It has been hypothesized that certain political events students witnessed during their years abroad directly influenced their political convictions and formed the basis for their careers in later life.49 In the American context, the potential political influence of students on the university

45

Thomas Gold, Doug Guthrie, and David L. Wank, eds., Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi, Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences 21 (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 46 Fong, Paradise Redefined: Transnational Chinese Students and the Quest for Flexible Citizenship in the Developed World.; Yang, “US-Based Social Media Use and American Life.” 47 Fong, Paradise Redefined: Transnational Chinese Students and the Quest for Flexible Citizenship in the Developed World. 48 Jørgen Carling, Cecilia Menjívar, and Leah Schmalzbauer, “Central Themes in the Study of Transnational Parenthood,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 38, no. 2 (February 2012): 191–217, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2012.646417; May Friedman and Silvia Schultermandl, eds., Growing up Transnational: Identity and Kinship in a Global Era (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011); Glenna Matthews, “The Global Silicon Valley Home: Lives and Landscapes Within Taiwanese American Trans-Pacific Culture. By Shenglin Chang. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006. Xxii + 264 Pp. $55).,” Pacific Historical Review 76, no. 2 (May 2007): 319–20, https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2007.76.2.319; Mary Romero, “Review Reviewed Work(s): Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes by Rhacel Salazar Parreñas,” Contemporary Sociology 35, no. 5 (2006): 480–82; Ken Chih-Yan Sun, “Transnational Kinscription: A Case of Parachute Kids in the USA and Their Parents in Taiwan,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 40, no. 9 (September 2, 2014): 1431–49, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2013.847359; Min Zhou and James V. Gatewood, eds., Contemporary Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader, 2nd ed (New York: New York University Press, 2007). 49 Ning Qian and T. K. Chu, Chinese Students Encounter America (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002).

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environment has caught more attention.50 Overall, media coverage of this phenomenon and existing research literature around Chinese students tend to center the difficulties students face in their educational sojourns without adequate consideration of how sociocultural contexts and histories shape students’ experiences. Research focusing on the students’ lived experiences, in particular, is rare. Several notable exceptions are worth mentioning here. Lily Lei Ye’s ethnographic study of Chinese doctoral students’ identity negotiations and intercultural experiences in the UK has certainly inspired me and served as a valuable model for designing a qualitative study that centers the study participants’ perspectives. Ye argues that Chinese students exhibit much more agency than previous scholarship has attributed to them.51 Gang Zhu’s innovative study “The Monkey King Meets Spiderman”52 has also been interesting and helpful. Zhu uses a narrative approach and Wenger’s theories of communities of practice53 to investigate Chinese students’ identity development and experiences of academic socialization in a public university in the USA. Fengshu Liu’s paper has examined the phenomenon of studying abroad under the aspect of constructing autonomous the middle-class self. She argues that young adult, only children university students undergo a specific process of identity formation.54 Several other studies have focused specifically on the transformative aspect of living, traveling, or studying

50

Peter H. Koehn and Xiao-huang Yin, eds., The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations: Transnational Networks and Trans-Pacific Interactions (Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, 2002); Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic, A Preliminary Study of PRC Political Influence and Interference Activities in American Higher Education (Washington, D.C.: Kissinger Institute on China and the United States Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2018); Yingyi Ma and Martha A Garcia-Murillo, Understanding International Students from Asia in American Universities: Learning and Living Globalization, 2018. 51 Lily Lei Ye, Intercultural Experience and Identity Narratives of Chinese Doctoral Students in the UK (New York, NY: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2018); Lily Ye and Viv Edwards, “Chinese Overseas Doctoral Student Narratives of Intercultural Adaptation,” Journal of Research in International Education 14, no. 3 (December 2015): 228–41, https://doi. org/10.1177/1475240915614934. 52 Gang Zhu, “‘The Monkey King Meets the Spiderman’: Narrative Inquiry into Chinese Students’ Academic Socialization Experiences in a U.S. University,” Frontiers of Education in China 12, no. 1 (2017): 98–119. 53 Etienne Wenger, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Learning in Doing (Cambridge, U.K.; New York, N.Y: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 54 Fengshu Liu, “Constructing the Autonomous Middle-Class Self in Today’s China: The Case of Young-Adult Only-Children University Students,” Journal of Youth Studies 11, no. 2 (April 2008): 193–212, https://doi.org/10.1080/13676260701800746.

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Introduction

abroad and its’ impact on identity.55 Tan’s qualitative study has focused on the self-concept and cultural identity of Chinese students during their educational sojourns.56 Lastly, the study "Neither local nor global" conducted by Yuan, Li, and Yu at a Chinese university is relevant in regard to identity re-negotiations that take place upon contact with other international groups, even for those students who remain in their homeland.57 The study can shed light on what contributes to the emergence of a cosmopolitan identity through institutional internationalization. After this brief overview, which makes no claim of being complete, I introduce the research questions I aim to address through this study.

1.3

Research Questions

In this dissertation, I would like to investigate the students’ narratives of selfidentity. How do the students view themselves and their experience abroad? How do they position themselves in regard to their environment? How do they tell their stories and which points do they emphasize when telling their stories? How do they distinguish themselves from their peers and families? I aim to present the participants of my study as complex subjects with the power of individual agency who compose a particular narrative in order to achieve the coherence of self-identity.58 Furthermore, I will discuss which societal and cultural discourses could have contributed to the formation of the narratives in my sample. As these processes are highly complex, it is evident that the origins of such narratives can never be determined with certainty. I nonetheless address those discourses which I consider as potentially feeding into them or necessitating a positioning from the 55

Dan Zhu, Batueva Chimita, and Honggang Xu, “Self-Development of Chinese Overseas Students in Their European Travels,” Journal of China Tourism Research 13, no. 1 (January 2, 2017): 46–64, https://doi.org/10.1080/19388160.2017.1314842; Li-Fang Zhang, “Thinking Styles and Identity Development among Chinese University Students,” The American Journal of Psychology 121, no. 2 (July 1, 2008): 255, https://doi.org/10.2307/20445460; Qing Gu, “An Emotional Journey of Identity Change and Transformation: The Impact of Study-Abroad Experience on the Lives and Careers of Chinese Students and Returnees,” Learning and Teaching 8, no. 3 (December 1, 2015): 60–81, https://doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2015.080304. 56 Yu Tan, “On Self-Concept and Cultural Identity Reconstruction Issues of Chinese International Students,” Contemporary Education and Culture 6, no. 3 (2018): 78–83. 57 Rui Yuan, Sifei Li, and Baohua Yu, “Neither ‘Local’ nor ‘Global’: Chinese University Students’ Identity Paradoxes in the Internationalization of Higher Education,” Higher Education 77, no. 6 (June 2019): 963–78, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-018-0313-7. 58 Anton Antonovsky and S. Sagy, “The Development of a Sense of Coherence and Its Impact on Responses to Stress Situations.,” Journal of Social Psychology 126, no. 1 (1986): 213–25.

1.3 Research Questions

15

side of the study participants. In organizing my findings, I have been inspired to follow the chronology of the students’ journey from China to America. I begin with their positioning within their family contexts in China, including their experiences in the Chinese educational system and the family decision-making process concerning the how and why of studying abroad. I then move on to their arrival in the United States and discuss their self-definitions in regards to their peers and their new environment. I look at how they set themselves apart from their peers and what issues arise as significant distinguishing markers. Lastly, I look at their positioning within the broader national context and their considerations for the future. In regards to how I plan to answer these research questions, let me state the structure of this dissertation in detail. In Chapter 2, I introduce the methodology used for this study. I explain the reasoning behind choosing the qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews as well as discuss the shortcomings of such an approach. My own position as a researcher will also be considered. Chapter 3 delves into the theoretical framework of identity and the "reflexive project of the self" proposed by Anthony Giddens, which form the basis for analysis. Special attention will be paid to the complexities of applying these theories to the Chinese context. In Chapter 4, I look into the history of Chinese-American educational exchanges and educational traditions that contributed to them. The present-day trend of Chinese study abroad will also be addressed, and the reasons contributing to this will be analyzed in detail. In Chapters 5, 6, and 7, I will present the main findings of my study. In Chapter 5, I discuss the narratives of the self in the context of the family. The chapter contains background information about the changing family dynamics and perceptions of education in modern China, which I have deemed relevant to fully understand the research results. For instance, how the foreign educational experience changes the parentchild relationship is of special interest in light of the one-child policy, as the lonely offspring is often burdened with greater familial and financial responsibilities than in previous generations.59 For this reason, I have included an overview of the historical developments and the impact of this specific policy. Furthermore, the following research questions will be addressed: How do the youngsters deal with familial expectations and obligations? Are the students aware of their privileged position or the expenses their education is causing for their parents? Which role do they see for themselves in the story of their family? Chapter 6 looks at peer relationships as well as the self-positioning and distinguishing markers among peers. It can be assumed that Chinese students in America come from various backgrounds, so how they negotiate identification with different subgroups 59

Fong, One Child.

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Introduction

is intriguing. How do they portray themselves and their background in front of their friends? The chapter is subdivided into several identity categories which have emerged as significant from my material, 6.2: the Enthusiastic Learner, a type of student who enjoys academic learning and fully applies him or herself to it, thus placing their studies at the center of their identity; 6.3: the People Person, who emphasizes sociability, extroversion, and leadership in their narratives and 6.4: the Global Citizen, who likes to portray him or herself as a globetrotting adventurer with an open mind-set. While I had originally not planned to use Bourdieu’s theories of capital and class distinction60 as a framework for this thesis, the categories that have emerged from the material contain certain similarities to Bourdieu’s categories of social and cultural capital. These parallels are unintended. While Bourdieu’s theories are undoubtedly useful for understanding social mobility and studying abroad can contribute to the accumulation of capital through a transformed habitus61 , the focus of this study is not on the reproduction of class. Therefore, I have decided not to include these theories as a framework for analysis. In Chapter 7, I raise the question of how the students make sense of their new cultural environment. However, this does not mean intercultural adaptation or assimilation in Berry’s sense.62 Instead, I discuss and analyze narratives of belonging and positioning in regards to both the Chinese and American national context. Do the students feel a strong identification with their native context, is this identification possibly even enhanced through the study abroad experience? Or do they view themselves as first-generation Americans who plan a future in the United States? In the last chapter, I summarize the findings of my study and offer an in-depth analysis and placement of my results within the overall research context. I also consider implications for further research in this field.

60

Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. J.G. Richardson (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 241–58; Pierre Bourdieu and Randal Johnson, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). 61 Pierre Bourdieu and Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, Reprinted (Stanford, Calif: Stanford Univ. Press, 2008). 62 John W. Berry, “Immigration, Acculturation, and Adaptation,” Applied Psychology 46, no. 1 (January 1997): 5–34, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.1997.tb01087.x.

2

Methods

In this chapter methodology used for this study will be discussed. This includes the details of the qualitative approach used, as well as an in-depth description of the implementation of the fieldwork. I will also reflect on my own position as a researcher.

2.1

Study Design

The following section discusses two questions: firstly, how do I, as a researcher, view reality and what impact does this have on my study? Secondly, which research method is best suited to both my ontological position and the research topic at hand. Constructivism asserts that meanings are produced by the interactions between subjects and the world rather than being discovered1 and that different individuals construct their own meanings in different ways.2 In this study, I view identity narratives as constructed and produced by participants based on their lived experiences. They created meaning based on interacting with the environment where they sojourn. These meanings were dependent on and constructed by them rather than existing objectively. However, as succinctly pointed out by Hacking in his work “The social construction of what?”3 , constructionism has obvious limits when discussing social phenomena that I am aware of. Therefore, I feel the need 1

David E. Gray, Doing Research in the Real World, 4th edition (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2018). Louis Cohen, Lawrence Manion, and Keith Morrison, Research Methods in Education, 7th ed (London; New York: Routledge, 2011). 3 Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What?, 7. print (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 2001). 2

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Y. Köksal, Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1_2

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Methods

to relativize and distance myself from some extreme interpretations of constructivism which assert that all scientific knowledge is produced by the scientific community and thus all knowledge is socially constructed. While some narrative aspects can be viewed as creatively composed by individuals based on their life situations, these narrations’ should also be considered in front of a cultural and historical backdrop and various influences that contribute to their development. In short, they do not originate solely in the minds of these individuals. The emergence of these narratives is highly complex and defined by many factors. One of the more significant factors is the transition into a new cultural environment, which not only necessitates an identity re-positioning but also allows individuals to access a fresh set of cultural resources and narratives. In this setting of multicultural, multi-layered reality, individuals also have increasing agency over how they want to position themselves—which identity they want to select. Furthermore, it should be acknowledged that these identities might be partially constructed but also need to be validated through social interaction. This constrains individuals’ freedom in creating their narratives. In other words, I cannot claim to be someone solely because I would like to be. The social environment has to corroborate and accept each individuals’ self-identity in order for it to become recognized. In conclusion, I accept certain aspects of identity as socially constructed in the sense that they are created by individuals based on their specific experiences and circumstances and validated through social interactions. However, I do not consider the emergence of these identities as completely unconstrained from cultural and historical backgrounds. Narratives of identity are formed individually and are original to a certain extent but often make use of common cultural narratives that are available at the time (s. Chapter 3). For the further analysis of the collected data, I take an interpretive epistemological position. I attempt to understand the lived experiences of individuals, not through my own lens, but through the meanings that individuals assign to them through language and narratives. These positions determine that this research project should be a qualitative study, as suggested by Henwood4 : “researchers who adopt a more open, interpretive, constructionist stance have a clear affinity for qualitative research.” The following section will discuss the characteristics and advantages of qualitative research approaches and explain further why it is appropriate for this study.

4 K.L Henwood, “Qualitative Inquiry: Perspectives, Methods and Psychology.,” in Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Psychology and the Social Sciences., ed. T.E. RIchardson (Leicester: The British Psychology society, 1996), 26.

2.1 Study Design

19

Qualitative research is defined by subjectivity, rich description, focusing on individual experiences, maintaining the context, using flexible designs, and reflexivity. In using qualitative approaches to research, greater emphasis is placed upon the context and richness of accounts of social phenomena.5 This study aims at exploring students’ experience and their thoughts, trying to understand perceptions, opinions, and meanings associated with being a Chinese student in a second language setting. A qualitative research paradigm was therefore considered to be more suitable as it allows researchers to discover the lived experiences of research participants and to understand social interactions.6 The qualitative approach has been criticized for involving smaller sample sizes than quantitative studies and, consequently, offering limited generalizability.7 My limited sample size of 29 research participants could likewise be considered too small to draw general conclusions about the group of Chinese international students in the United States. My sample is not intended to be representative of the entire overseas Chinese student population, let alone the entire Chinese population. It is rather intended to show a variety of viewpoints and experiences that will help understand what factors shape interactions between international and host country students and identity negotiation. While I am aware of the shortcomings of qualitative approaches, such as limited sample sizes, this study focuses more on the in-depth and meaningful exploration of sojourners’ lived experiences than large populations and generalizability. Thus, the qualitative approach is best suited to this research focus. Furthermore, the topic of identity would be challenging to investigate using a quantitative, deductive approach. In fact, the rich interview material and qualitative data analysis methods allow for a more complex representation of this highly personal topic. Given the essential role of narrative in understanding the self, narrative methodology is used to explore the complexities of Chinese international students’ self-identity. The focus of narrative research is on the individual and the fact that life can be understood through a recounting of the life story or biographical narrative.8 The theoretical underpinning of the study defines self-identity as

5

Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973). 6 Victor Minichiello, In Depth Interviewing Researching People (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1992). 7 Alan Bryman, Social Research Methods, 3rd ed (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 8 Lily Lei Ye, Intercultural Experience and Identity Narratives of Chinese Doctoral Students in the UK (New York, NY: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2018), 1202.

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Methods

a “reflexive project of the self.”9 according to Giddens (s. Chapter 3). In other words, individuals constantly reorganize and update narratives from the standpoint of the present, incorporating new events and revised past and future events. Thus, a narrative approach is compatible with the theorization of identity because the story-making involved in the narrative approach is key to the ongoing process of the reflexive construction of the self. The specific focus of the study—narrative identity and self-understanding—resulted in the choice of in-depth qualitative interviews as the main method of data collection. As the concrete mode of data collection, I used semi-structured interviews. Semi-structured interviews work with a list of questions, but they are not standardized, and the flow in the interchange of knowledge in semi-structured interviews can be interviewer-led, interviewee-led, or both in turn. In addition, they allow the order of questions to be adjusted according to the direction of the flow in interviews or for probes to be used to deeply explore the interviewees’ views and opinions, get more information, clarify ideas or generate examples.10 Semi-structured interviews allowed me to investigate Chinese students’ experiences with a set of questions that directed the interviews, but also offered me the freedom and flexibility to adjust the order of the questions or to ask follow-up questions for clarity. In choosing this method, I also hoped to give students space to bring up new topics they thought of as important for their experience but which had not explicitly been mentioned by the researcher. The interview themes were generated by reviewing previous studies and by following the focus determined by the research questions. In order to refine the interview structure and ensure its functioning in answering the research questions, I conducted a pilot study with Chinese students in my hometown, Munich, before starting fieldwork in the United States. During the period of February to May 2019, I interviewed five Chinese students. This smaller-scale study was carried out with participants who had similar experiences as my main target group, as suggested by Bryman.11 Although a pilot study is usually recommended in quantitative research projects and not always used for qualitative studies, it was a useful tool to seek feedback, clarify and adjust the content and wording of the interview questions, estimate the approximate time needed to conduct interviews, and help the interviewer gain greater confidence.12 Piloting helped me figure out strengths as well as areas for improvement of the 9

Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1991), 5. 10 Gray, Doing Research in the Real World. 11 Bryman, Social Research Methods. 12 Bryman, 247.

2.2 Selection and Recruitment

21

interview questions. Several new themes also emerged from the pilot study and were incorporated into the research design. The final interview structure included an open-ended introduction, several questions detailing the process preceding the sojourn, family as well as peer group relations, and personal preferences (s. appendix). Participants were encouraged to share their personal stories. For instance, they recounted their inspirations and the decision-making process that led to their educational sojourn. The interviews prompted participants to reflect on the perception of the United States as a place of study, life experiences before and during their course of study, and potential career progression after graduation. In the interviews, the participants were guided to share their individual backgrounds and previous learning experiences, reflect on their decisions, as well as project into their future. Furthermore, the students were asked to describe their relationships with family members and peers. At the end of the interview, I gave the interviewees space to share something they felt was important but had not come up in the interview. This allowed research participants to direct my attention to new issues.

2.2

Selection and Recruitment

In accordance with the definitions put forth by Zhu, Chimita, and Xu and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the students in my study can be described as temporary residents during their enrolment in the host country. Another crucial criterion is that they are not citizens of the host country.13 In my study, all participants are citizens of the People’s Republic of China. Furthermore, I have decided to narrow my focus to Mainland China and exclude students from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao. This is due to my interest in the One-Child Policy, which was not instituted in these areas. I assumed that the child-centered environment brought about by this policy would have a significant impact on identity formation and thus specifically targeted Mainland Chinese students from single-child families. Regarding the major and phase of study as well as the length of stay in the United States, I aimed to recruit students from different backgrounds (i.e., different regions of China, ethnic groups, family composition, majors) and at different stages in their journey (Bachelor, Master, Ph.D.). The only requirement was that the students are 13

Dan Zhu, Batueva Chimita, and Honggang Xu, “Self-Development of Chinese Overseas Students in Their European Travels,” Journal of China Tourism Research 13, no. 1 (January 2, 2017): 50, https://doi.org/10.1080/19388160.2017.1314842.

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Methods

enrolled full-time and working toward a degree, which meant excluding summer school or language course participants. The rationale behind this exclusion criteria was that the length of stay in the United States would have a significant effect on identification processes. Someone who only spends a few months in a foreign country would possibly not need to reorganize their identity, while for someone who spends several years abroad, the transition and intercultural adaptation could be considered as a critical life event necessitating identity re-negotiation. Additionally, language courses are usually shorter and not integrated with courses attended by local students and instead are offered exclusively for international students. This limits classroom interaction with local peers and exposure to the local culture. It is assumed that it requires less adaptation to local academic standards. The data from interviews with students formed my main corpus, which was then complemented with expert interviews (university staff, educational agents, and parents of students involved). These additional interviews served the purpose of furthering my understanding of the students’ lived reality and educational context but were not part of the analysis pertaining to identity narratives. I first began recruiting in August 2019 by researching and contacting various student groups associated with China or Chinese culture, for example, Chinese Student Association, Chinese People Union, etc. This was done via email or social media sites such as Facebook and included a short introduction of my project alongside a request for putting me in contact with possible research participants. This approach yielded very few results, possibly due to the busy schedules of the students at the beginning of the semester. Therefore, I adapted my approach and increasingly used my personal networks and social media (Facebook, Weibo, WeChat, Couchsurfing, LinkedIn) to initiate introductions and make direct contact with potential interviewees. In the meantime, I applied for research funding to cover the expenses of staying in California for an extended period of fieldwork. The DAAD (German academic exchange council) approved my funding application and subsequently enabled me to travel to California, stay there for three months and visit several University of California campuses (UC Berkeley, UC Davis and UC Irvine). In accordance with my academic adviser Prof. Dr. Hochgeschwender, it was determined that California would be better suited as a location for fieldwork due to its popularity among Chinese students. It was assumed that the higher numbers of students from China on Californian campuses would make finding study participants easier. In fact, China is the largest country of origin for international student within the University of California System with more than 26,500 Chinese citizens enrolled in 2020. All the institutions

2.2 Selection and Recruitment

23

in my sample hold a significant Chinese student population.14 Furthermore, the institutions within the University of California system provide similar curricula and structures, which would make students’ experiences comparable. After my arrival in California, I asked the university administration and teaching staff to introduce me to students, which they generously did. Additionally, my project was advertised at international student residences and around campus. The advertisements were in English and Mandarin and included a QR code for my WeChat account to facilitate contact via a medium frequently used by students. The last phase of recruitment was implemented with the help of the students themselves. After the first couple of interviews, I asked for the students’ advice on how to get in touch with others. This was an indirect way of asking them to connect me with their friends, thus offering them a face-saving option of saying no without directly rejecting me or feeling compelled to say yes. I learned about the various WeChat groups used by Chinese students to connect and share information; when I asked if I could join one of these groups, students were reluctant. This was for several reasons: the groups were seen as exclusive, you needed to fall into certain categories that I did not (such as Chinese Student at Berkeley, Class of 2022). Also, WeChat has a limitation of 500 members per group, so that if I was accepted into a group, it might hinder other more suitable members from joining. However, several students offered to post in WeChat groups on my behalf, ask around in their group of friends and refer interested parties back to me. One student posted a WeChat Moment (similar to a Facebook status post; a short description and/or photo about a special occasion) about our encounter and my search for participants. Other students suggested contacting Chinese graduate students from department websites, which I then did. I created a sign-up sheet on the scheduling website WeJoin with available time slots as well as details about the time and place. This was designed to make signing up and scheduling appointments more convenient for students. The self-selection bias of participants should be taken into account. I am aware that my results may be influenced by the higher likelihood of certain personality types to participate in a research study. For instance, the increased participation of sociable, proactive types may have contributed to the forming of the categories of “global citizen” and “people person” in my research findings. However, this self-selection bias may have been counterbalanced by several recent arrivals who participated in my study because they wanted to meet new people and practice their English. One girl even told me that the conversation with me was the 14

The Regents of the University of California, “Fall Enrollment at a Glance” (Los Angeles, 2022), https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/fall-enrollment-glance.

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Methods

longest she had ever had using a foreign language. Ironically, even though I am from Germany, many Chinese students viewed the meeting with me as getting in touch with local society. This was potentially related to my ethnicity or the fact that I am usually seen as “white” and my status as a visiting researcher. Furthermore, my sample may include a higher percentage of students who are interested in the research process in general or specifically humanities and social science majors who have experience with conducting small-scale studies in the scope of their classes. Several students mentioned that their interest in transparency and independence of research in the American context (in contrast to a more regulated research environment in China) attracted them to participate. Moreover, I am aware that participation in such a research project may be appealing to people who feel that their story is unique and want to share it. Students may have some sort of message, such as countering common stereotypes about Chinese students. The performativity of participation in such a study is also not lost on me. The identity narratives compiled in this thesis are certainly shaped by how the students portray themselves towards me as a white female researcher (s. reflection). Participants contacted through teachers or administrative staff made frequent mention of the shared connection. They often told me how much they appreciated the person who had introduced us, shared anecdotes about him/her, or feedback that they had received from him/her. It is probable that they thought I would report back to him about the interview. I assured them that this was not the case.

2.3

Description of the Interviews

I endeavored to conduct as many face-to-face interviews as possible. As this phase of research took place during August 2019 until November 2019, before the pandemic (including social distancing etc.), this was easily accomplished and contributed greatly to the authenticity of the material. As pointed out by Opdenakker, face-to-face interviews ensure “synchronous communication”15 in time and place between the interviewer and interviewee, which brings advantages such as generating a more natural interaction, capturing emotions, behaviors, or body language, and keeping interviewees focused on the conversation. The following section describes the circumstances of the interviews, including the time, place, 15

Raymond Opdenakker, “Advantages and Disadvantages of Four Interview Techniques in Qualitative Research,” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research Vol 7 (September 30, 2006): 3, https://doi.org/10.17169/FQS-7.4.175.

2.3 Description of the Interviews

25

language, compensation, and addresses the methodological challenges of name change and relationship building. Interviews took place on campus or at cafés near campus. The locations were chosen for their quiet and relaxed atmosphere to put the students at ease and allow them to talk about their challenges and experiences without holding back. The majority of interviews took place in September and October 2019. At UC Berkeley, it was during the semester before mid-terms. At UC Irvine and UC Davis, it was the beginning of the semester. For many students, it was still orientation week. In line with the advice given by sociologist Linda Tsevi16 who has done extensive research on international students, the researcher interviewed the students at a time when they were not stressed out with academic, social, or other related issues by allowing the participants to schedule their own interview times and venues. The participants choose the time slot according to their availability and signed up digitally. I tried to ensure a wide variety of time slots throughout the day, including weekdays and weekends, in order to give the students the maximum amount of freedom in choosing a time that was convenient for them. I hoped that my increased availability would also lower the students’ inhibition as it would make our appointments seem less exclusive. Each interview lasted for an approximate time of 40 to 50 minutes. Students were given the choice between Mandarin and English. All of them chose English, possibly because they suspected my Mandarin would not be as good as their English. Or they were already used to using English in their daily life. It did seem to make them more comfortable knowing that I could understand Mandarin. Some students fell back on Mandarin often during the conversation, using certain phrases or saying that they felt were difficult to translate or had no parallel in English. Some students wanted to use the interview to practice their English with me, specifically those who had not been in the United States for very long. Many participants told me that the conversation with me was the first (or only) time that they had spoken to a foreigner in such depth, and they really enjoyed the talk. Some mentioned that they hadn’t had such a long talk in English before. Students who had been in the United States longer felt more comfortable expressing themselves in English. Students who just recently arrived often seemed shy and gave short, fact-based answers. Students who had been in the United States longer told more stories and were more emotional and personal in what they told me. 16

Linda Tsevi, “Survival Strategies of International Undergraduate Students at a Public Research Midwestern University in the United States: A Case Study,” Journal of International Students 8, no. 2 (April 1, 2018): 1034–58, https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v8i2.131.

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Methods

Due to the personal nature of the interview questions, I promised my participants that their personal data would not be shared with anyone, their names would be anonymized, and the interview transcripts would not be available to the public. This was explicitly stated before beginning the interview. Many participants expressed gratitude and relief for this circumstance. I could observe that they felt more comfortable sharing sensitive political content. Some reassured themselves repeatedly during the interview, asking me: “This is really anonymous, isn’t it?” For non-political content such as general satisfaction with their university experience, impressions of faculty or staff, and intimate mental health issues, the assurance of anonymity was helpful in furthering the authenticity of the material and building trust between the interviewees and the researcher. In order to protect their identities but also keep a certain degree of authenticity and ease the reading flow, I have chosen alternative names that reflect some of the cultural meaning of the original names. If a participant used his or her Chinese name, I have chosen a Chinese alias with a similar sound and number of syllables. For English names, I have tried to choose aliases with similar meanings, sounds, or contexts. For instance, for English names from popular movies, TV series, or literature, I selected an alias from the same fictional universe as the original name. At this point, I would like to shortly explain the social norm of choosing an “English” name among the group of interviewees. The phenomenon of Chinese students choosing a foreign name is not new. In 1971, sociologist Tai Kang observed: “Some Chinese students (…) have Anglicized their names; others have not. The change of a person’s name is theorized to be a symbolic representation of his identity change.”17 However, the practice has since become more widespread, and I would no longer agree it has such poignant meaning regarding identification. As pointed out by educational scholar Xing Xu, who investigated the relation between name change and identity, the practice of choosing a foreign name has become common in China due to the increasing interconnectedness of the world and the role and English as a lingua franca. Most schools in China now offer English-language classes, wherein English names are either bequeathed to students by a teacher or self-selected by students18 . The names adopted within this context are not necessarily commonly used in, or always originated in, England. They are not so much chosen for having an English etymology but are designated 17 Tai S Kang, “Name Change and Acculturation,” The Pacific Sociological Review, October 1971, 403–12. 18 Xing Xu, “Exploring the Logic of Name Changes and Identity Construction: A Reflective Self-Narration of Assimilation Expectations,” Names 68, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 33, https:// doi.org/10.1080/00277738.2018.1452937.

2.3 Description of the Interviews

27

as sounding English. Chinese students sometimes choose a name whose etymology stretches back to Hebrew or ancient Greek origins, such as Joseph or Helen, whose etymology has long since been forgotten by the English themselves. I have personally observed numerous creative name choices among Chinese youth whose names are meant to reflect their personal taste and interest. There were many names that were, in fact, not common in English-speaking countries at all, such as Hercules or Dorcas from the Greek mythology, characters from pop culture such as Simba or Buzz Lightyear, or even seemingly random terms such as Money. These names are associated with interactions with foreigners and feed into a discourse that foreigners cannot remember or pronounce Chinese names, as observed by intercultural scholar Wenhao Diao19 . Indeed, this sentiment was common among students in my study, such as Zhihao: My Chinese name is Zihao Zhang, but I’ve never seen any American actually able to pronounce it, so I got tired of it. Call me Ricky. (18/3–4)20

The discussion surrounding name changes has also been reflected in widely circulated media such as The New Yorker. Writer Beth Ngyuen, for instance, experienced discomfort and racial aggression when using her Vietnamese name Bich. She states: I avoided meeting people so I could avoid saying my name. And I took on the shame of not being strong enough to handle the shame of the American gaze. Names are deeply personal and deeply public. We have to see our names all the time.21

Thus, “catering to foreigners’ needs”22 but also the avoidance of exoticism as well as assimilation into mainstream American culture became motivating factors for the usage of an English name.23 For American faculty and staff, this behavioral

19

Wenhao Diao, “Between Ethnic and English Names: Name Choice for Transnational Chinese Students in a US Academic Community” 4, no. 3 (2014): 212. 20 Quotes from the interview transcripts mention the page number, e.g., 18, and the line number, e.g., 3–4 of the appendix of this thesis. 21 Beth Ngyuen, “America Ruined My Name for Me,” The New Yorker, April 1, 2021, sec. Personal History, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/america-ruined-myname-for-me. Accessed 4.11.2021. 22 Diao, “Between Ethnic and English Names: Name Choice for Transnational Chinese Students in a US Academic Community,” 213. 23 Xu, “Exploring the Logic of Name Changes and Identity Construction,” 33.

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Methods

pattern comes with advantages and disadvantages. As one teacher at UC Irvine stated (Interview with Dr. Thomas Eppel, 23.10.2019, UC Irvine): Our official documents only state their Chinese names, but when they hand in assignments, essays, or homework, they use their Western names and say: “This is my preferred name,” and I don’t have any idea who that is.

While the usage of ethnic names may increase the number of racial (micro-) aggressions, it remains questionable whether it would indeed be problematic for faculty and staff at UC California campuses to use Chinese names correctly. Most university employees may have gotten used to international students and may not be as inept at understanding Chinese (or other international) names as the discourse suggests. Students were offered a small compensation of 15 US$ in cash for the interview. This was recommended by the university administration as an appropriate sum to show appreciation but not too much to be the sole incentive for joining the research. It was also suggested offering gift cards that could be useful to students, such as for stationary, amazon, or coffee. However, I decided on cash to give students the freedom to use the sum according to their wishes. It quickly became evident that the compensation was a useful tool in ensuring the socioeconomic diversity of my sample. Several students told me they had been enticed to participate in my research due to this, most notably students who were aware of the financial strain their education was putting on the family’s resources and those who were struggling with the high cost of living in California. The university towns and surrounding areas were among the most expensive areas in terms of rent and consumer prices in the United States at the time of the interviews.24 Some students, especially older ones, didn’t feel comfortable accepting the money. Some students thought it was my personal money and didn’t want to burden me with additional expenses, especially if they had enjoyed our conversation. I explained that it was afforded by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Council) as a part of my scholarship. The foundation for an insightful and personal interview is the rapport between the interviewer and the interviewee. This includes relationship building and the establishment of mutual trust between the two parties. Spradley speaks of a teacher-pupil-dynamic in interviews and described the ideal attitude of an interviewer towards his or her study participants in this way: 24

Statista Research Department, “US Cost of Living: Statistics and Facts,” January 21, 2021, https://www.statista.com/topics/768/cost-of-living/. Accessed 3.6.2021.

2.3 Description of the Interviews

29

I want to understand the world from your point of view. I want to know what you know in the way you know it. I want to understand the meaning of your experience, to walk in your shoes, to feel things as you feel them, to explain things as you explain them. Will you become my teacher and help me understand?25

I took several steps to signal to the participants that I had a sincere interest in their perspectives and opinions. At the beginning of each interview, I briefly introduced myself and emphasized my intention to capture the authentic student experience through my research project. The first few questions were pointedly uncritical and aimed at creating a comfortable atmosphere. Furthermore, I made myself visible in the interviews by referring to my own experiences of studying and working abroad. In doing so, I tried to convey a sense of commonality and a shared understanding of the challenges of living in another cultural environment. I frequently mentioned the time I spent in Beijing and my travels in China in order to show the students that I was not unfamiliar with their native context. When talking about their hometowns, I made references to the historical events, famous sights, or cuisine of the area. I also sometimes employed positively connoted stereotypes (such as people from Shandong are very studious). I made sure that the students were aware of my knowledge of the Chinese educational system so that they would not get sidetracked in explaining systemic details to me. Such an approach was deemed sensible by Breuer and Dieris26 as it can stimulate participants to share additional experiences or considerations and thereby intensify interpersonal trust. Besides relationship building, it was also my mission as a researcher to initiate and sustain a narrative account that required a high level of alertness and attentiveness.27 I tried to validate students’ opinions as much as I could; I agreed with them a lot in order to encourage them to open up more, as suggested by Spradley.28 The insecurity many students felt led them to ask for feedback at the end of the interview. Several students requested that I share my impressions of them and their behavior. I understood this to be a habit formed by their constantly being 25 James P. Spradley, The Ethnographic Interview (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979), 34. 26 Franz Breuer et al., Reflexive Grounded Theory: eine Einführung für die Forschungspraxis, 4th, durchgesehene und aktualisierte Auflage ed., Lehrbuch (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2019). 27 Aglaja Przyborski and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, Qualitative Sozialforschung: Ein Arbeitsbuch, 4., erweiterte Auflage, Lehr- Und Handbücher Der Soziologie (München: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2014), 88. 28 James P. Spradley, The Ethnographic Interview (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979), 57.

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assessed in the educational system. It was important for me to clarify that the interview situation was not one of assessment and that there were no right or wrong answers. However, for those students who insisted, I shared some brief, encouraging observations that apparently satisfied their need for evaluation. I made sure to express my gratitude to them for sharing their life and opening up about their experiences. It was interesting to note that all participants were easily convinced of the usefulness and importance of my research project. Almost all interviewees asked follow-up questions about the project after the end of the interview and expressed interest in the results once the study was concluded. Many participants were so invested that they felt compelled to suggest further aspects or topics to cover, methods that I should consider, or institutions that I should visit. While I was irritated by this at first and felt they were questioning my authority, I eventually came to appreciate it as a form of well-intentioned advice. Perhaps, I considered, I had succeeded in establishing a teacher-pupil relationship, as proposed by Spradley.

2.4

Data Analysis

All interviews were recorded with the permission of the interviewees. I later transcribed the recordings with help of the voice recognition software Textify. The first few sentences of each interview with small talk and introductions (like: hello, nice to meet you, etc.) have been omitted as they are of limited relevance. Also, fillers such as “um”, “well”, “uh,” etc., have been omitted for better readability. Qualitative content analysis according to Mayring29 was conducted in this study to make sense of the data collected in the semi-structured individual interviews. It is a widely used method for qualitative analysis that illustrates data and analyses and identifies patterns or themes from the data, even with diverse subjects, in great detail through interpretations. During the interviews and throughout their transcription, the data were continually searched and coded for themes which were then analyzed and interpreted. Transcription and careful re-reading of the transcripts contributed to my familiarity with the data. As a next step, I searched the material for recurring themes. The experiences of the participants were assigned to categories for comparison. I then identified a range of identity codes. All the identity codes were compared, modified, and integrated within and

29

Philipp Mayring, Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse: Grundlagen und Techniken, 12., überarbeitete Auflage (Weinheim Basel: Beltz Verlag, 2015).

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31

across different participants, leading to a set of main identity categories. The specific denominations of the categories were taken from the interview data itself, with only one exception in the category of “People Person”. This denomination was chosen by me as I deemed it the closest approximation of the students’ selfdescriptions. In all other cases, I aimed to align my interpretation as closely with the students’ self-designations as possible (Figure 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3).

Figure 2.1 Initial Coding of relevant themes. (Created by Author)

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Figure 2.2 Self-Positioning on the Meso-Level; Perceptions of educational systems. (Created by Author)

2.5

Characteristics of Sample

Interviews was conducted with 29 Chinese male and female students (five males; fifteen females), aged between 18 to 25 years old, who were studying at University of California institutions at the time of the interview. The majority of interviewees grew up in urban areas in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xian, s. Figure 2.4), and most came from single-child families (only five students reported having a sibling). Only one interviewee was married. His wife had accompanied him for his Ph.D. in the United States. The majority of students I interviewed were social science (four business students, seven psychology, three sociology) or humanities majors (seven English majors). The rest were computer science or engineering

2.5 Characteristics of Sample

33

Figure 2.3 Self-Positioning on the Macro-Level. Perceptions of national contexts. (Created by Author)

Figure 2.4 Geographical overview of the students’ hometowns (Source: created by author)

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majors. My sample is a bit skewed in this regard as most Chinese students in this context are, in fact, STEM majors.30 I assumed that social science or humanities students would have a greater interest in participating in a study about their experience and several students mentioned interest in and experience with qualitative research (Figure 2.5). Figure 2.5 Students’ Area of Study. (Source: created by the author)

While the study participants’ previous education experiences were not explicitly part of the research project, it is nonetheless noteworthy that out of the 29 students, seven had completed high school in the United States. All others had graduated from high school in China. The majority of students were undergraduates (Fig. 2.6). For those in advanced stages of study (three MA and three Ph.D. students), almost all of them had attained a previous degree in the United States. The majority of undergraduate students who took part in this study mentioned plans to undertake postgraduate study in the United States (s. Section 6.2 and 7). The students’ family background and financial situation were also not explicitly part of the study. However, it is safe to assume that most students’ families were middle-class with enough resources to finance several years of tuition and expensive living cost in California. With the exception of one student who received scholarship, all others were self-financed.

30

Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Jacob Feldgoise, and Remco Zwetsloot, “Estimating the Number of Chinese STEM Students in the United States” (Georgetown: Center for Security and Emerging Technology, October 2020), https://doi.org/10.51593/202 00023.

2.6 Reflection

35

Figure 2.6 Interviewees’ Phase of Study

Phase of Study

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2.6

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Reflection

Some additional issues related to the interview situation need to be acknowledged. As pointed out by Hammersley and Atkinson, the orientation of researchers will be shaped by: Their socio-historical locations, including the values and interests that these locations confer upon them. What this represents is a rejection of the idea that social research is, or can be, carried out in some autonomous realm that is isolated from the wider society and from the particular biography of the researcher in such a way that its findings can be unaffected by social processes and personal characteristics.31

In other words, researchers should be aware that their own positioning in the world plays a part in our interpretation and shapes the meanings we derive from them.32 Firstly, I am aware that Chinese participants might be sensitive to the cultural, social background, and power relationships between the interviewers and participants. Recent research by Gram, Jaeger, Liu, Qing, and Wu33 has indicated 31

Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, Ethnography: Principles in Practice, 2nd ed (London; New York: Routledge, 1995), 16. 32 Ye, Intercultural Experience and Identity Narratives of Chinese Doctoral Students in the UK, 1335. 33 Malene Gram et al., “Chinese Students Making Sense of Problem-Based Learning and Western Teaching—Pitfalls and Coping Strategies,” Teaching in Higher Education 18, no. 7 (October 2013): 761–72, https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2013.836096.

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that Chinese participants tended to be influenced by who their interviewers are because they want to make sure that they are saying what the interviewers want to hear. Such pursuit of socially acceptable behavior or reluctance to uncover personal problems in order to ‘save face’ was common among their sample as it is in many research interview situations. Another issue I would like to reflect upon as possibly influencing the interviewees’ responses is ethnicity, specifically my role as an ethnically non-Chinese researcher. In reviewing the literature about international students, I noticed that the majority of researchers in this field are of Chinese ethnicity or nationality (or both). Many of them are themselves foreign-educated and include reflections of their own experiences as international students in their study design and methodological approach. For instance, Yanhong Yan, who worked as an English teacher in China for many years before beginning her research project, recounted: I have experienced the same language and culture shocks as other Chinese students while studying at South Dakota State University (…). I realized that what I have learned about English in China is “classroom English” (…) What do the idioms “to take a rain check”, “under the weather”, and “on the house” mean? Each single word is so familiar to me, yet I don’t know their true interpretation when they are combined. For the first two months in the United States, I seemed to be “lost in a paradise”.34

Further examples of researchers who are ethnically Chinese and drew on their own experiences for their research include Hang Teng, a Singaporean Chinese sociologist35 , Feng Gao, a Chinese scholar at Beijing International Studies University36 and Wei Liu, an educational scholar and international student adviser

34

Yanhong Huang, “A Study of Chinese Students in the United States and Its Implication for English Teaching in China,” Sino-Us English Teaching 2, no. 2 (2005): 43. 35 Tang T. Heng, “Voices of Chinese International Students in USA Colleges: ‘I Want to Tell Them That …,’” Studies in Higher Education 42, no. 5 (May 4, 2017): 833–50, https:// doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1293873; Tang T. Heng, “Different Is Not Deficient: Contradicting Stereotypes of Chinese International Students in US Higher Education,” Studies in Higher Education 43, no. 1 (January 2, 2018): 22–36, https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079. 2016.1152466; Tang Tang Heng, “‘Chinese Students Themselves Are Changing,’” Journal of International Students 10, no. 2 (May 15, 2020): 539–45, https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v10 i2.958; Tang T. Heng, “Chinese International Students’ Advice to Incoming First-Year Students: Involving Students in Conversations With Them, Not About Them,” Journal of College Student Development 59, no. 2 (2018): 232–38, https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2018.0020. 36 Feng Gao, “Exploring the Reconstruction of Chinese Learners’ National Identities in Their English-Language-Learning Journeys in Britain,” Journal of Language, Identity & Education 10, no. 5 (November 2011): 291, https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2011.614543.

2.6 Reflection

37

from Mainland China37 to name just a few. There are, of course, obvious benefits of researching an experience that the scholar him or herself has gone through: they are aware of the challenges and dynamics of being an international student, perfectly positioned to select and address relevant research topics, and have a natural connection to their research participants, as detailed by Gao in the following excerpt: I wanted the participants perceiving me as another Chinese student and a friend or an elder sister. In many ways, I was an insider to them: we all spoke Chinese; we had received similar primary and secondary education in Mainland China; and we were studying in Britain as international students. This helped me to better understand their needs and perspectives, develop rapport, and create opportunities for reciprocity as well as for highly interactive and dialogic research.38

Wei Liu also reflected on the peculiar position of being a researcher in this context: In relationship with the Chinese students I work with, I am both an insider and an outsider. As an insider, I share their cultural roots, their first language, and the common experience of studying overseas. My insider position helps me create bonding with them. As an outsider, I belong to a different generation, with more exposure to both cultures, and from a different socioeconomic background.39

While the shared experience and common language can obviously be advantageous for connecting with participants, I feel that the researchers mentioned above have underestimated the possible negative ramifications of such a close alignment with their participants. Researchers have only pointed to the advantages of Chinese ethnicity and fluency in Mandarin. The ability to converse in the mother language, and to be “like a big sister”40 to interview participants has been overestimated. The deep distrust that runs between co-nationals and between citizens and the government has not been sufficiently considered as a

37

Xiaobing Lin and Wei Liu, “Intercultural Advising for Chinese International Students: A Reflective Inquiry,” Globalisation, Societies and Education 17, no. 2 (March 15, 2019): 220– 30, https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2019.1583092. 38 Gao, “Exploring the Reconstruction of Chinese Learners’ National Identities in Their English-Language-Learning Journeys in Britain,” 291. 39 Lin and Liu, “Intercultural Advising for Chinese International Students,” 221. 40 Gao, “Exploring the Reconstruction of Chinese Learners’ National Identities in Their English-Language-Learning Journeys in Britain.”

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factor influencing research results. When a Chinese researcher interviews a Chinese student, the element of national identity is obvious, and demonstrating a love of the country, homesickness, and longing for the hometown food is an inevitable bonding point. Such portrayals contribute to the common image of the overseas student as self-segregating and problematic with nationalist tendencies. From my unique position as a third-country researcher, being neither American nor Chinese, I could capture students’ authentic perspectives and be less encumbered by national or ethnic ties to my research participants. Indeed, many interviewees insisted that they felt freer in expressing their political opinions with me than they would have felt with a Chinese researcher. For instance, one of the students’ parents told me (Interview with Kent Yam, 2.2.2020): Talking with a young lady from the Western world, not China, I feel good, yeah.

If politics came up naturally, participants felt comfortable to share their views but insisted on privacy and anonymity immediately afterward. It is possible that they feel more comfortable sharing critical views with a non-Chinese researcher or that they think a non-Chinese would like to hear more critical views. I didn’t bring up politics or ask them anything about it. It was up to them if they wanted to mention the subject. I hope this chapter has illustrated the methodological and analytical considerations of this research project. Together with the framework of Giddens’ theory of identity, these form the fundament of the present study. The next chapter will examine the development of modern notions of identity as well as explain why I found Giddens’ concepts the most suitable for the investigation of identity narratives of the students in my sample.

3

Identity

In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.1 What is this thing—this identity—which people are supposed to carry around with them?2

The quotes above illustrate the elusive and yet central characteristics of identity. Definitions of identity are abundant as the issue has been studied widely. Apart from philosophy, the topic has attracted considerable interest in other disciplines such as anthropology, cultural studies, education, linguistics, psychology, and sociology. The negotiation of individual and collective identities has been a significant theme within social science research. Theorists, such as Erik Erikson, James Marcia, William James, Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead, Lev Vygotsky, Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Taylor, Henri Tajfel, John Turner, Erving Goffman, Anthony Giddens, Homi Bhabha, and Etienne Wenger are worth mentioning as key figures in identity studies. Scholars such as these have conceptualized and investigated identity in a multitude of ways and subsequently carved out various definitions. The following chapter will look into modern notions of identity, from the essentialist approach to the theories of the reflexive construction of the self, as well as outline the definition of identity used for this research.

1

Erik H. Erikson, Childhood and Society (New York: Norton, 1993), 63. Steph Lawler, Identity: Sociological Perspectives, 2. ed (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014), 24.

2

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Y. Köksal, Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1_3

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Identity

The Development of the Modern Concept of Identity

Following the Enlightenment tradition, essentialist theorists claimed that all things or phenomena possess a fixed, underlying essence or inherent structure. This essence could be used to explain the phenomenon in question. Identity was thus equated with distinctive, essential characteristics belonging to any given individual or shared by members of a particular social group. By creating fixed categories or traits, however, essentialism ignored the complex nature of social, economic, and geographical differences.3 Within modern sociological thought, these essentialist ideas have been challenged by the notion of the social self, which recognizes the influence of the social environment on identity formation as significant. Social constructionists view identity as dynamic, fluid, and multi-faceted. Identity is considered as situated within particular discourses and linguistic ideologies.4 For instance, Mead’s theory of the self emphasized the relationship between the self and the other or the socially-constructed nature of identity. He distinguished “I” from “me,” proposing that “I” is the social self, while “me” constitutes each individual’s own sense of self. He further asserted that neither of these can exist without the other. According to Mead, individual identities develop in response to the attitudes of others, which are incorporated into individuals’ self-perception. The development of the self is achieved through interaction with other individuals and the world around us.5 To subsume these ideas in Mead’s own words: “We are one thing to one man and another thing to another. There are all sorts of different selves answering all sorts of different social reactions. It is the social process itself that is responsible for the appearance of the self.”6 To this theoretical line of “self,” Goffman, a sociologist of drama, has contributed a notion of identity that highlights the individual distinction from others both in daily encounters between individuals (personal identity) and according to social categories (social identity). Goffman views social interactions from a theoretical perspective when considering the relationship between the self and 3

Ramaswami Mahalingam, “Essentialism, Culture, and Power: Representations of Social Class: Essentialism, Culture, and Power,” Journal of Social Issues 59, no. 4 (December 2003): 733–49, https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0022-4537.2003.00087.x. 4 Ye, Intercultural Experience and Identity Narratives of Chinese Doctoral Students in the UK, 2352–62. 5 George Herbert Mead, Charles W. Morris, and George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, Works of George Herbert Mead, George Herbert Mead; Vol. 1 (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2000). 6 Mead, Morris, and Mead, 142.

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the surrounding. According to him, social interaction can be considered from a theatrical perspective as a performance. For him, performance is “all the activity of an individual which occurs during the period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the observers.”7 Another theorist whose line of thought marks a departure from essentialism is Bakhtin, who introduced a dialogic view of the self. He described identity as dynamic, flexible, and open rather than as stable and predetermined. According to Bakhtin, identities are not fixed or permanent but constructed in an ongoing process through dialogue with others from a variety of backgrounds: “I cannot manage without another; I cannot become myself without another; I must find myself in another by another in myself.”8 . During social interaction, individuals observe multiple voices and different languages in various discourses and cultural spaces. This leads to the accommodation of different meanings and perspectives. As was later illustrated by psychological research, people’s responses and behavior tend to vary according to the situation they are in, who they encounter, etc. This is considered as a function of internal states, mental representations, and interpretations that are brought to the fore by certain situational clues.9 The philosophical idea of different selves emerging, as mentioned in the above quote from Mead or the self being constructed through dialogue as in Bakhtin’s theories, has been relativized by social scientists, who have found that while individual reactions vary, there is a certain stability that can be observed in a person’s behavioral patterns across different situations over time.10 7

Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Nachdr., Anchor Books (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1990), 22. 8 M. M. Bakhtin and Caryl Emerson, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, Theory and History of Literature, v. 8 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 287. 9 Yuichi Shoda, Walter Mischel, and Jack C. Wright, “Intraindividual Stability in the Organization and Patterning of Behavior: Incorporating Psychological Situations into the Idiographic Analysis of Personality.,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67, no. 4 (1994): 674–87, https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.674. 10 Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda, “A Cognitive-Affective System Theory of Personality: Reconceptualizing Situations, Dispositions, Dynamics, and Invariance in Personality Structure.,” Psychological Review 102, no. 2 (1995): 246–68, https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X. 102.2.246; William Fleeson and Erik Noftle, “The End of the Person-Situation Debate: An Emerging Synthesis in the Answer to the Consistency Question: A Person-Situation Debate Synthesis,” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2, no. 4 (July 2008): 1667–84, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00122.x; D.C. Funder, “Persons, Situations and Person-Situation Interactions,” in Handbook of Personality, ed. O.P. John, R. Robins, and L. Pervin (New York: Guildford Press, 2008), 568–80.

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The social constructionist’s approach was criticized by postmodern or poststructuralist thinkers for neglecting the role of power and power relations. Postmodernism developed during the late twentieth century as the historical period following modernity.11 At its core is a rejection of modernist assumptions of rationality and ultimate truth, including the positivist understanding of the construction of knowledge and reality. Postmodernists emphasize the contextual construction of meaning and the validity of multiple perspectives. A poststructuralist view considers knowledge and the self are produced by discourses that are governed by power relations and the structures of society.12 The postmodernist or poststructuralist notion of identity is complex, contradictory, fluid, and multiple. It is influenced by social context, power relations as well as the structures of society. It rejects an essentialist view of identity as fixed and ascribed by conventional social categories.13 The French postmodern philosopher Lyotard, for instance, contends that in a postmodern era, grand narratives (or meta-narratives) which had previously been supplied by religious authorities or political systems are no longer credible. People are consequently forced to search for meaning, and this increasingly makes them turn back on themselves.14 Moreover, according to Hall:

11

The period of modernity followed European feudalism and is an umbrella for all the distinctive aspects of post-feudal societies. These include industrialization, capitalism, urbanization/urbanism, secularization, the establishment and extension of democracy, the application of science to production methods, and a broad movement towards equality in all spheres of life. Modernity also instituted an increase in rational thinking and action characterized by an unemotional “matter of fact” attitude, which contrasted sharply with the previous emotional and religious orientations to the world. Max Weber described this process as the gradual “disenchantment of the world,” spreading across the globe by an expanding, legalrational form of capitalism. After postmodernists proclaimed the end tof the modern period, there have been reassessments of the concept. Some sociologists, such as Giddens, argue that we have not reached postmodernity yet and currently still in a period of late, reflexive or second modernity. He argues that many of the essential features of modernity are only partially complete, for instance gender equality and social equality. Anthony Giddens and Philip W. Sutton, Essential Concepts in Sociology, Second edition (Malden, MA: Polity, 2017), 10. 12 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 2nd Vintage Books ed (New York: Vintage Books, 1995); Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vintage Books ed (New York: Vintage Books, 1990); Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1st Vintage Books ed (New York: Vintage Books, 1988). 13 Ye, Intercultural Experience and Identity Narratives of Chinese Doctoral Students in the UK, 2403–28. 14 Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Repr, Theory, and History of Literature (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 2005).

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instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent, we should think of identity as a “production” that is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside representation.15

In this age of accelerated mobility and migration, positive or negative identification and ways of belonging have become more important than stable identities attached to fixed places. Hence, an individual’s identity is frequently seen as multiple, ever-changing, and continually negotiated. Similarly, poststructuralist cultural critics see culture as liquid, dynamic, and internally diverse.16 This is in line with Giddens’ observation that “self-identity today is a reflexive achievement. The narrative of self-identity has to be shaped, altered and reflexively sustained in relation to rapidly changing circumstances of social life, on a local and global scale”.17 Research on the language and identity of border-crossing individuals in recent years has been predominantly guided by this theoretical framework of poststructuralism.18 Nonetheless, as Hua points out, an individual’s agency in negotiating identities should not be taken to an extreme since certain parts of identity, such as national and ethnic categories, are socially and politically defined as well as reiterated through public discourses and social practices.19 Therefore, the categorization of identities is subject to both self-selection and ascription-by others.20 Poststructuralism has often been criticized for this apparent contrast between views of the subject as operating agents as opposed to determined more or less

15

Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Identity, Community, Culture, Difference, ed. Jonatan Rutherford (Lawrence and Wishart Ltd., 2003), 222. 16 Bonny Norton and Kelleen Toohey, “Identity, Language Learning, and Social Change,” Language Teaching 44, no. 4 (October 2011): 412–46, https://doi.org/10.1017/S02614448 11000309. 17 Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1991), 215. 18 Bonny Norton, Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change, Language in Social Life Series (Harlow, England; New York: Longman, 2000). 19 Zhu Hua, Exploring Intercultural Communication: Language in Action, Routledge Introductions to Applied Linguistics (Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2014). 20 Jingyue Maeder-Qian, “Intercultural Experiences and Cultural Identity Reconstruction of Multilingual Chinese International Students in Germany,” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 39, no. 7 (August 9, 2018): 577, https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632. 2017.1410161.

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by unconscious forces.21 It should be clearly stated at this point that a fully deconstructed, non-essential, relational definition of identity would be highly impractical and ineffective in my opinion. While identity is one of the social phenomena which clearly does not have an essence, moderate, non-deterministic essentialism is often necessary for explanation and interpretation of social phenomena.22 Another question that has been raised concerns the logical connection between postmodernism and essentialism. In this regard, it can be useful to distinguish between strong and moderate social constructionism. In its weak form, the latter merely emphasizes the socially constructed nature of knowledge and institutions and the way in which knowledge often bears the marks of its social origins. In its strong form, it also claims that objects or referents of knowledge are nothing more than social constructions.23

3.2

Giddens’ Reflexive Project of the Self

As mentioned in Chapter 2 on the methodological foundation of this study, the moderate social constructionist approaches to the discussion of identity provide the philosophical foundation for this research. It seeks to understand the identity formation of Chinese international students by applying Giddens’ theoretical frameworks on self-identity, reflexivity, and agency, which will be explained in detail in this chapter.24 Giddens’ work belongs to a tradition of sociological thought that theorizes identity in the context of movements of late modernity.25 It is described as pluralistic and more socially diverse than the modernity that preceded it.26 Within

21 Robert G. Dunn, Identity Crises: A Social Critique of Postmodernity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 176–80. 22 Andrew Sayer, “Essentialism, Social Constructionism, and Beyond,” The Sociological Review 45, no. 3 (August 1997): 81–104, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.00073. 23 Sayer, 90. 24 Giddens, Modernity, and Self-Identity. 25 Bethan Benwell and Elizabeth Stokoe, Discourse and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), http://universitypublishingonline.org/edinburgh/ebook.jsf? bid=CBO9780748626533; Z. Baumann, Globalisation: The Human Consequences (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998); Ulrich Beck and Edgar Grande, “Varieties of Second Modernity: The Cosmopolitan Turn in Social and Political Theory and Research,” British Journal of Sociology 61, no. 3 (2010): 409–43. 26 Giddens and Sutton, Essential Concepts in Sociology, 14.

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today’s post-traditional society, increased levels of social diversification, pluralism, and fragmentation, individualism, and multiculturalism are an intrinsic aspect of ordinary social life.27 According to these theorists, social practices have become subject to examination and potential revision. The certainty of tradition has given way to the realization that social life must be underpinned by reflexively applied knowledge, but such knowledge is always unstable and changeable. The theory of reflexivity thus attempts to provide a rational basis for social practice while simultaneously undermining the possibility of rational certainty. This pervasive reflexivity undercuts the four central bases of trust in pre-modern societies: kinship relations, localized community relations, religious cosmologies, and traditional authority. Personal relationships of friendship and sexual intimacy replace kinship relations as a means of stabilizing social ties across space and time. Localized communities with identities tied to place are undermined by globalizing processes which link the local and global. Religion and tradition are overturned by reflexively organized knowledge based on abstract thought and systematic empirical observation.28 The following sections will take a closer look at two central components of Giddens’ understanding of identity: reflexivity and narrative. Reflexivity permeates life in the period of late modernity. This includes processes of identity formation. People exercise increasing choice over the identities they want to matter to them. New and appealing identities can be selected and lived out, while those forms of identity which have lost meaning and social significance are discarded.29 It is now up to individuals to determine their ways of life, based on their reflections and experiences. It is further posited that modernization and globalization have led to increased exposure to diverse ways of living, and thus made individuals less constrained by traditional norms. Life has become “lifestyle” and a matter of personal preference.30 Transitions in individuals’ lives

27

Ye, Intercultural Experience and Identity Narratives of Chinese Doctoral Students in the UK, 2447; Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity. 28 Tim Phillips and Mark Western, “Social Change and Social Identity: Postmodernity, Reflexive Modernisation and the Transformation of Social Identity in Australia,” in Rethinking Class: Cultures, Identity, and Lifestyle, ed. Fiona Devine et al. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 165–66. 29 Phillips and Western, 166. 30 Ye, Intercultural Experience and Identity Narratives of Chinese Doctoral Students in the UK, 2474.

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have always demanded psychic reorganization, which was often ritualized in traditional cultures, and took the form of “rites of passage.”31 As things stayed more or less the same from generation to generation on the level of the collectivity, the changed identity was clearly staked out, for instance, when an individual moved from adolescence into adulthood. In the settings of late modernity, by contrast, the altered self has to be explored and constructed as part of a reflexive process of connecting personal and social change.32 Subsequently, Giddens claims: “in the context of a post-traditional order, the self becomes a reflexive project.”33 Identity is no longer understood as something that is just given, as a result of the continuities of the individual’s action-system, but something that has to be routinely created and sustained in the reflexive activities of the individual. Selfidentity is thus not a distinctive trait, or even a collection of traits, possessed by the individual. It is the self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of her or his biography.34 In the same way that meaning exists in its negotiation, identity exists—not as an object in and of itself—but in the constant work of negotiating the self.35 The individual reflexivity means that one has to turn back on one’s actions and reflect upon one’s daily life constantly. According to Giddens, the self performs self-reflexivity frequently: “At each moment, or at least at regular intervals, the individual is asked to conduct a self-interrogation in terms of what is happening.”36 In other words: The work of identity is always going on. Identity is not some primordial core of personality that already exists. Nor is it something we acquire at some point in the same way that, at a certain age, we grow a set of permanent teeth. (…) Our identity is something we constantly renegotiate during the course of our lives. Identity is fundamentally temporal. Because it is constructed in social contexts, the temporality of identity is more complex than a linear notion of time. Identities are defined with respect to the interaction of multiple convergent and divergent trajectories.37

31 Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, Repr., transferred to digital printing, Religion, Rites and Ceremonies: In 5 Volumes 3 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006). 32 Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 32–33. 33 Giddens, 32. 34 Giddens, 52–53. 35 Wenger, Communities of Practice, 151. 36 Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 76. 37 Wenger, Communities of Practice, 154.

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However, Giddens further argues, identities are not entirely fluid and interchangeable. Individuals need to maintain “ontological security”38 , that is the confidence that their self-identity and surrounding conditions have durability and reliability. To achieve a sense of ontological security, an individual’s self-identity needs to be coherently organized. There needs to be some predictability about the social relations and conditions of daily life which individuals encounter. The notion of ontological security is a belief in one’s own psychic coherence and ‘wholeness’, which relies on a process of sequestration of chaotic or anxious elements, including madness, sickness and death, sexuality, and global crisis.39 In other words: “On the other side of what might appear to be quite trivial aspects of day-to-day actions and discourses, chaos lurks.”40 When asked about who we are, very few people would answer “206 bones, 656 muscles”. Instead, we have become accustomed to telling a story about where we grew up, where we have lived and what we have done. Some say, we tell stories in order to live or to make sense of our lives. Giddens’ understanding of identity is one of “coherent, yet continuously revised, biographical narratives.41 ”42 . Self and reflexivity are interwoven, so that identity is considered as the ability to construct a reflexive narrative of the self. Identity comprises many narratives that a person constructs for him or herself, which can vary with time and occasion. In other words: an individual’s self-identity is a collection of reflexively constructed, personal, and social narratives.43 The narrative created by an individual includes past memories and future plans in which private “stories” are shaped by the external sociocultural environment and form their life trajectory or “trajectory of the self.”44 Narrative also offers a way of understanding the self as a unity. Taylor stressed that to be a self is to have concerns; to be the

38

Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 243. Phillips and Western, “Social Change and Social Identity: Postmodernity, Reflexive Modernisation and the Transformation of Social Identity in Australia,” 166. 40 Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 35. 41 Most simply, a narrative is a spoken or written account of connected events: a story. Ken Hyland, “Narrative, Identity and Academic Storytelling,” ILCEA, no. 31 (March 1, 2018), https://doi.org/10.4000/ilcea.4677. 42 Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 5. 43 Phillips and Western, “Social Change and Social Identity: Postmodernity, Reflexive Modernisation and the Transformation of Social Identity in Australia,” 166. 44 Ye, Intercultural Experience and Identity Narratives of Chinese Doctoral Students in the U.K., 2502. 39

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kind of being for whom things matter. It is the ability to narrate these things that provides the continuity of identity.45 In the words of narrative scholar Susan Stephenson: “Through narration, I make sense of my past and shape my future. What is of concern are not discrete actions but the shape of my life as a whole”.46 The continuity of such narratives is achieved through reflexivity. The biography has become a reflexively made project, into which new events of daily life are constantly and continuously incorporated. One’s identity is an ongoing project of self-development. Self-identity is created and maintained through ongoing self-observation and self-introspection. This process allows past biographical narratives to be interpreted from the present moment; it also accommodates new experiences, events, and information. Life changes or times of transition can generate a heightened sense of reflexivity: Fateful moments are when events come together in such a way that an individual stands, as it were at a crossroad in his (or her) existence; or where a person learns of information with fateful consequences.47

Moments like these provide the reflexive project of the self with opportunities for personal development because individuals need to: run consciously entertained risks in order to grasp the new opportunities which personal crises open up… such transitions are drawn into, and surmounted by means of, the reflexively mobilized trajectory of self-actualization.48

Challenging experiences, such as studying abroad, thus provide individuals the opportunity of making a “new sense of the self” through heightened reflexivity. The reflexive project of the self is governed by the moral principle of authenticity in order to ensure that individuals are “true” to themselves. Since it is assumed that choices are no longer constrained by tradition, individuals have to make “internally referential” choices based on the principle of authenticity, which involves “the creation of a personal belief system by means of which the

45

Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1989). 46 Susan Stephenson, “Narrative, Identity and Modernity,” Discussion Paper for ECPR Workshop “The Political Uses of Narrative,” 1999, 7. 47 Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 113. 48 Giddens, 79.

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individual acknowledges that his first loyalty is to himself.”49 Choice and life planning, which involve calculated risk-taking, are now a very important part of the mechanism of the reflexive project of the self in the sense that “we are not who we are, but what we make of ourselves.”50 These narratives are central as a particular form of articulation, offering us a way of understanding the self and making sense of who we are.51 Similarly, identity scholar Madan Sarup assert that to some extent, we construct our story, and hence our identity.52 As mentioned previously, it is assumed that self-identities and narratives of the self are no longer limited to traditional collective categories, such as ethnicity, gender, age, and social class. The post-traditional world allows for more freedom of choice in the process of identity construction.53 Nonetheless, there are constraints on the stories individuals produce since narratives of identity would simply not make sense if they did not accord with the broader ‘intelligibility norms’. Social and cultural milieus provide a set of resources on which individuals draw to produce their stories. There are, for example, the plots provided by the literary tradition, but narratives are also provided by soap operas, ‘expert’ advice talk shows, and so on.54 As memory specialist Rose comments: We use the stories of the self that our culture makes available to us, with their scenarios of emotions, their repertoires of motives, their cast-list of characters, to plan out our lives, to account for events, and give them significance, to accord ourselves an identity as hero or victim, survivor or casualty within the plot of our own life, to shape our own conduct and understand that of others.55

It is, however, important to distinguish that these stories are not created by individuals themselves. In the words of prominent sociologist Lawler:

49

Giddens, 80. Giddens, 75. 51 Taylor, Sources of the Self . 52 Madan Sarup and Tasneem Raja, Identity, Culture and the Postmodern World, Repr (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1998). 53 Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 5. 54 Lawler, Identity, 237. 55 Steven Rose, Lifelines: Biology, Freedom, Determinism (London: Allen Lane, 1997), 237. 50

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Through using existing narratives, we create our own—in which we are the heroes of our own lives. We are not, however, the authors of these stories since they do not originate with us: in effect, we are putting various facets of narrative traditions together to produce our ‘own’ story and hence our ‘own’ narrative.56

Narratives thus reflect not only the personal story but also the complex web of relationships and the sociocultural context the individual lives in. It might be argued, of course, that “reducing” identity to narratives undermines their potential as a sense-making tool. Narratives about ourselves are important, but they are not the full, lived experience of engagement in practice.57 In contrast, proponents of narrative research recognize people as “self-articulated animals”58 who make sense of life through articulating and reflecting upon their experiences.59 As social scientist Stivers points out: People conceive of themselves in terms of stories about their actions in the world, using them to make sense of the temporal flow of their lives. We find identity meaning as a result of the stories we tell about ourselves or that others tell about us. Therefore, a narrative approach to self-understanding is not a distortion of reality but a confirmation of it.60

Eliciting narratives through biographical interviews has become the preferred method of data collection for researchers interested in identity and the connections between structure and agency.61 The idea is that identity can be explored through the stories we tell about ourselves, tapping into the accounts that individuals select, structure, and relate at appropriate moments. The underlying emphasis is on reflexivity and the belief that storytelling is an active process of summation, where we represent a particular aspect of our lives. Narrative theorists argue that by analyzing the stories people tell about themselves, we can understand how they make their lives coherent and meaningful. Identity thus becomes salient and

56

Lawler, Identity, 34. Wenger, Communities of Practice. 58 Taylor, Sources of the Self . 59 Ye, Intercultural Experience and Identity Narratives of Chinese Doctoral Students in the U.K., 2502. 60 Camilla Stivers, “Reflections on the Role of Personal Narrative in Social Science.,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society. 18, no. 2 (1993): 412. 61 David Block, Multilingual Identities in a Global City: London Stories (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), http://www.dawsonera.com/ depp/reader/protected/external/AbstractView/S9780230501393. 57

3.3 Critical Voices on Giddens’ Theory of Self-Identity

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available for analysis, showing how people experience their lives as members of particular social groups.62

3.3

Critical Voices on Giddens’ Theory of Self-Identity

What distinguishes Giddens’ ‘reflexive project of the self’ from earlier instantiations, is a skeptical element about the degree of agency enjoyed by the subject. This more recent form of reflexivity might be deemed ‘critical reflection’. It incorporates an awareness of the contingent, constrained nature of subjectivity, shaped by the forces of consumerism and enjoys what Giddens makes clear is a fragile certitude dependent upon evasion and denial. Nonetheless, Giddens has attracted considerable criticism from historically-minded scholars for the way he sidesteps issues of socialization, context, and history (and the notion of being subject to available discourses).63 Even though Giddens’ concept of the reflexive project will inform the current study, I am still aware of the weaknesses of his theories. Educationalists Zhao and Biesta have criticized Giddens’ theories for lacking empirical support.64 In addition, Zhao and Biesta argue that Giddens’ concept of the reflexive project of the self is too individualistic, neglecting the moral dimension of self-formation. Furthermore, whilst Giddens’ theory has guided us to understand the self in the context of late modernity, the extended reflexivity thesis has been critiqued for its excessive voluntarism,65 that downplays the structural constraints on agency and reflexivity.66 The sociologist Mestrovic points out that not all agents possess the same level of reflexivity.67 Emphasizing the apophatic dimension of reflexivity, LSE professor Mouzelis also criticized Giddens’ notion of individual reflexivity as both western-centric and cataphatic. He states:

62

Hyland, “Narrative, Identity and Academic Storytelling.” Benwell and Stokoe, Discourse and Identity, 21–23. 64 K. Zhao and G. Biesta, “Moral Dimensions of Lifelong Learning: Giddens, Taylor, and Reflexive Project of the Self.,” Adult Education Quarterly 62, no. 4 (2012): 332–50. 65 M. Adams, “Hybridizing Habitus and Reflexivity: Towards an Understanding of Contemporary Identity?,” Sociology 40, no. 3 (2006): 511–28. 66 J. Urry, “Duality of Structure: Some Critical Issues.,” Theory, Culture and Society 1, no. 2 (1982): 100–105; N. J. Thrift, “Review Essay: Bear and Mouse or Bear and Tree? Anthony Giddens’s Reconstitution of Social Theory,” Sociology 19, no. 1 (1985): 609–23. 67 S. G. Mestrovic, Anthony Giddens: The Last Modernist (London: Routledge, 1998). 63

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knowledgeable social actors are more or less depicted as constantly involved in coldly cognitive means-ends situations, constantly trying reflexively and rationally to choose their broad goals as well as the means of their realization. It naively neglects more contemplative, more easy-going, less cognitive ways of navigating reflexively in a world full of choices and individual challenges.68

Moreover, the discursive analysis of narratives by social scientists Reynolds, Wetherell, and Taylor casts doubt upon the notion of the Giddens’ reflexive identity project by demonstrating that individual identity work is constrained and dilemmatic.69 The psychologist Matthew Adams further argues that it is the postreflective choices that make individuals who they are. And these choices are much more dependent on the resources available rather than reflexivity.70 As Zygmunt Baumann asserts: “all of us are doomed to the life of choices, but not all of us have the means to be choosers.”71 In short, these critics have suggested that Giddens overemphasizes agency and reflexivity at the expense of addressing the social structures.

3.4

Giddens’ Theories in the Chinese Context

Apart from these criticisms of Giddens’ theories, scholars have also debated whether or not the theories of late modernity are generally applicable to nonEuropean, non-Western contexts. Some have argued that these theories obviously draw on Western European experiences and may not be pertinent to East Asian countries which have undergone distinct societal developments. Similar to the controversies surrounding the “multiple modernities” approach proposed by Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, an Israeli theorist, the scholarly community has discussed this question intensively.72 First, it is worth mentioning that China has gone through a series of social experiments for the sake of ‘modernization’ itself, 68

N. Mouzelis, “Exploring Post-Traditional Orders: Individual Reflexivity and Duality of Structure.,” in Theorising Modernity: Reflexivity, Environment and Identity in Giddens’s Social Theory (London, New York: Longman, 1999), 85. 69 J. Reynolds, M. Wetherell, and S. Taylor, “Choice and Chance: Negotiating Agency in Narratives of Singles,” Sociological Review 55, no. 2 (2007): 331–51. 70 Adams, “Hybridizing Habitus and Reflexivity: Towards an Understanding of Contemporary Identity?”. 71 Baumann, Globalisation: The Human Consequences, 86. 72 Shmuel Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernen Im Zeitalter Der Globalisierung,” in Die Vielfalt Und Einheit Der Moderne Kultur- Und Strukturvergleichende Analysen, ed. Thomas Schwinn (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2006), 37–62.

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ranging from the ‘self-strengthening movement’ of the 1890 s to the 1911 Republic Revolution, the 1919 May 4th Movement, the 1949 Communist Revolution, the Great Leap Forward (1958–1960) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).73 All these entailed dramatic social change. However, their modernizing impact cannot measure up to the breadth and depth of Deng Xiaoping’s ‘reform and opening up’, which steered China onto a track of sweeping economic and technological modernization.74 Renowned German sinologist Björn Alpermann mentions three general forces that have fueled this unprecedented societal transformation: economic development, especially a shift from agriculture to manufacturing and services accompanied by urbanization; an economic system transition from a socialist planned economy to a market economy; and globalization, meaning China’s increasingly close integration into world markets and its related social transnational consequences.75

What makes China’s transformation all the more remarkable is that it is taking place under the unbroken leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and with only limited reforms of its Leninist political system.76 These developments have led some authors to see China as falling into an East Asian pattern of “compressed modernity.”77 For East Asian scholars Han and Shim, East Asia’s compressed modernity translates into an almost simultaneous transition from first modernity to second or late modernity. They argue that theories of late modernity can be useful to understand the unique characteristics of modernity

73

Craig Calhoun, “Beck, Asia and Second Modernity: Beck, Asia and Second Modernity,” The British Journal of Sociology 61, no. 3 (September 14, 2010): 597–619, https://doi.org/ 10.1111/j.1468-4446.2010.01328.x. 74 Liu, Modernization as Lived Experiences, 18. 75 Björn Alpermann, “Class, Citizenship and Individualization in China’s Modernization:,” ProtoSociology 28 (2011): 7, https://doi.org/10.5840/protosociology20112820. 76 Alpermann, 7. 77 Beck and Grande, “Varieties of Second Modernity: The Cosmopolitan Turn in Social and Political Theory and Research”; Sang-Jin Han and Young-Hee Shim, “Redefining Second Modernity for East Asia: A Critical Assessment,” British Journal of Sociology 61, no. 3 (2010): 465–88.

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in this context. They see modernity as being propelled forward by a bureaucraticauthoritarian state pushing an economic growth agenda.78 The sociologist Craig Calhoun, however, objects by arguing that the notion of “compressed” modernity implies some sort of “normal-duration” modernity. He criticized this approach as Eurocentric.79 And yet, there are two compelling reasons why the attempt is made here to use hypotheses of late modernity to analyze developments in China: First, the framework of “multiple modernities” or varieties of late modernity permits comparisons between different kinds of modernization processes globally, allowing subsequently “varieties of individualization”.80 If it still contains elements of Eurocentrism, then it nevertheless constitutes progress from earlier versions of modernization theory that are still being regularly employed to study China’s social changes.81 Secondly and more importantly, there is a substantial number of studies on individualization that demonstrate that the concept can be fruitfully employed in the Chinese context.82 The American anthropologist Moore, for instance, argues that the emergence of a new kind of individualism among young Chinese is occurring against a backdrop of the entrenched collectivism of the Maoist era, which was deeply hostile to individualistic impulses. The current form of individualism of the youth is remarkable in having become mainstream rather than being restricted to obscure corners of society. Moore further claims that these developments of individualization have been reinforced by the retreat of the state from the private lives of citizens in recent decades, which once more marks a clear departure from Maoist times, which was characterized by statefocused collectivism.83 In conclusion, although I am aware of the weaknesses and 78

Han and Shim, “Redefining Second Modernity for East Asia: A Critical Assessment.” Calhoun, “Beck, Asia and Second Modernity.” 80 Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, “Chinesische Bastelbiographie? Variationen Der Individualisierung in Kosmopolitischer Perspektive,” in Fragile Sozialität. Inszenierungen, Sinnwelten, Existenzbastler, ed. Anne Honer, Michael Meuser, and Michaela Pfadenhauer (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010), 199–206. 81 Alpermann, “Class, Citizenship, and Individualization in China’s Modernization.” 82 Yunxiang Yan, “The Chinese Path to Individualization: The Chinese Path to Individualization,” The British Journal of Sociology 61, no. 3 (September 14, 2010): 489–512, https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2010.01323.x; Mette Halskov Hansen and Rune Svarverud, eds., IChina: The Rise of the Individual in Modern Chinese Society, NIAS Studies in Asian Topics, no. 45 (Copenhagen: NIAS, 2010); Robert L. Moore, “Generation Ku: Individualism and China’s Millennial Youth,” Ethnology 44, no. 4 (October 1, 2005): 357, https://doi.org/10. 2307/3774095; Hongping Lian, “The Post-1980 s Generation in China: Exploring Its Theoretical Underpinning,” Journal of Youth Studies 17, no. 7 (August 9, 2014): 965–81, https:// doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2013.878786. 83 Moore, “Generation Ku,” 362–63. 79

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limitations of the aforementioned theories developed by Giddens, I am nonetheless convinced of their suitability and value for the current study. The concepts of late modernity, subsequent depreciation of traditional categories of identity, and individualization of identification processes which are reflexively organized, serve as the backdrop for the historical and empirical materials in the following chapters.

4

Chinese Education and Study Abroad

It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than a Chinaman to enter the United States.1

Driven by an urge for social and political change, the desire for new knowledge, and a longing for a better life, generations of Chinese have left home to study in almost every major country in the world.2 There have been both active and inactive periods in the foreign-study movement, in response to the fluctuations in modern Chinese history.3 The practice of studying in the United States began more than a hundred years ago and can be subdivided into three stages, the first from 1870 to 1882, the second from 1909 to 1937, and the last, starting from 1978. During the first wave (1870–1882), the Chinese government-sponsored students to bring back some sought-after technological skills in order to “build a strong and prosperous nation.“4 The pioneering efforts of Yung Wing, the first Chinese to graduate from an American university (Yale, 1854), led to the Chinese Educational Mission (C.E.M.) in 1872. The mission was sponsored by the Qing government and allowed a small group of students to study in the United States before its premature termination in 1882. Nonetheless, this development

1

C.H. Fay, “C.H. Fay to Mrs. Williams,” October 3, 1902, Oberlin College Archives. Ying Li, “A Probe into the Phenomenon of Chinese Students Studying Abroad under the Effect of Economic Leverage—经济杠杆作用下的中国留学生现象探微,” Journal of Yancheng Teachers University (Humanities & Social Sciences Edition) 36, no. 6 (2016): 25–27. 3 Weili Ye, Seeking Modernity in China’s Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900– 1927 (Stanford: Stanford Univeresity Press, 2002), 202. 4 Stacy Bieler, “Patriots” or “Traitors”? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students (New York: East Gate Book, 2004), 11. 2

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Y. Köksal, Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1_4

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set the stage for future movements between the two countries.5 Governmental scholarships from the Boxer Rebellion Indemnity enabled the second wave of Chinese students to study abroad (1909–1937). The exchanges were interrupted by the Japanese invasion of China and other political events which eclipsed academic issues.6 The third wave of scholars and students came to the U.S. after the two countries signed cross-cultural education protocols in 1978. China had high hopes of catching up technologically after the Cultural Revolution’s education hiatus from 1966 to 1976.7 Students and academics flocked to the U.S. in even larger numbers after the June 4th incidents at Tiananmen Square in 1989 significantly altered the political and academic climate in China.8 Furthermore, the events convinced many Chinese students in the United States not to return home immediately.9 While the 1980s boasted a high enrollment of Chinese students from Taiwan and Hong Kong, in recent years, Mainland Chinese students have greatly increased. This trend has received attention from governments, media, and academia. The following chapter will look into Chinese traditional education and the evolution of the foreign study movement in modern times in detail.

4.1

Classical Education

Studying usually serves to achieve a certain goal: in imperial China, the goal of all learning was success in the state exams. For high-achieving candidates, the doors

5

Sufei Li, “Navigating U.S.-China Water: The Experience of Chinese Students and Professionals in Science, Technology and Business,” in Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations—Transnational Networks and Trans-Pacific Interactions (Armonk, New York, London: East Gate Book, 2002), 20. 6 Li, 20. 7 Bieler, “Patriots” or “Traitors”? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students; Yufa, “Returned Chinese Students from America and the Chinese Leadership (1846–1949)”; Li, “Navigating U.S.-China Water: The Experience of Chinese Students and Professionals in Science, Technology and Business.” 8 Cathy Stachniak, “Declaration of the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars in the United States of America,” World Affairs 152, no. 3 (1989): 171–72. 9 This was of course aided by President George Bush’s Executive Order 12711—granting Mainland Chinese in the United States between June 5 1989 and April 11 1990 permission to stay George Bush, “Executive Order 12711—Policy Implementation With Respect to Nationals of the People’s Republic of China” (United States Government, 1990), https:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-12711-policy-implementation-withrespect-nationals-the-peoples-republic. Accessed 23.6.2020.

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to a lucrative, lifelong career as a mandarin were opened.10 The imperial examination system started during the Tang dynasty (618–906), became entrenched during the Song (960–1279), and was abandoned in 1905 as part of the Qing dynasty’s (1644–1911) attempts to modernize.11 These exams were based on the classical literature of Confucius and Mencius as well as the commentaries on these ancient sages. Besides the knowledge and exegesis of the canonical four books and five classics (四書五經; sishu wujing), the exams emphasized the ability to write a good essay. Other areas of knowledge were considered secondary.12 The government-administered these exams and eventually placed successful candidates in posts in the imperial bureaucracy as clerks or teachers.13 As historians of Chinese education have pointed out, the system did not reward independent thinking or creative genius. It did, however, provide the state with an ample pool of potential servants, all of whom had been thoroughly indoctrinated in the ideology of the ruling class.14 After the prefectural, or lowest-level examinations, the government-operated academies (書院shuyuan) for those who passed. The bulk of education, however, especially elementary education, was privately financed and operated.15 The responsibility for exam preparation lay with each extended family themselves. It was usual for private teachers to give preparatory lessons in the home.16 These private schools (私塾sishu), were managed in several ways. The simplest but most expensive method was for a family to hire a tutor, sometimes allowing the children of neighbors or relatives to share in the lessons. Girls were occasionally educated alongside their brothers until their teens.17 At that point, the girls’ 10

Thomas Harnisch, Chinesische Studenten in Deutschland: Geschichte Und Wirkung Ihrer Studienaufenthalte in Den Jahren von 1860 Bis 1945, Mitteilungen Des Instituts Für Asienkunde Hamburg, Nr. 300 (Hamburg: Institut für Asienkunde, 1999), 31–32. 11 Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 10–11. 12 Harnisch, Chinesische Studenten in Deutschland, 31–32. 13 Charles Weber, “Conflicting Cultural Traditions in China,” in United States Attitudes and Policies toward China: The Impact of American Missionaries., ed. Patricia Neils (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1990), 34. 14 Gael Graham, Gender, Culture, and Christianity: American Protestant Mission Schools in China, 1880—1930, Asian Thought and Culture 25 (New York Berlin: Lang, 1995), 12–13. 15 Graham, 12–13. 16 Harnisch, Chinesische Studenten in Deutschland, 31–32. 17 If Chinese girls were educated at all, it was through tutors in the home because it was considered improper for them to appear on public streets as they neared puberty Graham, Gender, Culture, and Christianity, 12–13.

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education shifted to domestic skills while the boys prepared to sit for the first government examination. Women were not allowed to take the imperial examinations, so there was no reason to educate them further. As an alternative to private tutoring, a lineage might rent space in a local temple and hire a teacher to educate the children of that clan. In other instances, children were sent to schools established by teachers with reputations for preparing successful examination candidates. Although most education was in private hands, the curriculum was uniform because the government prescribed the books that were tested in the official examinations. Elementary education was based on character recognition and rote memorization of these texts. Moreover, they were not written in the vernacular but in a dense, formal language that was incomprehensible to those without classical training. The students were expected to memorize the sounds and characters in the classical texts without knowing what they meant. When a boy was twelve or thirteen, he completed the memorization of the classics. Only then did he begin to interpret the texts, practice calligraphy, and compose essays in a highly formal style, skills that were tested in the imperial examinations.18 The examination system functioned as a meritocratic selection mechanism for government positions. As they were open to anyone willing to compete, these exams permitted upward mobility to a certain extent. It was still not usual, however, for non-elites to compete in the exams and acquire the coveted places in government service.19 Due to the time-consuming training as well as the highly impractical and abstract content of the exams, only families with disposable income and resources to invest in education had a realistic chance to succeed. Peasants, artisans, and until the later imperial period merchants, were structurally excluded from the examination process, even if they were legally entitled to participate.20 Although teachers were often inexpensive, even the cost of books, paper, and brushes was beyond many poor families. Furthermore, many families could not afford to forego the labor of a son for the years required for classical training. Hence, although education was highly valued by Chinese at all socio-economic levels, only a small percentage of Chinese men, and even fewer women, were literate during imperial times.21 This combination of the high value of education and its relative inaccessibility meant that many Chinese hungered

18

Graham, 12–13. Harnisch, Chinesische Studenten in Deutschland, 31–32. 20 Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 10–11. 21 Graham, Gender, Culture, and Christianity, 12–13. 19

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for education just as American Protestant missionaries were coming to the country in larger numbers. The following chapter will look into the establishment of missionary schools in the Qing era.

4.2

Missionary Education in China

When the American foreign missionary movement began in 1810, mission boards did not explicitly direct missionaries to establish schools. The main goal was obviously to spread Protestantism and make as many converts as possible. However, opening and running mission schools quickly became one of the most widespread missionary activities in China. There were several reasons for this which will be detailed in the following paragraphs. Firstly, Western22 Missionaries immediately recognized the important role of the imperial educational system in Chinese life, yet they were prone to criticize it as unworthy or effete because the Chinese emphasis on the classics appeared sterile and backward.23 Americans and Chinese shared a belief in the instrumental value of education; in both countries, elites perceived it as effective in molding personality and behavior, while non-elites saw it as the key to social advancement. If mission schools could rival the traditional schools or provide an acceptable alternative, they could serve the interests of the Chinese as well as those of the foreigners. It was upon this patch of common ground that teaching missionaries found a foothold in the inhospitable climate of nineteenth-century China.24 Secondly, missionaries realized that making converts would necessarily involve some form of education since converts would have to be taught Protestant doctrine and church history. American Protestants wanted converts sufficiently literate to be able to read the Bible, for unlike Roman Catholicism, Protestantism centered on the authority of the Bible. Literacy was essential, especially for native pastors and lay assistants. To facilitate literacy among their converts in China, missionaries not only established schools and seminaries but also worked out a system of Romanized writing that allowed the Chinese to read transliterated texts after only four months of training. The low social status of their converts made education even more important to American missionaries. Missionaries originally 22

The term “Western” is used here due to its common usage in sources and language of the time as describing European and North American powers such as Germany, France, Great Britain, and the United States, which were looking to further their influence in China. 23 Weber, “Conflicting Cultural Traditions in China,” 34. 24 Weber, 34; Graham, Gender, Culture, and Christianity, 12–13.

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hoped to convert literate Chinese of the “better classes”, believing that if the literati adopted Protestantism, the great mass of the Chinese population would follow suit. Most Chinese literati, however, regarded the missionaries as uncouth and barely educated since few missionaries were conversant with the Confucian classics.25 It was not only the literati classes that were suspicious of foreigners. Prejudice against the foreigners was, in fact, widespread. Rumors that missionaries boiled the children to make opium, dug out their eyes to make telescopes, or exported them to foreign countries for a variety of nefarious purposes were common.26 Many Chinese were also convinced of the superiority of their own culture and felt little need to learn anything from outsiders. They contended that Westerners were only “foreign barbarians” with a material and technological superiority but no sophistication in ideas or culture. They contended that Confucius and Mencius had taught many concepts similar to those of the Westerners, and anything worthy in Christianity had already been expressed more eloquently in the literature of the classics. Besides, the Buddhists traditionally believed in incarnations and the Taoists in miracles and fulfilled prophecy. The Christian insistence on individual redemption was seen as unnecessary as it ran counter to the ethical particularism of the Chinese order. Additionally, the numerous denominations confused the Chinese.27 These views contributed to the dauntingly slow pace of conversions which helped push missionaries into education. American Methodists in Fuzhou, for example, worked for ten years before making a single convert. Approaching children seemed like a way to speed the process.28 However, Protestant education would only succeed if Chinese parents could be persuaded to allow their children to attend. Wishing to cast their nets as widely as possible, teaching missionaries made two momentous decisions at the outset: first, they would not limit enrollment to the children of already converted parents, and second, they would offer training in the classics in addition to religious teachings. The promise that their offspring would be taught the classics, traditionally the path that could lead into government service and raise the status of the entire family, prompted many poor parents whose sons and daughters would not otherwise have been

25

Graham, Gender, Culture, and Christianity, 10–11. Graham, 22; Bieler, “Patriots” or “Traitors”? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students, 229. 27 Hao Chang, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning (1890–1911) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 6; Weber, “Conflicting Cultural Traditions in China,” 40. 28 Graham, Gender, Culture, and Christianity, 10–11. 26

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educated to send them to mission schools. Furthermore, mission education was completely subsidized by the missionaries and thus free of charge for students.29 Mission schools started teaching English, as the foreign settlements in treaty ports offered lucrative job opportunities for English-speakers as translators, interpreters, clerks, and secretaries. For Chinese merchant classes whose business success was often dependent on close contact with foreigners, fluency in English became a highly sought-after skill. In some instances, knowledge of English seems to have been an indicator of class status and prestige. A desire to study English, then, went beyond pecuniary considerations; it showed one’s ability to communicate with foreigners, to be conversant with their ideas, and to be willing to move past the narrow confines of provincialism in order to strengthen the Chinese nation. In short, the study of English came to be regarded by many Chinese as modern, progressive, and patriotic.30 The political and military pressures Western countries continued to exert on China further contributed to a re-evaluation of the previously mentioned sino-centrist views. Many progressive Chinese began to see the necessity to learn from the West in order to “stave off national ruin”.31 They were coming to believe there must be a special quality to Western knowledge and education that gave the Western countries their power. The growing desire for Western learning among non-Christians was obviously not lost on the missionaries, who quickly capitalized on the fact that “Western” was coming to be thought of as “modern” in China.32 Missionary students were among the first to be educated abroad. Chinese students who were interested in Western-style higher education had to go overseas to get it. For instance, a number of Chinese students were educated by European Christians in schools established specifically for this purpose, such as the Collegio Cinese di Napoli in Italy. Most of these students became missionaries upon their return to China.33 While many missionaries financially and logistically supported their students to pursue higher education, there were also a number of problematic issues. Some were displeased when students failed to repay the missionary loans that had financed their stay overseas. Others regarded students as “denationalized”: half-Chinese, half-American hybrids, with the least attractive features of both cultures. Worse yet, from the missionary perspective, some 29

Weber, “Conflicting Cultural Traditions in China,” 34. Graham, Gender, Culture, and Christianity, 57–58. 31 Graham, 57–58. 32 Graham, 41. 33 Harnisch, Chinesische Studenten in Deutschland, 39; Y.C. Wang, Chinese Intellectuals and the West, 1872–1949 (The University of North Carolina Press, 2012). 30

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students became “infected” with religious skepticism in American colleges and universities and returned to China carrying this “virus” with them. American missionaries, therefore, refused to promote overseas study for their students as a general policy.34

4.3

Chinese Study Abroad in the 19th Century

As attitudes towards the West were slowly changing after the military defeats of the Opium Wars, the Qing court re-examined their ways of “managing barbarians”. China could no longer afford to ignore the superior technological knowledge of Western countries. Consequently, Chinese rulers discussed several approaches to strengthen the empire by introducing Western technology. They could send delegations on short-term trips to glean information and bring back Western armaments so that the Chinese could learn how to make them. Students could be sent abroad to study and teach other Chinese the West’s secrets of wealth and power upon their return. Mathematics, military and shipping administration, infantry tactics, and manufacturing were of particular interest. All three proposals reflected the court’s desire to build a stronger gate against Western intruders by using Western technology, a continuation of China’s ancient strategy of “learning from barbarians in order to control the barbarians”. Their goal was to use Western technology as a way to reestablish the supremacy of China’s cultural and political traditions. In 1863, the Qing court thus began seriously debating the option of sending students abroad, which was met with great opposition from more conservative officials. Besides the time and money required, the officials did not want to “loose face” by admitting their need to learn from other countries.35 In 1871, the throne finally approved the Chinese Educational Mission (C.E.M.) to the United States. The court’s plan was to send thirty students each year to the United States for a total of four years (1872–1875). After graduating from American colleges, the students would return to China in 1887 to serve during the prime years of their lives.36 Yung Wing was integral in shaping and negotiating this program. Born into a peasant family in Guangdong, he was educated by missionaries in Macao and went on the pursue higher education in the United States. He was the

34

Graham, Gender, Culture, and Christianity, 38–39. Bieler, “Patriots” or “Traitors”? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students, 250. 36 Bieler, 284. 35

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first Chinese to graduate from an American university (Yale 1854).37 Recruitment for the Chinese Educational Mission was slow at first. Many parents were reluctant to let their young sons, between the ages of ten and fifteen, go to a strange country for many years.38 Due to a large part to Yung Wing’s efforts, however, the program became more recognized among the higher socio-economic strata.39 The majority of the early students came from wealthy, influential families in coastal cities. Shanghai and Canton (Guangzhou) specifically had been exposed to Western culture to a larger degree than other places. A privileged class, both at home and abroad, they were warmly received as representatives of an exotic, highly developed ancient culture (Figure 4.1).40 Figure 4.1 Students from the first detachment of the Chinese educational mission after arriving in San Francisco in 187241

There are several reasons for the early termination of the mission by the Chinese government in 1881 (six years earlier than planned). Firstly, conservative 37 Thomas LaFargue, China’s First Hundred: Educational Mission Students in the United States 1872–1881 (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1987), 18; Wang, Chinese Intellectuals and the West, 1872–1949; Bieler, “Patriots” or “Traitors”? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students, 284. 38 Bieler, “Patriots” or “Traitors”? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students, 295. 39 Rose Lee, The Chinese in the United States of America (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960), 93. 40 Lee, 98–100. 41 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Educational_Mission#/media/File:Six_ First_Detachment_students_on_arrival_in_California.jpg (accessed 16.10.2022)

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bureaucrats were concerned about the students’ “Americanization.” For instance, most students removed their queues, adopted American dress, and participated in sports activities. Many converted to Christianity. The attendance of Chinese courses alongside their normal coursework may have been overwhelming for the boys. Non-attendance of these compulsory courses was thus widespread.42 According to the historian Harnisch, the young age of the participants contributed to their receptivity for foreign values and consequent cultural adaptation.43 Mistreatment of Chinese laborers in the United States further dampened the court’s interest in continuing the mission. When competition for jobs increased in the western United States due to the recession after the Civil War and a large migration of settlers from the eastern half of the country, Chinese workers became targets of racial attacks and mob violence. Rather than interfering in the riots, the U.S. government deferred, claiming “states’ rights” It did not offer to pay compensation for loss of Chinese life or damage to property, though it demanded recompense from China when similar incidents happened to Americans there.44 Anti-Chinese sentiments also led the U.S. government to back off from its earlier agreement to let the C.E.M. students enter American military academies.45 Additional factors leading to the abolition of the program were the high costs and the unrealistic pressures for success which were bound to remain unfulfilled.46 Upon their return, most of the students felt the authorities didn’t sufficiently recognize their sacrifices and hard work. Ultimately they achieved more than could have been expected from the abrupt termination of the program. From the rows of students emerged a later premier, cabinet ministers, admirals, ambassadors, engineers, and university presidents.47

42

Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 12. 43 Harnisch, Chinesische Studenten in Deutschland, 44. 44 Bieler, “Patriots” or “Traitors”? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students, 352. 45 Ye, Seeking Modernity in China’s Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900–1927, 215. 46 Harnisch, Chinesische Studenten in Deutschland, 44. 47 Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 12.

4.4 Education and Study Abroad in the Early 20th Century

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Education and Study Abroad in the Early 20th Century

Apart from sending students abroad, the Qing government undertook a series of political and social reform measures in an attempt not only to preserve their dynasty but also to readjust China’s position in the world. One of the most significant and far-reaching decisions was the abolition of the imperial service examination system. Henceforth Chinese youth were educated in a new way consonant with China’s need to survive in the modern world. The Qing government first made an effort to modernize the education system in 1904, inspired by the Japanese model, which was, in turn, based on the German system. During the 19020s, a renewed debate was prompted by John Dewey’s visit to China from 1921–22 and influences from the Chinese scholars who had returned from the United States. This eventually led to another reformation of the domestic education system aimed at aligning it with the American system.48 It is important to note that 40% of the scholars who returned before 1925 were working in secondary and tertiary education, as they couldn’t find employment in the underdeveloped industry. Their impact on educational practices and ideals, as well as the reform of the educational system, was thus considerable.49 People began to embrace not only Western technical knowledge, but Western learning in general, becoming more and more receptive to Western influences.This change in attitude among the Chinese population contributed to the emergence of the second study abroad wave. Compared with the Yung Wing mission’s short-term project, this new wave enjoyed a much stronger, more enduring momentum and was endorsed by both state and society. It became understood and largely accepted by the people involved that going abroad to study would imply a departure from traditional ways of life, in contrast to the resistance to Western cultural influences by the conservative officials on the Yung Wing mission.50 However, it is notable that not all Chinese students in the second wave chose to study in America. To many people in the first decade of the 1900 s, recently modernized Japan was a shortcut to Western knowledge. France became an important center of foreign study in Europe, attracting over sixteen hundred Chinese youths between 1919 and 1921. A number of other European countries such as England, Germany, and Belgium

48

Stafford, 15. Harnisch, Chinesische Studenten in Deutschland, 161. 50 Ye, Seeking Modernity in China’s Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900–1927, 226. 49

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also attracted students from China.51 The increase of students in America between 1900 and 1927 was nonetheless gradual and steady (from 300 students in 1906 to around 1600 in 1926). The Chinese tended to concentrate in schools in the East and Midwest. Government sponsorships furnished most financial aid, with missionary patronage a distant second, as the cost of studying in America was far beyond the economic capacities of most Chinese families. However, even those on government scholarships came from families that were relatively affluent by Chinese standards. Similar to the Chinese Educational Mission, the majority of students were wealthy graduates of elite missionary schools in coastal regions. A high percentage of the students came from just three provinces: Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong.52 The Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program was the most important scheme for educating Chinese students in America during this period. It enjoyed a good reputation because of its competitive selection procedure and high academic standard, especially after the founding of a specially designed preparatory school in Beijing, Qinghua College (today’s Qinghua University).53 From the approximately thirteen hundred individuals sent by the program from 1909 to 1929, many later became modern China’s best scholars and educators, as well as prominent leaders in other walks of life.54 The story of the American remission of the Boxer Indemnity reveals a complex and fundamentally unequal power relationship between China and America. Firstly, the U.S. government claimed 20 million dollars as compensation for the Boxer Uprising, which was distinctly higher than the actual damages. The American negotiators were well aware of this fact. Furthermore, the remission of the Boxer Indemnity in the form of scholarship aid to Chinese students in the United States was an American idea. The U.S. government intended to promote American-directed reform in China through this program. The Chinese government would have preferred other usages, for instance, assistance in Manchuria but were left to accept the Americans’ proposal if they were to benefit from the remissions at all. Even though the U.S. government was returning money to which they had no rightful claim, the dominance in decision-making and their assumption of superiority were typical for the era, according to Harnisch.55 Their main goal was a positive 51

Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 13. 52 Ye, Seeking Modernity in China’s Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900–1927, 246. 53 Bieler, “Patriots” or “Traitors”? A History of American-Educated Chinese Students, 1394. 54 Ye, Seeking Modernity in China’s Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900–1927, 258. 55 Harnisch, Chinesische Studenten in Deutschland, 159.

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effect of American-educated Chinese on Chinese-American relations and trade. However, the exchanges were interrupted by the Japanese invasion of China and other political events which eclipsed academic issues.56 The following years of the Sino-Japanese War, the Second World War, and the Chinese Civil War left the country in turmoil. The government and people were preoccupied with other issues than overseas education.

4.5

Education and Study Abroad 1949–1978

The establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 marked the end of the Civil War, but it was also the beginning of a period of considerable upheaval in the Chinese education system. The Communist government aspired to make education more inclusive and accessible to previously disadvantaged groups such as workers and peasants. New policies to extend educational opportunities to these groups were introduced. The irregular, alternative education system that followed these reforms permitted students to continue their work alongside their academic courses. The income from their labor partially funded their education. However, many families still viewed the regular academic education and preparation for university entrance as superior. The regular education system maintained its structural importance, and the high demand from families continued.57 Several reforms launched in this decade are worth mentioning here. The introduction of the key point (重点zhong dian) school system allowed certain schools to receive more resources and attract higher-quality students. The schools were selected from the high-quality schools in existence before 1949 and as such, contributed to perpetuating the elitist traditions of the pre-Communist era. The nationwide university entrance examination was also instituted during this first decade of Communist rule and continues until the present. By 1953, however, the number of comprehensive universities had fallen from 49 to 13. Only colleges specializing in applied subjects such as medicine and agriculture were spared as they were regarded as vital for economic development.58 In the early 1960s, the government

56

Li, “Navigating U.S.-China Water: The Experience of Chinese Students and Professionals in Science, Technology and Business,” 20. 57 Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 14. 58 Amelie F. Constant et al., “China’s Latent Human Capital Investment: Achieving Milestones and Competing for the Top,” Journal of Contemporary China 22, no. 79 (January 2013): 111, https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2012.716947.

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established policies to give privileged access to education for all workers, peasants, revolutionary cadres, and soldiers, i.e., the “good classes,” while those from “bad” classes such as landowners faced restrictions. Even though it depended on the political climate and individual decision-makers how strictly the policies were followed, these policies nonetheless counter-balanced pre-Communist elitist traditions and paved the way to educational access for new elites. The regular education system also continued to be dominated by and provide opportunities for the educated intellectual class.59 During this period, Chinese students ventured abroad to other Communist countries for educational purposes. Among these most notable and most desirable was the Soviet Union. Overall, more than ten thousand students studied abroad in the 1950s.60 The Cultural Revolution began in 1966 with a student-led mass movement that swept away support for the educational system. Despite the fact that this first phase led to massive disruptions of the education system, the reforms that followed significantly increased educational access among previously disenfranchised groups, especially in the rural areas. This time, the entire educational system was reformed, rather than establishing a complementary irregular education system as had been the plan in the 19050s. The key point school system was abolished. A vast amount of elementary and secondary schools were established in rural areas. Students at the tertiary level were obligated to do manual labor, which resulted in many being “sent down” to work in the countryside. Even though access to basic education was improved, the breakneck pace of expansion as well as the reduction of the curriculum contributed to mediocre quality of education overall. While these policies remained in place, however, the Chinese education system went through a period of destratification.61 Studying abroad was rare during the Cultural Revolution, with only fifteen hundred students going overseas between 1972 and 1976. Many of them studied languages. People were usually selected to go abroad to learn specific skills that were in demand by their work units. After the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, the number of students outside of China increased again, in line with the “reform and opening up” policy inaugurated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978.62 59

Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 16. 60 Michael Poerner, Chinesisch in der Fremde: interkulturelles Rezeptwissen, kollektive Identitätsentwürfe und die internationale Expansion chinesischer Unternehmen, Münchener Beiträge zur interkulturellen Kommunikation 24 (Münster [u.a]: Waxmann, 2011), 85. 61 Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 16. 62 Poerner, Chinesisch in der Fremde, 85.

4.6 Chinese Study Abroad After 1978

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Chinese Study Abroad After 1978

In 1978, the government of the People’s Republic of China introduced a series of major reforms that included the education sector. After being isolated from the outside world for more than a decade, Deng Xiaoping aimed to rapidly modernize the country and catch up with the rest of the world. In order to do so, he sought to send students abroad in large numbers to study science and technology and bring this knowledge back to China. A speech in which he detailed this plan to the governing body of Qinghua University in June 1978 later formed the basis for the new national policy to send students abroad.63 China is among the few countries that provide scholarships to support international education for their own citizens. The number of outgoing scholarships has been expanded dramatically since the beginning of these policies in the 1980s, reaching up to 12,000 per year in 2010.64 From 1978 to 1983, the government mainly allowed advanced-study students and visiting scholars to leave for the United States.65 The focus at the time was to send as many highly-qualified candidates abroad as possible.66 For instance, the Nobel Prize winner, Li Zhengdao, established the China-U.S. Physics Examination and Applications (CUSPEA) program in 1980. Each year, from 1980 to 1988, the program supported 100 top Chinese physics students for graduate studies at elite U.S. universities or research institutions.67 It was not common to pursue overseas studies without government sponsorship at that time. Only students who had close relatives living overseas to support them financially were allowed to study abroad independently of government sponsorship.68 The policy was changed in 1986 to allow students to go abroad as a personal matter. Chinese citizens could apply for approval to pursue self-financed study abroad from their home institutions. The new policy encouraged them to return to China on completion of their degree programs.69 Since then, the practice of studying abroad has 63

Koehn and Yin, The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations, 21. Shepherd Laughlin, ed., U.S.-China Educational Exchange: Perspectives on a Growing Partnership, Global Education Research Reports (New York, NY: Institute of International Education, 2008), 40–41. 65 Koehn and Yin, The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations, 22. 66 Laughlin, U.S.-China Educational Exchange, 38. 67 Koehn and Yin, The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations, 22. 68 Laughlin, U.S.-China Educational Exchange, 38–39. 69 “support study abroad, encourage return home, go abroad, and come back unrestrictedly” Guochu Zhang, “Migration of Highly Skilled Chinese to Europe: Trends and Perspective,” International Migration 41, no. 3 (August 2003): 75, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2435. 00242. Laughlin, U.S.-China Educational Exchange, 38–39. 64

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become normalized as greater numbers of Chinese have ventured overseas. The percentage of self-financed students was as high as 90% in 2008.70 Tuition fees and living costs in many industrialized countries are still expensive when compared to the median Chinese household income, making this a surprisingly high amount.71 Tertiary education abroad is considerably more expensive than domestic tertiary education. With sustained economic development on the mainland, the option to study abroad has become more affordable for Chinese families.72 The current government under Xi Jinping has shown that education is one of their priorities. Elite universities such as Beida and Qinghua Universities have received increased government support in order to become competitive with European and North American institutions. International co-operation in research and teaching are additional areas of investment. The recruitment of international academic staff has been heavily promoted. The Chinese tertiary education system has become more accessible for international students and scholars through Englishlanguage programs and research clusters.73 Moreover, the P.R.C. government has continued to invest in policies to attract foreign-educated Chinese to return to work in China or to establish businesses in China. For instance, the central government installed over 32 Career Development Centers around the country to help returned professionals start up new companies. Many local governments have sent delegations to the United States and have promised special tax advantages in an effort to entice professionals living there to relocate to their former hometowns. According to educationalists Kohn and Yin, the return rate has increased by 13% every year, starting in 1995.74 Official numbers from the P.R.C. Ministry of Education claim that 86% of Chinese who have earned a degree abroad returned

70

Chen, Verbessern Chinesische Studierende Ihre Sprechfertigkeit Im Deutschen Während Des Fachstudiums in Deutschland?, 1. 71 Chen, 38. 72 Bodycott, “Choosing a Higher Education Study Abroad Destination,” 350. 73 Klabunde and Henze, Wettlauf um internationale Studierende, 32. These policies are technically still in place currently, although the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted travel to and from China. The most recent statistics show a drop in international students from the United States of 78.7% less than in the 2018/19 academic year. C. Textor, “Number of College and University Students from the United States Studying in China from Academic Year 2009/10 to 2019/20” (Statista Research Department, 2021), https://www.statista.com/statistics/374169/china-number-of-students-from-the-us/. Accessed 30.12.2021. 74 Koehn and Yin, The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations, 31.

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to China after their graduation in the 2019 academic year.75 Most returnees from the United States, Japan, Canada, or the United Kingdom have professional experience in the areas of finance, business administration, and communications networking, as well as biological and medical sciences. Many of them are entrepreneurs who are profiting from the knowledge they gained abroad.76 The Ministry of Education has also set up projects for overseas study fellows, including the “Research Fund of Returned Study Fellows,” the “Cheung Kong Scholars Project” and the “Chunhui Project.” The aim of these programs is to attract top scientists to be leaders in major national projects.77 Shanghai has become the most attractive city for overseas educated Chinese. Since 1993, Shanghai has received 18 000 returning professionals. Most of them were under age thirty-five and had been educated in the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, France, or Canada. Over 80% had doctoral degrees.78 Many of these skilled returnees are highly aware of their identities and status and live highly transnational lives.79 Alongside a number of personal reasons for re-migration, the economic development in coastal areas, promising career prospects, and unwelcoming climates for graduates in their host countries provide further inducement.

4.7

Chinese Student Mobility: Contributing Factors

China has come a long way since the reforms of 1986 allowed students to go abroad independently. The P.R.C. has since become the most important country of origin when it comes to global transactions in higher education. Chinese students are now to be found in 108 countries and regions all over the world.80 The reasons for this continuing trend are numerous and multi-faceted. The following section seeks to give an overview of the most significant factors behind this phenomenon. It does not, however, include extra-curricular or non-tertiary education, which has

75

Global Times, “Nearly 90% of All Chinese Students Return Home after Studying Abroad: MOE,” Global Times, December 15, 2020, https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1210043. shtml. Accessed 30.12.2021. 76 Koehn and Yin, The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations, 31. 77 Laughlin, U.S.-China Educational Exchange, 39–40. 78 Koehn and Yin, The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations, 31. 79 Wen, “Return Migration and Economic Turmoil,” 380–81. 80 Constant et al., “China’s Latent Human Capital Investment,” 114.

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also been the topic of numerous studies.81 It makes no claim to be complete as educational decision-making processes are complex and individually shaped. Firstly, the economic development since the Reform and Opening-up Period has led to the emergence of a middle class who are willing and able to spend more on education than previous generations.82 A traditionally strong belief in the value of education for upward mobility contributes to this additional spending. It is often seen as an investment for the family with the offspring’s lucrative career in later life as the return on investment. Jaeger and Gram83 even claim this investment is the main motivation for studying abroad. The expected value of the study abroad experience is instrumental and related to external factors such as future employment. Studying abroad is also associated with social recognition. The one-child policy has done its part in reinforcing this way of thinking. In light of inadequate social security systems, families are often found reliant on the only 81

Sun, “Transnational Kinscription”; Min Zhou, “‘Parachute Kids’ in Southern California: The Educational Experience of Chinese Children in Transnational Families,” Educational Policy 12, no. 6 (November 1998): 682–704, https://doi.org/10.1177/089590489801 2006005; R. Serrano, E. Tragant, and A. Llanes, “Summer English Courses Abroad versus ‘at Home,’” ELT Journal 68, no. 4 (October 1, 2014): 397–409, https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ ccu007; Allison J. Spenader, “Language Learning and Acculturation: Lessons From High School and Gap-Year Exchange Students: Language Learning and Acculturation,” Foreign Language Annals 44, no. 2 (June 2011): 381–98, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2011. 01134.x. 82 In China, the definition of the middle class is a particularly controversial issue. The equation of the middle class with the bourgeoisie, and the associations of both with capitalism when the latter was the focus of official criticism during the years of Mao-dominated politics (1956–76) effectively removed the concept of a middle class from the political lexicon and the social sciences Minglu Chen, ed., Middle Class China: Identity and Behaviour, CSC China Perspectives (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2013), 1; Chunling Li, “A Profile of the Middle Classes in Today’s China,” in Chinese Middle Classes: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and China, ed. Michael Hsiao Hsin-Huang (London, New York: Routledge, 2014), 79. The use of the term “middle class” (zhongchan jieji 中产阶级) or “middle strata” (zhongcan jieceng 中产阶层)—the latter somewhat politically more secure—only started to (re)emerge publicly after the Chinese Communist Party adjusted its attitude to entrepreneurs in and after 2000 Xiaohong Zhou, Survey of the Chinese Middle Classes. (Beijing: Social Science Academic Press, 2005). Even as the definition of middle class remains in dispute, there is no doubt of the existence of this group in today’s Mainland China, nor that it is expanding quickly. It is a social group possessing a higher income, more education, and greater occupational prestige, predominant in China’s cities Li, “A Profile of the Middle Classes in Today’s China,” 78. 83 Kirsten Jæger and Malene Gram, “‘Totally Different Standards’: Consumer Orientation in Study Abroad Contexts,” Higher Education 74, no. 1 (July 2017): 40, https://doi.org/10. 1007/s10734-016-0026-8.

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child’s earnings, thus making it beneficial to everyone if the child obtains a solid education and a high-paying job. Education abroad, which is often perceived as more prestigious, also provides options for future migration that many families are interested in.84 Furthermore, fierce competition for scarce university places in China has led to widespread dissatisfaction with the local educational system. The perceived lack of adequate educational opportunities has pushed families to seek alternatives abroad.85 Disappointed at higher education in China, many parents would rather pay a high tuition fee for their child’s college education abroad, even though this may involve selling their inner-city apartment. For these students, coming to the United States and pursuing a degree in business or engineering is not only about getting a decent education, but about helping one’s family strategize its resources.86 Another facet of the educational system luring Chinese students abroad is the increased marketization of education in the post-reform era (since 1978). In many senior high schools, for instance, families have the option of paying for a place (or to get one through connections) if a student does not have satisfactory grades to gain admission. Another option is to forego the public school system entirely and attend a private school of which there are many different types. These range from community schools to elite boarding schools, all of which charge fees. Private secondary schools, or the so-called “elite schools,” catering for those who can afford expensive tuition fees, are booming. These private institutions offer an alternative path for those who could not enter the more prestigious key point high schools or higher ranked universities on their own merit.87 An increasing share of students at the tertiary level also pay fees for their studies. The fraction of non-government funding has increased, and the education system is largely guided by market forces. For Chinese families, the concept of contributing fees

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Bodycott, “Choosing a Higher Education Study Abroad Destination,” 354. Qun Ding, “Understanding Chinese International Doctoral Students in New Zealand: A Literature Review of Contemporary Writings about Chinese Overseas Research Students,” Teachers’ Work 13, no. 2 (December 22, 2016): 121, https://doi.org/10.24135/teachersw ork.v13i2.82; Vivienne Jing Zhang, “Higher Education Choices and Decision-Making: A Narrative Study of Lived Experiences of Chinese International Students and Their Parents” (Auckland, Auckland University of Technology, 2013). 86 Dong, “How Chinese Students Become Nationalist,” 564. 87 Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 19; Yanrui Wu, China’s Consumer Revolution: The Emerging Patterns of Wealth and Expenditure (Cheltenham, Northampton: Edward Elger Publishing Inc., 1999), 8–9. 85

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in order to access higher levels of education—or supposedly better quality of education—is not new. This particularly holds true if the standard pathways are not available. Studying overseas is frequently seen as an alternative avenue through which it becomes possible for families to pay in order to access educational opportunities.88

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Chinese Students and the U.S. Context

The United States have been the most popular destination for Chinese students for many years, although recent political developments have decreased the demand slightly and contributed to the popularity of Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.89 The percentage of students choosing the U.S.A. undergoes significant fluctuations—from 34.8 % of all Chinese international students who chose to study in the U.S.A. in 2002 to 22.8% in 2005, for instance.90 Nonetheless, Chinese students still constitute the largest international student group in the U.S.A. (372,532 in the 2019/20 academic year), according to the most recent Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, a total of 33.7% of all international students in the United States (Figure 4.2).91 Chinese students typically choose undergraduate programs. In fact, undergraduate enrollment has increased more than eightfold in just six years.92 This development runs counter to usual patterns of overseas education. The share of

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Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 18–19. 89 In many countries, including China, English has increasingly been included in the mandatory school curriculum, even at early education levels, and many students aim to improve their English-language skills through immersion in a native context. With one in four people using English worldwide, the language is often directly associated with globalization and referred to as a “world language.” English-speaking countries are the most attractive overall, with these five countries receiving over half the mobile students. See: Poerner, Chinesisch in der Fremde, 85.; Zhihua Zhang, “Past Expectations, Current Experiences, and Imagined Futures: Narrative Accounts of Chinese International Students in Canada” (Burnaby, British Columbia, SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY, 2017), 21. 90 Chen, Verbessern Chinesische Studierende Ihre Sprechfertigkeit Im Deutschen Während Des Fachstudiums in Deutschland?, 4–5. 91 Institute of International Education IIE, “Fact Sheet China; Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange.,” 2021, https://opendoorsdata.org/fact_sheets/china/. Accessed 8.10.2021. 92 IIE, “Open Doors Report.” Accessed 24.9.2021.

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Figure 4.2 Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students from China. Institute of Statistics UNESCO, “Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students,” 2021, http://uis.unesco.org/en/uis-stu dent-flow. Accessed 25.3.2020

international students usually increases gradually with education level. International enrolment in undergraduate programs was relatively low for all countries surveyed by the OECD (below 5%).93 Chinese international students are predominantly found in colleges in California, New York, Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania.94 New York University has the highest individual enrollment of international students with 19 605 enrolled in the academic year 2018/2019, closely followed by the University of Southern California with 16,340 international students.95 The popularity of the United States as a study abroad destination is related to the perceived quality of instruction abroad and the perceived value of host institutions. These are crucial decision-making criteria for many Chinese families planning their offspring’s educational journeys. As university rankings are popular and pervasive in a range of publications, the majority of Chinese are aware of quality differences among tertiary education systems and institutions.96 93

OECD, Education at a Glance 2019, 231–33. Niall Hegarty, “Where We Are Now –The Presence and Importance of International Students to Universities in the United States” Journal of International Students 4, no. 3 (2014): 223. 95 Institute of International Education IIE, “Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange,” 2019. 96 OECD, Education at a Glance 2019, 223. 94

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Certain degrees from certain places are endowed with higher value. Students are increasingly attracted to high-ranking institutions as they hope to build up their internationally recognized capital. The individual decision-making can be heavily influenced by university rankings even though, according to educationalist Zhang97 : The majority of university rankings are devised by Western institutions which use Western standards of measuring. The educational excellence, claimed in neocolonial discourses across the world, illustrates the dominance of Western imperial ideology in international education.

While advocates argue that ranking systems have made universities more transparent and accountable to official and public scrutiny, it is nonetheless factual that rankings are skewed in favor of large, English-language research universities. Critics also point to the relative neglect of teaching quality in ranking systems, which is not necessarily connected to research quality.98 Not every potential student is aware of this bias in measurements, as Yang’s study with families in Shanghai has shown. He observed “near-religious emphasis of university rankings”: all parents in his study encouraged their children to apply to schools based on their rankings from reputable sources such as U.S. News & World Report. For parents, these rankings were an accurate gauge of a university’s quality of education and subsequent status in society.99 Moreover, geography scholar Beech draws attention to the range of different and often-conflicting ranking systems available. Obviously, universities are interested in presenting themselves in the most attractive way possible. The multitude of rankings allows them to select the ones where their performance is most favorably rated and paint a rosier image of their reputation than may truly be the case. This has particular ramifications as the access to higher quality education in comparison to their home countries is one of the main motivators for international students at the tertiary level.100 Many institutions have recognized the potential of full tuition-paying foreigners as customers. According to the most recent reports from the I.I.E. and the 97

Zhang, “Migration of Highly Skilled Chinese to Europe,” 20. Institut de statistique de l’Unesco, Higher Education in Asia: Expanding out, Expanding up: The Rise of Graduate Education and University Research., 2014, 68. 99 Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undergraduate Students at American Universities, 1098. 100 Suzanne E Beech, The Geographies of International Student Mobility: Spaces, Places and Decision-Making, 2019, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site& db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=2142243. 98

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U.S. Department of Commerce, international students contributed $45 billion to the economy in 2018.101 The majority of students receive their funds from sources outside the U.S. such as family assistance or scholarships from their home countries. The inflow of this external funding benefits the U.S. economy.102 Hegarty, a scholar of business education, has observed recruitment efforts specifically aimed at international students in 62% of institutions. Such measures typically focus on ensuring stable international student enrollment. According to Hegarty, 31% of institutions concentrated their efforts on China. Many institutes of higher education have opened recruitment offices in China, and some have established a dominant position in the Chinese foreign education market. Universities may also be seeking to offset the expected demographic decline in U.S. domestic students. The weakened economy, together with high education costs, discourages potential domestic students and places additional pressure on universities and colleges to grow international recruitment efforts.103 However, the notion that U.S. colleges and universities have enrolled more international undergraduate students in order to generate additional revenue has been gaining popular traction. Recent media coverage has claimed that public institutions increased international enrollment is connected to income lost by state budget costs which needed to be replaced. 104 As Reisberg, an employee of Boston College’s Center for International Higher Education recounted, some measures to recruit international students felt “ … a lot like a business transaction with the expectation of a good return on investment.”105 The idea that revenues from international students were utilized for university activities was in line with the increased entrepreneurism and marketization of tertiary education institutions. While it is factual that there are financial gains for individual institutions, these are highly variable. Costs of marketing, expanded recruitment practices, as well as additional assistance for international students, 101

Institute of International Education I.I.E., “Economic Impact of International Students,” accessed July 10, 2021, https://www.iie.org/Research-and-Insights/Open-Doors/EconomicImpact-of-International-Students. 102 Tsevi, “Survival Strategies of International Undergraduate Students at a Public Research Midwestern University in the United States,” 1035. 103 Hegarty, “Where We Are Now –The Presence and Importance of International Students to Universities in the United States,” 224. 104 Cantwell, “Are International Students Cash Cows? Examining the Relationship Between New International Undergraduate Enrollments and Institutional Revenue at Public Colleges and Universities in the US,” 515. 105 Liz Reisberg, “Why Do We Want International Students?,” 2012, https://www.insidehig hered.com/blogs/world-view/why-do-we-want-international-students. Accessed 25.3.2020.

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must also be factored in. As a study by educational scholar Cantwell shows: “only some public higher education institutions appear to have enjoyed net revenue gains from international student enrollment. The potential for financial gain does not mean that every university that recruits students from abroad will profit.”106 For international students, currency fluctuations and immigration restrictions determine whether studying in the United States is attainable. In part to mitigate this issue, many institutions have established branch, joint venture, or double degree programs in other countries.107 These attempts by universities also include prominent offshore satellite campuses in China, such as Duke-Kunshan108 and N.Y.U. Shanghai109 as well as double degree programs such as the Tsinghua-MIT Master of Business Administration.110 Other strategies have included changing admission rules for foreign students, revising curricula to encourage teaching in foreign languages, or offering online courses and international internships. As a consequence, the international activities of tertiary educational institutions have not only expanded in volume and scope but also in complexity.111 Colleges and universities have also expanded their options in order to retain those students who were unwilling or unable to travel during the Covid-19 pandemic. For instance, N.Y.U. launched an extensive “Go Local” program for Chinese students who could opt to enroll or continue their studies on the N.Y.U. Shanghai campus instead of at the New York City campus. The switch to online classes during the 2020 academic year has also allowed students to continue their studies at U.S. institutions even though they might physically be in China (or elsewhere).112 Although these developments have attracted some students, the great majority of Chinese international students study on-campus in the United States. Their 106

Cantwell, “Are International Students Cash Cows? Examining the Relationship Between New International Undergraduate Enrollments and Institutional Revenue at Public Colleges and Universities in the US,” 522. 107 Santa Falcone, “International Student Recruitment: Trends and Challenges,” 2017, 247. 108 Duke Kunshan, “Duke Kunshan Home Page,” 2020, https://dukekunshan.edu.cn/en. Accessed 25.3.2020. 109 NYU Shanghai, “NYU Shanghai Home Page,” 2020, https://shanghai.nyu.edu/. Accessed 25.3.2020. 110 Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, “Tsinghua Global MBA Program in Collaboration with MIT Sloan,” 2020, http://gmba.sem.tsinghua.edu.cn/content/ show/2-21.html. Accessed 25.3.2020. 111 OECD, Education at a Glance 2019. 112 Xijia Qi and Lanlan Huang, “US Colleges’ Make Efforts to Retain Chinese Students under China-US Conflicts,” Global Times, August 5, 2020, https://www.globaltimes.cn/con tent/1196831.shtml. Accessed 10.12.2021.

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increasing presence along with high percentages of American-born Chinese in higher education on campuses all around America has led to cultural and political conflicts. On a day-to-day level, Chinese students often cause irritation in the classroom during undergraduate education. Their English levels are seen as inadequate for academic discourse. Some teachers view them as passive learners lacking the critical thinking skills of their American peers.113 In a highly publicized incident at Duke University, a professor even criticized Chinese students’ use of Mandarin in their free time.114 The professor was later asked to resign. But the sentiment mirrors widespread intercultural tension in regards to Chinese international students and their on-campus behavior. On a political level, it has recently become more difficult for Chinese academic staff to apply for or prolong their visas. Some stand under the accusation of espionage.115 Chinese students who receive government assistance for their international studies usually have close links with the Chinese Communist Party, meaning they are either party members themselves or come from families with a political background in the party. These students are in frequent contact with the Chinese embassy or consulates in their area. Their studies are typically tied to certain party goals and are not undertaken for personal enjoyment.116 However, only a small number of Chinese who are studying in the United States receive government assistance. The vast majority are self-financed and are not as closely monitored by the Chinese government. The political tensions and restrictive visa policies of the Trump era have further deterred some students from choosing the United States as a destination. The Covid-19 pandemic obviously obstructed international travel for students planning to go abroad

113

Cheng, Andrade, and Yan, “A Cross-Cultural Study of Learning Behaviours in the Classroom”; Gloria and Ho, “Environmental, Social, and Psychological Experience of Asian American Undergraduates: Examining Issues of Academic Persistence”; Peng and Wright, “Explanation of Academic Achievement of Asian American Students.” 114 U.S. Embassy and Consulates in China, “ISSUED MORE THAN 85,000 STUDENT VISAS SINCE MAY 2021” (Beijing: U.S. Embassy & Consulates in China, August 25, 2021), https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/85000-student-visas-mission-china-has-issuedsince-may-2021/. Accessed 10.7.2021. 115 Lloyd-Damnjanovic, A Preliminary Study of PRC Political Influence and Interference Activities in American Higher Education. 116 Interview with Dr. Stefan Aubrey, November 22, 2021.

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for the 2020 academic year.117 Trump’s deliberate racialization of the Covid-19 virus with terms such as Kung Flu has contributed to anti-Chinese sentiments and the increasing occurrence of racist hate crimes against people of Asian ethnicity.118 Yingyi Ma, a scholar who is specialized on Chinese international students in the U.S., argues that: the notion that the U.S. is the epicenter of globalization and cosmopolitan capital has been cast into doubt, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, which has revealed deep divides within American society. The mismanagement of the pandemic, coupled with the roaring re-emergence of anti-Asian hate, has irrevocably undermined American soft power.119

Ma is not convinced, however, that these factors will lead to a permanent reduction of Chinese seeking to study in the U.S. She emphasized the deeply internalized belief in the ranking system and the fact that U.S. universities still outrank domestic ones in the majority of international rankings. While the Chinese government is taking steps to improve the quality of tertiary education within the country, Ma presumed that this will be a lengthy process. She also highlighted the flexibility and accessibility of the U.S. educational system that attracts Chinese students, which are not likely to change and will probably not be incorporated into the Chinese educational system. Changing one’s major or transferring schools, for instance, is near impossible in Chinese universities.

Yan Zhang, “被美拒簽的中國留學生: 「我可以證明我不是間諜, 但他們根本不看. Chinese Student Rejected by the US: I Can Prove That I’m Not a Spy, but They Don’t Look at the Evidence.,” The Initium, August 29, 2021, https://theinitium.com/article/20210819mainland-international-proclamation-10043-chinese-international-students/invite_token/ htCOLjmvpX/. Accessed 10.7.2021. 118 Jeffrey Demsky, “Covid-19 in the Age of Trump: A Virus for the American Century and Republic,” LISA E-Journal Mélanges en hommage au Pr. Dr. Denis Mukwege, Contributeurs A à J, mis en ligne le 20 août 2020, consulté le 06 octobre 2021 (2021), http:// journals.openedition.org/lisa/12816; E. Liu, “Covid-19 Has Inflamed Racism against AsianAmericans. Here’s How to Fight Back,” CNN, April 11, 2020, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/ 04/10/opinions/how-to-fight-bias-against-asianamericans- covid-19-liu/index.html; accessed 17.10.2021; Stacey Diane Arañez Litam, “‘Take Your Kung-Flu Back to Wuhan’: Counseling Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders With Race-Based Trauma Related to COVID-19,” The Professional Counselor 10, no. 2 (June 2020): 144–56, https://doi.org/10. 15241/sdal.10.2.144. 119 Yingyi Ma, “Is This the End For China’s American Education Craze?,” Sixth Tone, July 20, 2021, https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1008039/is-this-the-end-for-chinas-americaneducation-craze%3F;text=Is. Accessed 11.9.2021. 117

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Chinese authorities have recently taken measures to curb foreign influences in the education sector, such as restricting the teaching of foreign curricula/textbooks and limiting the availability of foreign-taught online classes.120 Some observers have interpreted this as tightening ideological control. Other new policy guidelines, such as the harsh regulations placed on extra-curricular tutoring companies, are allegedly aimed at easing the pressure on children and families as well as counter-balancing educational inequality.121 The authorities may also be invested in reducing the educational costs for families in light of the three-child policy, which was introduced in May 2021 in an effort to alleviate the looming demographic crisis.122 Certainly, it is too early to pass judgment on how these factors will affect migration patterns between the two countries. The fact that the U.S. embassy in Beijing reported granting more than 85,000 student visas since May 2021—a rebound to pre-pandemic numbers—points to a continuing trend.123 Ma’s assumption that the United States will remain an attractive destination for Chinese students and scholars is well-founded. Educational scholar Chen also points out the fact that compared with the overall national number of students, those studying outside the country are only a small portion. She draws the conclusion that China has not tapped into its full potential as a sending country on the global tertiary education market and expects the trend of Chinese going abroad to study to continue for many years, not only in the U.S.A. but also in the European Union, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia.124

Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, “中共中央办公厅 国务院办公 厅印发 《关于进一步减轻义务教育阶段学生作业负担和校外培训负担的意见》 Opinions on Further Reducing the Burden of Students’ Homework and Off-Campus Training in Compulsory Education.,” General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, General Office of the State Council, July 24, 2021, http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_ xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/s5987/202107/t20210724_546566.html. Accessed 10.7.2021. 121 Yuan Li, “‘Reversing Gears’: China Increasingly Rejects English, and the World,” New York Times, September 9, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/business/china-eng lish.html. Accessed 10.7.2021. 122 中共中央政治 CPC Central Committee, “权威快报|三孩生育政策来; Official Announcement: Three-Child Birth Policy Is Here.,” Xinhua News, May 31, 2021, http:// www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2021-05/31/c_1127513067.htm. Accessed 10.7.2021. 123 U.S. Embassy and Consulates in China, “ISSUED MORE THAN 85,000 STUDENT VISAS SINCE MAY 2021” (Beijing: U.S. Embassy & Consulates in China, August 25, 2021), https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/85000-student-visas-mission-china-has-issuedsince-may-2021/. Accessed 10.7.2021. 124 Chen, Verbessern Chinesische Studierende Ihre Sprechfertigkeit Im Deutschen Während Des Fachstudiums in Deutschland?, 5. 120

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I hope that this section has been able to give some first impressions of the atmosphere in which Chinese students find themselves during their educational sojourn in the United States. In front of this backdrop of historical ties between the two countries but also substantial intercultural conflict potential, they begin their journey into the unknown. The following chapter will mark the beginning of the analysis of their narratives and shed light on their experiences. In order to better understand these narratives in the context of societal developments, I have decided to include an overview of the changing familial dynamics in China.

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The Self and the Family

The changing dynamic of the Chinese family in modern times was illustrated to me on numerous occasions during my time in China. The following anecdote will serve as an introduction to the scientific analysis of these changes, which will be presented in the subsequent chapter. My colleague and I are having a drink in a café while we wait for our next meeting. It is a beautiful and sunny day in Beiing; even the usually smoggy skies are blue today. Uncles and aunties on bicycles pass us by on the narrow alleyways, eyeing us suspiciously: what is a white girl doing here? We chat while we are waiting, about life and plans, for the next couple of days and in general. My colleague updates me on the ongoing argument with his father: is he going to join the family business anytime soon? Father and son both feel misunderstood. There is a lot of pressure and tension, mixed emotions on both sides. My colleague doesn’t have any interest in being involved in his father’s company. To his father, nearing retirement, having his son take over seems like the obvious next step. With a mischievous smile, my colleague concludes: “What can he do? I’m his only child. He cannot force me to do anything.” This view of the once almighty patriarch as completely unable to exercise his power over his son is highly unusual when compared to previous generations, yet nothing out of the ordinary for the one-child generation. This chapter will look into the developments of the modern family in recent decades and discuss the impact these have had on the students in my study regarding decision-making processes within the family.

Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1_5.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Y. Köksal, Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1_5

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The Family in Modern China

According to sociologist and One-Child Policy expert Tyrene White, this policy which was put in place by the Chinese government from 1979 until 2016 was a drastic form of government intrusion into and subsequent collectivization of child-rearing.1 The policy profoundly changed child-rearing values and practices even though they are considered one of the most conservative aspects of culture that generally persist over time.2 It has turned out to be the longest campaign ever implemented in China. This policy, alongside other socio-political and economic reforms implemented by Deng’s government, has contributed to a generation of single children growing up in a time of rapid, transformative social change. This has dramatically altered the dynamics of family life and is unparalleled anywhere else in the world.3 Human rights organizations have documented various coercive and punitive measures related to the policy such as involuntary abortions, sterilizations, and adoptions and have harshly critiqued these practices.4 The policy has also led to abandonment or infanticide of babies as well as prolonged hiding of out-of-plan children.5 Due to the substantial influence the one-child policy has had on family relations in contemporary Chinese society, a brief overview of the policy will be given here. The policy was indeed so successful in reducing the birth rates—which hit an all-time low in 2020 at 1.3 births per woman— that the government introduced three-child policy in May 2021 in an effort to alleviate a looming demographic crisis.6 The question arises of whether the onechild policy has normalized having just one child as this seems to have become the social convention for many families, especially in urban areas. The development and reasoning behind the policy as well as the effect on intergenerational relationships will be discussed in the following section.

1

Tyrene White, China’s Longest Campaign: Birth Planning in the People’s Republic, 1949– 2005 (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 2006). 2 Robert Alan LeVine, Culture, Behavior, and Personality (Chicago: Aldine Pub. Co, 1973). 3 Esther C. L. Goh, China’s One-Child Policy and Multiple Caregiving: Raising Little Suns in Xiamen, Routledge Contemporary China Series 71 (New York, NY: Routledge, 2011), 3–5. 4 Amnesty International, “Thousands at Risk of Forced Sterilization in China,” China Report, April 22, 2010, https://www.refworld.org/publisher,AMNESTY„CHN,4bd53f662c,0.html. Accessed 24.11.2020. 5 Kay Ann Johnson, China’s Hidden Children: Abandonment, Adoption, and the Human Costs of the One-Child Policy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016). 6 中共中央政治 CPC Central Committee, “权威快报|三孩生育政策来; Official Announcement: Three-Child Birth Policy Is Here.” Accessed 10.7.2021.

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One-Child Policy

Before 1949, the traditional Chinese family was an ideal with deep foundations in the classical injunctions of Confucius and Mencius. Rigid patrilineal, patrilocal and patriarchal norms defined every aspect of hierarchical interactions between family members.7 Parents had the obligation to instruct children and care for them in return for their offspring’s unconditional obedience and respect. Children were expected to provide for their parents in old age and conduct themselves in such a way as to bring honor and avoid disgrace to the family name. The concept of xiao 孝 (filial piety) served as a guiding principle and governed Chinese patterns of socialization.8 This framework of ideals came under attack after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power in 1949. The Communists perceived traditional values as a threat to the communist ethos and a hindrance to people’s devotion to the state. The introduction of new family laws such as the 1950 Marriage Law was meant to decrease the power of the traditional patriarchal families as well as discourage arranged marriages which were seen as contributing to the influence of extended family clans. Additionally, state social engineering implemented reforms in other institutions, which resulted in new family patterns and attitudes.9 In the 1950s, the struggle to define a socialist theory of population growth appropriate to China’s conditions was intense. As bright visions of the imagined economic future quickly gave way to the reality of widespread hunger and a limited agricultural surplus, the population issue became even more urgent. The ideal of forsaking personal child-rearing preferences—such as having a large family—for the greater good of the collective gained traction. It was deemed the ultimate self-sacrifice and the true mark of a transformed society. It was in this way that China tilted toward the practice of comprehensive birth planning.10 Population planning thus became linked to the primary obligation of the socialist state—the production, allocation, and distribution of material goods. Childbearing became subject to those same mechanisms of centralized planning. However, the Cultural Revolution halted these early family planning operations, and it wasn’t until the partial normalization of government work in late 1969 7

Goh, China’s One-Child Policy and Multiple Caregiving, 3–5. D.F.Y. Ho, “Fatherhood in Chinese Culture,” in Father’s Role: Cross Cultural Perspectives (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1987); Shu-Ching Lee, “China’s Traditional Family, Its Characteristics and Disintegration,” American Sociological Review 13, no. 3 (1953): 272–80, https://doi.org/10.2307/2087881. 9 Goh, China’s One-Child Policy and Multiple Caregiving, 3–5. 10 White, China’s Longest Campaign, 244–48. 8

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Figure 5.1 A poster advertising the one-child policy: “Carry out family planning, implement the basic national policy.” Image courtesy of Zhou Yuwei, 198611

that Zhou Enlai pressed forward with a birth planning initiative.12 The regime introduced specific and increasingly strict birth limits in the early 1970 s, commencing with the propaganda theme “One Child isn’t too few, two are just fine, and three are too many” (一个不少, 两个正好, 三个多了, yi ge bu shao, liang ge zheng hao, san ge duo le) followed by “Later, Longer, Fewer” (晚 稀 少, wan, xi, shao)13 in 1973.14 Population targets were added to the economic plan just as China was moving out of the most intensive, disruptive, and violent phase of the Cultural Revolution. 15 The swift adoption of the one-child policy and the scale and intensity of the implementation is explained by two interrelated factors. First, 11

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/iisg/4766786219 (accessed 16.10.2022) Junsen Zhang, “The Evolution of China’s One-Child Policy and Its Effects on Family Outcomes,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 31, no. 1 (2017): 142. 13 Referring to later marriage, longer time between the first and second child and fewer meant a maximum of two children per couple, Zhang, 143. See also Isabelle Attané, “China’s Family Planning Policy: An Overview of Its Past and Future.,” Studies in Family Planning 33, no. 1 (2002): 103. 14 Zhang, “The Evolution of China’s One-Child Policy and Its Effects on Family Outcomes,” 143. 15 White, China’s Longest Campaign, 244–48. 12

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the strict birth limitation policy was a rare area of leadership consensus because it was one of the few issues that stood above the politics of elite struggle. This political consensus was the result of a shared economic calculus. Decades of collective learning about the economic consequences of unchecked population growth left the Chinese Communist Party in general agreement about the need for state intervention to reduce fertility rates. A second explanation for the onechild escalation is the economic agenda of Deng Xiaoping and his allies. Deng’s reform program called for the development of the agrarian and commercial sector, the enlivenment of the market sector, and increased personal consumption. His goal of alleviating China’s essential poverty and improving standards of living inclined him to be particularly concerned about per capita indicators of growth. The input of advisers like Liu Zheng and Song Jian was crucial in determining what specific level of childbearing was deemed acceptable given the leadership’s modernization goals.16 Song used computer modeling to devise several future scenarios for China’s population growth based on variable average fertility rates. His calculations were based on the assumption that achieving zero population growth by the year 2000 was the short-term goal. According to Song, this goal could only be attained if the average fertility rate was reduced to one by 1985. Subsequently, the State Council Office for Birth Planning revised the birth limitation policy to allow only one child per couple and impose penalties on those who did not adhere to this limit. While these policies were technically voluntary at first and accompanied by large scale propaganda campaigns (Fig. 5.1), they later had a number of coercive and punitive elements which lead to high compliance in all regions of China.17 The one-child policy has reduced the birth rate from 2.75 in 1979 to around 1.6 in 2000 and just 1.3 in 2020, well below the replacement rate. This has also affected the demand for education and the ability of families to invest in it. Parents are often willing to spend as much as needed, even if these expenses result in financial hardship for the family.18 This is related not only to changing financial expectations and responsibilities burdening the singletons but also to a shift in family dynamics and gender roles, which will be detailed in the following sections. 16

White, 62–64. Zhang, “The Evolution of China’s One-Child Policy and Its Effects on Family Outcomes,” 145; White, China’s Longest Campaign, 65–66; Mei Fong, One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016). 18 Dennis Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undegraduate Students at American Universities (Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: Lexington Books, 2016), 1; Glen Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia” (Dissertation, Adelaide, University of Adelaide, 2010). 17

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Intergenerational Dynamics

Only-children in China are often tenderly called “little suns” by their elder family members. From the term “little sun” it is easy to imagine the central position these youngsters occupy in the hearts and minds of their caregivers. Grandparents and parents revolve their lives around caring for the little sun, just as planets in the solar system orbit around the sun.19 The one-child policy has facilitated a nuclear family culture, in which the only children are placed at the center of family life. Another popular nickname for these children is therefore “little emperors”.20 While research has not been able to confirm the negative characteristics of singletons, growing up in a child-centered familial environment has nonetheless had profound effects on today’s generation of young adults.21 Young professionals are often perceived as holding more individualized values with regard to personal happiness and self-achievement.22 Some researchers also point to only children being disrespectful of authority and resistant to discipline.23 This may be related to their increased generational power. Esther Goh’s research on the “intergenerational parenting coalition” has investigated the effect of multiple caregivers (such as parents and maternal or paternal grandparents) on the generational power dynamics. It has been observed that caregivers’ competition for loyalty and affection can boost the child’s relational power. This corresponds to the findings by Zheng Tang24 and Fengshu Liu25 that the emotional value of children in China has increased. Since there is only one child in each family to satisfy the emotional needs of several caregivers, each puts a greater weight on interactions with that child. In this child-centered environment, all caregivers automatically become 19

Goh, China’s One-Child Policy and Multiple Caregiving, 1. Chao Yang, Television and Dating in Contemporary China (New York, NY: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2017), 158. 21 Goh, China’s One-Child Policy and Multiple Caregiving, 131; Toni Falbo, “The One-Child Family in the United States: Research Issues and Results,” Studies in Family Planning 13, no. 6/7 (June 1982): 212, https://doi.org/10.2307/1965450; C. C. Ching, “The One-Child Family in China: The Need for Psychosocial Research,” Studies in Family Planning 13, no. 6/7 (June 1982): 208, https://doi.org/10.2307/1965449. 22 Yang, Television and Dating in Contemporary China, 158. 23 F Festini, “Twenty Five Years of the One Child Family Policy in China,” Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 58, no. 5 (May 1, 2004): 358, https://doi.org/10.1136/jech. 2003.017335. 24 Zheng Tang, “China,” in The Value of Children in Cross-Cultural Perspective Case Studies from Eight Societies, ed. Gisela Trommsdorff (Lengerich: Lengerich Verlag, 2005). 25 Fengshu Liu, “The Rise of the ‘Priceless’ Child in China,” Comparative Education Review, 2016, 26. 20

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invested in the child’s success and well-being. This frequently leads to a concentration of resources on the singleton as well as more democratic intergenerational family practice, in which parents are often willing to adopt a more equal position instead of the dominant role of traditional hierarchical families.26 This becomes evident when compared to families with multiple children. In families with only one child discussions are increasingly open. Decision-making in particular has become more consensual.27 As pointed out by Liu28 : This change has sometimes taken an extreme form, with parents of only-children abandoning the authoritarian parenting style with which they themselves grew up and adopting a highly permissive and even pampering attitude towards their only-children.

Parents tend to view their children as equals or friends and encourage a more interactive relationship.29 Research also shows that urban children are highly influential in the selection of family products and services, including food, vacations, clothing, and restaurants.30 An increase in educational spending was also observed in this generation. Zhang pointed out that it was not uncommon for families to spend as much as one third of family income on their childrens’ education.31 In fact, the expenses related to the child’s education represented the single largest proportion of household spending for the average family in 2009. 26

Yang, Television and Dating in Contemporary China, 138–39. Peter Bodycott, “Choosing a Higher Education Study Abroad Destination: What Mainland Chinese Parents and Students Rate as Important,” Journal of Research in International Education 8, no. 3 (December 2009): 368, https://doi.org/10.1177/1475240909345818. 28 Fengshu Liu, Urban Youth in China: Modernity, the Internet and the Self , Routledge Research in Information Technology and Society 10 (New York: Routledge, 2011), 60. 29 Hongyan Sun, “The Current Status of Chinese Children,” Journal of Family and Economic Issues 24, no. 4 (2003): 337–53; Anqi Xu, John D. DeFrain, and Wenrong Liu, eds., The Chinese Family Today, 1 Edition, Routledge Contemporary China Series 158 (London; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017). 30 Laura A. Flurry and Ann Veeck, “Children’s Relative Influence in Family Decision Making in Urban China,” Journal of Macromarketing 29, no. 2 (June 2009): 145–59, https:// doi.org/10.1177/0276146708327635; James U. McNeal and Chyon-Hwa Yeh, “Consumer Behavior of Chinese Children: 1995-2002,” Journal of Consumer Marketing 20, no. 6 (November 2003): 542–54, https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760310499129; Guan Ying, “Consumption Patterns of Chinese Children,” Journal of Family and Economic Issues 24, no. 4 (2003): 373–79, https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1027385427303. 31 Vivienne Jing Zhang, “Higher Education Choices and Decision-Making: A Narrative Study of Lived Experiences of Chinese International Students and Their Parents” (Auckland, Auckland University of Technology, 2013). 27

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Tsui and Rich ascribe the increased level of educational spending to the lack of a developed welfare system.32 Parents’ financial security in old age depends on the earning potential of their children, which is associated with a solid educational foundation in most parents’ worldview.33 A heightened demand for quality education in this generation is also connected to the parents’ lifetime experience, which has shaped their attitudes towards higher learning. Parents of the singleton generation were mostly born in the 1950 s or 1960 s. Most of them lived through the Great Leap Forward (1958–60) and the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). They grew up during a volatile and harsh political period.34 Due to the closure of many educational institutions during the Cultural Revolution, many parents could not attend university themselves; or even if they were able to take the university entrance exams later in life, having not studied for so long made them lose the chance to go to university, let alone to study abroad.35 Parents who couldn’t attend university in their youth might place special importance on the higher education of their offspring. The desire to make up for lost opportunities and the promises of upward mobility may lead families to push their children even further towards higher learning. Meanwhile, those parents, who did go to university after the Cultural Revolution, have a higher social status than those who did not attend. These parents still maintain high standards for their children, so as not to endanger the high social status they have built for themselves.36

5.1.3

Gender

The importance of producing offspring, especially sons, was an inherited part of the Confucian ethic and thus deeply rooted in the Chinese way of life. Only

32

Ming Tsui and Lynne Rich, “The Only Child and Educational Opportunity for Girls in Urban China,” Gender & Society 16, no. 1 (February 2002): 75–86, https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0891243202016001005. 33 Festini, “Twenty Five Years of the One Child Family Policy in China,” 358. 34 Zhang, “Higher Education Choices and Decision-Making: A Narrative Study of Lived Experiences of Chinese International Students and Their Parents.” 35 Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undegraduate Students at American Universities, 1137. 36 Shaohua Wang, “Chinese Students Studying Abroad: The Role of Parents’ Investment in Their Children’s Education,” in China’s Higher Education Reform and Internationalisation, ed. Janette Ryan (New York: Routledge, 2011), 5525.

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a son could carry the ancestral line of the family, making it the filial obligation of each generation to produce ancestral heirs. Failure in this regard brought social ostracism, humiliation, and rejection. Additionally, sons were an economic resource. They provided labor power from an early age through their adult years and were bound by tradition to support their parents in old age. Although daughters contributed to the household during their younger years, they were considered part of the groom’s family after marriage. From the point of view of their families, they left and took their earning potential with them after marriage. Sons were not only more valuable contributors to the family during their youth, they remained at home and brought another person into the family when they married.37 These factors form the foundation for a long-standing preference for male offspring and intra-family discrimination against daughters. The perceived temporariness of their presence in the natal family before they married made it seem unnecessary to invest in their development. Many families concentrated their resources on sons who later became the family patriarchs and provided for parents, siblings, children, and other relatives.38 During the Mao era, this preference was reinforced through the unequal system of labor points. Each family member was assigned points, for example, ten for an adult male and seven for an adult female, on the basis of which food was distributed. Accordingly, if a family had many sons, they would receive more food than if they had many daughters.39 As a consequence of the ingrained, perceived inferiority of females, the one-child policy led to numerous abortions of female fetuses and infanticide. This was especially prevalent in rural areas, where traditional thinking was strong and labor power in high demand. Surveys indicated that parents of single daughters were more reluctant to support the policy and constituted a majority of the couples defying the policy and proceeding with unplanned births.40 Even though the government loosened the policy in the countryside for these reasons, the sex ratio remains alarmingly unbalanced in China today, with 117 newborn boys for every 100 newborn girls.41 One surprising, unintended consequence of the one-child policy

37

White, China’s Longest Campaign, 77. Thomas Harnisch, Chinesische Studenten in Deutschland: Geschichte Und Wirkung Ihrer Studienaufenthalte in Den Jahren von 1860 Bis 1945, Mitteilungen Des Instituts Für Asienkunde Hamburg, Nr. 300 (Hamburg: Institut für Asienkunde, 1999). 39 White, China’s Longest Campaign. 40 Elisabeth Croll, Changing Identities of Chinese Women: Rhetoric, Experience, and SelfPerception in Twentieth-Century China (Hong Kong: London; Atlantic Highlands, N.J: Hong Kong University Press; Zed Books, 1995), 112. 41 Festini, “Twenty Five Years of the One Child Family Policy in China,” 358. 38

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is a leveling out of different expectations for boys or girls in urban areas. Parents now place similar expectations on girls in regard to educational attainment.42 Urban, middle-class girls have thus been described as the unexpected beneficiaries of the policy. A study by the educationalist Liu Fengshu of Oslo University discovered that contrary to the intra-family discrimination against girls widespread among previous generations and still common among contemporary rural families with more than one child, there were no gender differences related to education between single-girl and single-boy families in modern urban China. Her study showed equally high educational aspirations and similar academic performances for both genders.43 According to Taiwanese researcher Lee, children in one-child households enjoyed improved opportunities for education in general, with the improvement for girls being larger than those for boys.44 There was no difference in years of schooling between only-child boys and only-child girls, whereas the gap between boys and girls in multiple-child households remained significant. Nonetheless, gender-based expectations persist in other areas. These include the belief that it is important for girls to be feminine/beautiful, boys masculine, and that boys are naturally more intelligent than girls. Liu argues that such stereotypes can have detrimental effects on achievement, identity, and career options for both boys and girls. Nonetheless, the promotion of gender equality is a notable unintended consequence of the one-child policy with remarkable repercussions for girls’ educational opportunities.45 Women have entered higher education in greater numbers46 , which is also visible in my sample for this study. Female students were often painfully aware of the fact that they would not have had the chance to study abroad if they had siblings. Many profited from the concentration of resources that allowed their parents to finance their studies abroad. The next section will take a closer look at the family decision-making process surrounding overseas education in regard to the social trends described in this section. 42

Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 25–35. 43 Fengshu Liu, “Boys as Only-children and Girls as Only-children—Parental Gendered Expectations of the Only-child in the Nuclear Chinese Family in Present-day China,” Gender and Education 18, no. 5 (September 2006): 491–505, https://doi.org/10.1080/095402506 00881626. 44 Ming-Hsuan Lee, “The One-Child Policy and Gender Equality in Education in China: Evidence from Household Data,” Journal of Family and Economic Issues 33, no. 1 (March 2012): 41–52, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-011-9277-9. 45 Liu, “Boys as Only-children and Girls as Only-children—Parental Gendered Expectations of the Only-child in the Nuclear Chinese Family in Present-day China.” 46 Croll, Changing Identities of Chinese Women, 133.

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5.2

95

Autonomy and Decision-making in the Family

There were several pathways to American college life for the participants of my study. Several students went abroad at a young age for middle school or high school. The idea behind this early move was that it would be easier to enter a prestigious institution for tertiary education after having familiarized themselves with the American educational system. This group has been referred to as “parachute children.”47 While some students moved with their families, for instance, due to a parent’s job change, others came alone and attended boarding schools or stayed with host families. Some students also migrated within China for educational reasons e.g., to access better quality schools in a bigger city. However, these early migrants were a minority. The majority of students came to attend a four-year college in the United States or transferred into a four-year college after finishing their sophomore year within their Chinese universities. As my sample also included Master’s and Ph.D. candidates, the decision-making process is not quite comparable. For older students, career advancement connected to a prestigious foreign graduate degree was named as the most important motivator. For younger students, the question arises of how involved they were in the decision-making process and to what extent such decisions were made for them by their parents. It is remarkable, thus, that most younger participants constructed themselves as the active part of this process. They emphasized their agency and individual aspirations while portraying their parents or family members as passive or persuadable. Some mentioned family discussions with mostly emotional arguments from the side of the parents, such as the desire to have their children close by and fear for their safety. Financial aspects of deciding to pursue overseas studies were rarely mentioned as a hindrance for studying abroad, possibly either influenced by cultural taboos surrounding this topic or due to such considerations being reserved for adults and not shared with their offspring. Only two students explicitly mentioned the financial implications for their families. Reflecting on being an only-child and having her whole family’s resources available to invest in her education, Liang Yue Wang Zi, a junior majoring in psychology, (153/1–3) said: If I have siblings, maybe I couldn’t study abroad because it’s really expensive. If you need to support two children, and it’s maybe hard for my family, but for me, only child, you just want to study abroad, you just go. Just go. 47

Siqi Tu, “Destination Diploma: How Chinese Upper-Middle-Class Families ‘Outsource’ Secondary Education to the United States” (Ph.D. Dissertation, New York, City University of New York, 2020), https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4022/.

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This alludes to the descriptions by Liu48 and Yang49 about the willingness of families to invest in their single children’s education as well as the leveling out of gender-based expectations with more value placed on the daughter’s education than previously. Ma also pointed out that most students are keenly aware of the costs and sacrifices their parents have made in sending them to the United States, which made them feel they owe a great fiscal and emotional debt to their parents.50 The majority of narratives, however, omitted such aspects and focused on the students’ own decision-making, planning, and preparation for their stay abroad instead. The portrayal of the senior family members as passive towards or quickly accepting of this decision runs counter to the widespread image of the strong hierarchical structure of Chinese families. It is more in line with the democratization of family relations as mentioned in the previous section.51 Nonetheless, it is plausible that seeking overseas education is very much in line with the parents’ values or expectations for their child or, at the least, a not completely foreign idea for them. There is a common perception among middleclass and elite families that overseas education provides high-quality learning and improved career opportunities after graduation52 (see also 6.2). Interestingly, the interviews conducted with parents downplayed the role of their sons and daughters in the decision-making process. However, only four interviews with parents are not sufficient for analyzing their viewpoints and place such aspects out of the range of this research project. The following chapter will look into different narratives of decision-making within the family. I focus on the younger cohort of students for several reasons. Going abroad at age 14 is a different experience from going abroad at age 25 for a Ph.D. For younger students, it can be assumed that the parents’ involvement and financial contributions are larger. This is also due to the greater availability of scholarships for graduate students, which are rare in the undergraduate or high school context.

48 Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undegraduate Students at American Universities. 49 Liu, “Boys as Only-children and Girls as Only-children—Parental Gendered Expectations of the Only-child in the Nuclear Chinese Family in Present-day China.” 50 Yingyi Ma, Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020), 18110. 51 Xu, DeFrain, and Liu, The Chinese Family Today; Liu, Urban Youth in China. 52 Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undegraduate Students at American Universities; Bodycott, “Choosing a Higher Education Study Abroad Destination”; Ma, Ambitious and Anxious.

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5.2.1

97

“It was my Idea—then I Convinced my Parents.”

The following quote by Lynette, an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, can be seen as an exemplary description of the decision-making process many students experienced. She mentioned a conversation with her parents and stated: They will ask me the reasons why I want to study abroad and I just told them the reasons and they said: ok, let’s go. (57/7–10)

It can be assumed that Lynette had already done some research or reflection on the benefits of studying abroad before initiating the talk with her parents. In her narrative, her desire to study abroad provided the first impetus for her educational sojourn. She then convinced her parents, presumably using logic and reasoning: “I just told them the reasons.” Apparently, her arguments were convincing enough. She described her parents as agreeing with her almost instantly. This seems like a remarkably simple settlement within the family, considering the high cost, risk, and emotional excitement of studying abroad. This deceptively straightforward decision-making process could also be due to the overarching narrative of overseas degrees being beneficial for career advancement, of higher quality and more accessible than domestic education. It is possible that the parents had contemplated this option before Lynette brought it up. Some other students, Xuanya for instance, had mentioned that although they initiated the conversation about studying abroad, it was an idea that their parents had considered since her childhood. If this isn’t the case, it could also point to the increasing relational power of the only child, as researched by Goh.53 Similarly, Shi (102/35–39) described herself as being able to tip the scales in the family–decision-making process: Maybe my mother is not approved for me to study abroad, but my father is strongly agree, so they have different ideas. I don’t know who will win. But I think it will depend on me, maybe I strongly want to go abroad so my father will win, but if I want to study in China, maybe my mother will win.

In her narrative, she appeared as an influential family member who will cast the final, crucial vote in an apparently democratic transaction. This presents a departure from traditional Confucian ideals of the father as the patriarch with the wife and offspring in obedience to his wishes. It also indicates the single child as a strong agent within the family.

53

Goh, China’s One-Child Policy and Multiple Caregiving.

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5.2.2

“What can my father do? He can only pay for me”

The following quote by Hailu (64/18–21) is another example for a singleton who perceived herself as the crucial player in the decision-making process: My father persuaded me to stay, that perhaps you shouldn’t go abroad, perhaps it will influence your scores at the hometown university, but I insisted, so he just agreed.

Hailu was one of the students who had entered university in her home province of Guangdong before transferring to the United States. Even though she labeled her previous university as one of the best institutions in her province, she was strongly motivated to study abroad for a number of educational and personal reasons. In her narrative, she is the dominant decision-maker, seemingly holding a powerful position in the relationship. According to her: “but I insisted” was enough to make her father accept her decision. In a traditional family hierarchy, one would assume the father to be in the position of dominance, controlling financial assets and family planning. This quote, however, shows that the father in reality could not persuade his daughter to do as he wanted. He thought that studying domestically was the better option, but she disagreed. This presents an unusual family dynamic and points to the gain in intergenerational power of the only-child. Chinese researchers like Lau have long since argued that Chinese adolescents are similar to those of Western countries in that they value personal freedom and do not like submitting to parental domination.54 Nonetheless, this portrayal of the father figure as capitulating to a strong-willed daughter is a characteristic repeating narrative in my sample. Yiwei, a junior from Xian majoring in business (3/42–44) paints an even more vivid picture of her father as a kind of passive, financial enabler: He was convinced by me and my mom @.@ He had no choice, because I wanted to come. There was no way he could turn me around. He can only pay for me.

Even though she mentioned gratitude for her father’s continuous and reliable support later in the interview, she still made it quite clear that he was not the one pulling the strings when it came to her decision to study abroad. With her mother on her side and apparently in full support of her daughter’s wishes, her 54

Sing Lau et al., “Chinese and American Adolescents’ Perceptions of the Purposes of Education and the Beliefs about the World of Work,” Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal 28, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 74–75, https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2000. 28.1.73.

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father had no other option than to provide the financial means necessary for his daughter’s plans. Yiwei presents herself as a strong force within her family, full of determination and ambition. Her father comes across as docile, even disenfranchised, far from the image of an invincible and decisive patriarch. Instead, in this scenario he is submitting to his daughter and wife, even though he might not be in full agreement that studying abroad is the best course of action. This is surprising, as he does seem to be the main breadwinner in the family with the most financial resources available. Again, it could be possible that he was not strongly opposed to the idea of studying abroad, which is a highly soughtafter, prestigious, and promising pathway for many young Chinese. The question could be posed if he would still be as permissive if his daughter tried to gain his financial backing for (in his eyes) stigmatized, dangerous, unconventional, or otherwise problematic future plans. Yiwei’s family dynamic seems nonetheless to be typical of the parental role division in many Chinese households in the sense that “Mother is still the main caretaker, while father is more often the financial supporter”55 . While mothers maintain close emotional ties with their children and shoulder the majority of childcare duties, fathers’ involvement has increased in occasionally providing encouragement, affection, and input on future plans. The following description by Roberto, a freshman from a wealthy family, shows the extreme form of the father as a financial enabler who is omitted from the educational decision-making in the family, and the strong-willed only child. Even the mother is reduced to a mere facilitator. In Roberto’s own words (80/17–30): My mom was encouraging. So when I was three probably, when my mom doesn’t really… Like she’s not like the majority of the population. She just let me do my thing, since I formed my thinking pretty early on. So I can make all the decisions in my life by myself. So I had a chance to go through another primary school. Like I have to choose between A and B and I would want to go to A, but if I got to B, it’s going to be free. And if I don’t do anything like I can just go to B and my mom won’t pay anything. But I went to visit both. I found out that I like A much more than B. So my mom has to pay some tuition. So I tell my mom. I told my mom, when I was like when I was six or five. I was like: Mom I want to go to A school, not to B school. And she was like OK. So my mom basically just respect my decision. She wants me to make all the decisions in my life. Rather than you know, like she can chose over me.

Roberto presents himself as independent and resolute. He is able to juggle life’s choices self-sufficiently and seems confident in his abilities to plan his future. His mother was apparently fine with going along with whatever he decided. She even encouraged him to handle such decisions by himself. His father, meanwhile, 55

Xu, DeFrain, and Liu, The Chinese Family Today, 104.

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doesn’t appear in the narrative at all. Upon further inquiry, Roberto explained his father’s absence in the following terms (75/14–18): “He travels a lot. So you know like work trip, like a business trip across China. So I don’t see him that often but I do get time to see him. And, yeah, like he respect my decision as well.” His father does not live with his mother and him in Beijing and thus supposedly plays a negligible role in his son’s life. His role is rather like his mother’s: he can only roll with the punches and accept the course of action desired by his son. The financial consequences of Roberto’s choice of school seem to matter little to his parents. It could be assumed that the family is able to easily afford the more expensive tuition and must be middle or upper-middle class. Still, this anti-authoritarian style of parenting can be considered highly unusual, especially in regard to Roberto’s age of only five or six years old in this story. It would be interesting to contrast the mother’s or father’s narrative with Roberto’s, which was unfortunately not possible for this study. Whether his parents deliberately created the impression of letting him choose freely or whether they indeed did leave the decision to him, as he remembers it, is not within the scope of this study. It seems unlikely that Roberto’s parents would really leave the decision entirely up to a five-year-old child. Given the description of the more expensive and probably better-equipped school, presumably a private school, it may have been the more desirable option than the gratuitous (public) school. Nonetheless, Roberto draws a strong sense of agency, empowerment, and self-efficacy from this interaction. He sees himself as a decisive force with the ability to shape his life according to his preferences. He also gives himself full credit for the decision to go to university in the United States. According to Roberto, he started pursuing this goal at age eleven after participating in student exchange programs in Australia and Singapore. These sojourns abroad revealed a more hands-on learning and teaching approach which he immediately took a liking to and which led him to set his sights on education in the United States.

5.2.3

“I’m kind of Independent, maybe you can tell”

Mandy went even further than Hailu and Lynette in taking control of her life. Similar to Roberto, she had already made a decision and set things in motion before consulting her parents. She explains: So I’m kind of independent, maybe you can tell. So I just nailed everything from the sending the, like signing up for this program to interviews, I nailed everything. And I got my invitation letter and then I tell my parents. And I want to do so. Yeah. Because

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I still need the finance support. I can’t afford everything by myself. If I can, maybe I will do so, no, just kidding. (131/27–32)

Indeed, her descriptions raise the question of whether she would have taken her parents’ opinion into account if it weren’t for the financial support she needed from them. She even expressly stated: “If I can, maybe I will do so”, however, quickly relativizing this with a “no, just kidding”. After having been asked to elaborate her motivations for choosing to continue her education abroad, her drive and conviction became evident (131/34–44): I think it’s a good idea. And it’s the most important for me. I just, I have to do so. For my future plans. If I have the chance to study abroad for a while and I can tell whether I suit this kind of study. And I know where to go. That is Berkeley my place to go, is the doctors or professors nice, is the weather and the food nice here and yeah, my parents don’t agree but if I have the deposit; if I have enough deposit, so who cares? Maybe they don’t agree, but they can’t stop me. They have reasons, and I can understand them, but they can’t stop me. I don’t depend on them. So that’s the freedom. And I can do everything else by myself. Actually, I booked my own ticket, accommodation, and everything, basically I did them all by myself.

While it appears at first that studying abroad takes on a central role in her life planning, as she repeatedly emphasized: “It’s the most important for me” and “I just have to do so”, she also leaves some room for adjustment in case she didn’t like this mode of study or didn’t fit into the environment. The core of her statement is revealing of her strong-willed nature as well as her relationship with her parents: “Maybe they don’t agree, but they can’t stop me.” Her desire for autonomy could be connected to some trauma she experienced during her parents’ divorce, which she described as a depressing and difficult time. After the separation, she longed for financial independence and learned how to manage the allowance her parents gave her. She took up a part-time job during her high school days, which is quite unusual in the Chinese context. Students of that age are normally focused on their performance in the all-deciding university entrance examination. Her part-time job boosted her confidence and appreciation of selfreliance, as she recounted in the following (130/15–20): I can live on my own, I can be myself, and I’m not like depending on my parents anymore. I can like against their opinions and don’t follow their decisions to some extent because I have the ability and the money to do so. That’s something important for me that time.

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Contrasting Mandy’s experience with that of an average European or American teenager, several differences are worth mentioning. Firstly, part-time work during high school is much more prevalent in Western societies such as the United States, where around one-third of teenagers are employed while being full-time students56 and where up to 80 % have work experience at the time of graduation57 . In Shanghai, where Mandy grew up, as well as in other urban areas in China, part-time work is rare for teenagers as their lives are much more education-centered with studying eclipsing all other activities during secondary school including sports or other hobbies and housework. Taking up part-time work is not a common choice for urban youth, indeed it is quite unconventional58 . Secondly, in the West, youth is much more closely related to deviance and rebelliousness, as well as impulsiveness, resistance, and inexperience. In contrast, the Chinese term carries much more positive connotations. ‘Youth’ or ‘qing nian 青 年’ is associated with hope, courage, and dynamism.59 Cross-cultural psychologists Ying, Lee, and Tsai have connected these different associations with the differences of growing up in individualistic versus collectivistic societies. They claim the following: During adolescence, American youth are engaged with the task of forging a separate identity that necessitates psychological individuation from their parents. While the intergenerational relationship remains a source of support during this process, the adolescent’s need to assert a distinct sense of self leads to a rise in intergenerational conflict.60

56

Drew Desilver, “In the U.S., Teen Summer Jobs Aren’t What They Used to Be,” Pew Research Center Publications (blog), June 27, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/ 2019/06/27/teen-summer-jobs-in-us/. Accessed 1.5.2021. 57 Catherine A. Loughlin and Julian Barling, “Teenagers’ Part-Time Employment and Their Work-Related Attitudes and Aspirations,” Journal of Organizational Behavior 19, no. 2 (March 1998): 197–207, https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1379(199803)19:23.0.CO;2-N. 58 Fengshu Liu, Modernization as Lived Experiences: Three Generations of Young Men and Women in China, First Edition, Youth, Young Adulthood and Society (New York: Routledge, 2019), 99. 59 Liu, Urban Youth in China, 5. 60 Yu-Wen Ying, Peter Allen Lee, and Jeanne L. Tsai, “Attachment, Sense of Coherence, and Mental Health among Chinese American College Students: Variation by Migration Status,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 31, no. 5 (September 2007): 533–34, https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2007.01.001.

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In contrast, they allege that Chinese culture is more familial in the sense that young people’s close ties with their parents remain untouched throughout their lives and thus doesn’t necessitate strong individuation from them. In consequence, this would mean that teenage rebellion is less common in collectivistic societies such as China and that teenagers’ desires are closely aligned with familial expectations. Previous research indicates that young Chinese adults remain close to their parents.61 Possibly this tight-knit relationship may impact post-college decisions such as deciding which country to work in or for how long they live far away from their families.62 Mandy’s experience can thus be considered unusual in the Chinese context. However, her quest for independence from her parents has given her confidence and self-reliance, two characteristics that have facilitated the acculturation to her new environment.

5.2.4

“I just want to stay in my Safety Zone”

Of course, not all participants expressed individualistic tendencies of this kind. For some, the option of studying abroad was a weighty and life-changing decision. For Zizhuo, for instance, letting her father plan and control her life was the norm before the opportunity to go abroad arose. She described her relationship with her father as well as his role in her life in the following paragraph (70/18–24): He made decisions for me. I’m the kind of person that I’m willing to learn everything. I didn’t care the decisions he made for me, it’s all fine for me, I’m wiling to do everything, so I didn’t care about it. But when I decided to study further in the American, that is my first time to make my own choices. And it’s like more the information I offered for my parents, I tell them things about my thoughts and my plans. But in the past times just most of the them, they planned for me and they made decisions for me.

In the past, she was mostly indifferent towards or accepting of the arrangements made for her by her father. Her statement: “I’m the kind of person that I’m willing to learn everything.” is revealing of her adolescence in a very education-centered environment. From this remark, it can be assumed that as long as she was eager 61

Bin-Bin Chen et al., “The Relationships between Family, School and Community Support and Boundaries and Student Engagement among Chinese Adolescents,” Current Psychology 38, no. 3 (June 2019): 705–14, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9646-0. 62 Xiaokang Tang, Daniel Collier, and Allison Witt, “Qualitative Study on Chinese Students’ Perception of U.S. University Life,” Journal of International Students 8, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 152–53, https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v8i1.158.

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to apply herself academically, there would be no conflict with her parents. “Learn everything” could be construed as the shared goal that all the family members found worthwhile. “Learn everything” could also mean that Zizhuo didn’t take issue with her father determining her major or institution of tertiary study, as she didn’t have any strong personal preferences. Her first experience of becoming an effective agent was when she expressed her wish to go abroad to continue her education. This marks a departure from her previously passive role of letting her father make decisions for her. Being involved in contemplation, preparation, and planning was a fresh experience for her. She then went on to deliberate the next steps together with her parents. In this way, the roles were reversed. While in previous situations, her parents had been the active decision-makers, she was now the one proposing ideas and pushing her agenda. What she is describing here sounds like a harmonious and communal process. This is in contrast to Zhaohui’s family, where the daughter remained in her passive role. Her immediate answer on the background and reason for her study abroad was: “My parents wanted me to come abroad, so that’s why I came here.” She made it clear, that it was not her first choice when she elaborated (31/22–28): At first, I not really want to go outside; I just want to stay in my place. For my elementary school and junior and high school are all in the same part, we are separated in districts, so I even never go out of the same district of the same city! Just stay in this little space a lot; I’m not that social, I feel like, I’m not that want to go outside, I want to stay in my safety zone.

For someone who has had limited exposure to different environments—not being in the habit of even leaving her native district—moving to another country is understandably a big step. She portrayed herself as “not that social” and wanting to “stay in my safety zone.” Consequently, her parents’ decision to send her abroad was not something she particularly welcomed. At the time of the interview, however, she was about to graduate and seemed to have adapted well to life in the United States.

5.2.5

Discussion

Apart from a few exceptions, such as Zhaohui, students portrayed themselves as active agents of their destinies in Gidden’s sense.63 Their narratives constructed 63

Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1991).

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an autonomous and self-determined agent who deliberately chose to pursue education abroad. This course of action was initially not supported in some cases, but the youth managed to persuade their senior family members eventually, regardless of the high financial investment connected to the educational sojourn. By relating this decision to their previous negative impressions of the Chinese education system, the students created a biographical narrative in which they navigated their life paths through strategic planning. They were goal-oriented in their pursuit of what they viewed as a more desirable educational option, in this case, the American university, which was associated with prestige and a holistic learning environment. This portrayal of the active, reflexive self contributes to the students’ sense of coherence in Antonovsky’s64 understanding as well as underlines the striving for the authentic self as described by Giddens.65 However, there are still a number of unmentioned factors at play. The students may have glossed over some more challenging consequences of their decision to study abroad, which are nonetheless worth going into here. These aspects were often not mentioned explicitly but still clearly played a significant role in the students’ general situation. The following section introduces the most significant challenges faced by the students in their study abroad journey. These difficulties often had a critical impact on students’ mental health, as well as their familial ties. Especially those students who started their educational sojourn at a young age were faced with the challenges of having to navigate a new environment and intense pressure to perform academically without parental support. Even though all of the students in my sample persevered in the sense that they all graduated from high school and were university students at the time of the interview, most recounted difficult and sometimes even traumatic experiences. Some students were placed with lowincome families who could not sufficiently provide meals for them or misused exchange students as free labor in rural areas. In one case, a student witnessed domestic violence and drug abuse in his host family. His decision not to confide in his parents or seek their advice on how best to handle the situation could be seen as an indication of fissures in the relationship. According to him, he was trying to shield his parents from worries about him. Instead, he chose to request a different host family from his exchange organization, leading to a marginal bettering of the situation and eventually moving in with a friend who was in the same exchange program. Tang, Collier, and Witt attribute such behavior to guilt about parental 64

Anton Antonovsky and S. Sagy, “The Development of a Sense of Coherence and Its Impact on Responses to Stress Situations.,” Journal of Social Psychology 126, no. 1 (1986): 213–25. 65 Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1991).

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sacrifices—in this student’s case probably also related to the large financial investment of studying abroad—and the need to fulfill obligations towards family as a significant value in Chinese families as a possible explanation for such behavior.66 Parental expectations have been found to be the primary driver and stressor for Chinese international students, particularly regarding the pressure to perform well academically.67 While overseas education is considered an important and worthy investment, students are still keenly aware of the financial sacrifices it entails for their parents and may feel pressured to excel academically so that their parents’ money is not seen as wasted.68 This sentiment of emotional debt was commonly found among international students, not just from China.69 At the same time, pressure may also generate from social and cultural norms where the family is honored through academic achievement.70 As a consequence of this increased pressure, the students’ mental health suffered. Research has attributed heightened depression, anxiety, and stress to greater acculturative stress for international students from Asia who have to bridge a bigger cultural distance than their European counterparts and furthermore face possible racist (micro)aggressions.71 Increased stress among freshmen was also associated with the difficulties of adapting to college life, homesickness, and loneliness.72 Additionally to these well-known and well-researched factors impacting students’ mental health, the participants of my study recounted losing a sense of purpose during their freshman year. During arduous study in high school and the high-stakes college application process, getting into the university of their choice was their sole goal for many years. When they finally achieved this goal i.e., entered university, many students lost their focus and motivation. In Yiwei’s words (2/47–49): 66

Tang, Collier, and Witt, “Qualitative Study on Chinese Students’ Perception of U.S. University Life,” 152–53. 67 Kun Yan and David C. Berliner, “Chinese International Students’ Personal and Sociocultural Stressors in the United States,” Journal of College Student Development 54, no. 1 (2013): 62–84, https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2013.0010. 68 Yan and Berliner. 69 Ma, Ambitious and Anxious, 18110. 70 Tang, Collier, and Witt, “Qualitative Study on Chinese Students’ Perception of U.S. University Life.” 71 Virginia M. Tong, “Understanding the Acculturation Experience of Chinese Adolescent Students: Sociocultural Adaptation Strategies and a Positive Bicultural and Bilingual Identity,” Bilingual Research Journal 37, no. 1 (January 2, 2014): 83–100, https://doi.org/10. 1080/15235882.2014.893462. 72 Huan Chen, Usenime Akpanudo, and Erin Hasler, “How Do Chinese International Students View Seeking Mental Health Services?,” Journal of International Students 10, no. 2 (May 15, 2020): 286–305, https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v10i2.765.

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After I got into Berkeley, I feel like, I started complaining about myself, about the decision to come to America in high school, because I felt like if I stayed in China, I could also get into Berkeley, and I didn’t know what the four years of sacrifice was for.

After all that hard work, separation from family and friends, and the challenges of adapting to a new environment, was all of that really worth it? And what awaited Yiwei at UC Berkeley were four more years of studying and homework. It seems understandable that she started questioning her choices. In Yiwei’s case, a severe depression developed from these doubts, led her to take a gap year and focus on therapy and self-care during her sophomore year. Her experience was far from unique. Many students recounted seeking counseling, psychotherapy, or medication, as well as advice from self-help books. The openness of talking about these issues and the willingness of students to get help runs counter to research indicating conservative attitudes towards professional mental health services among Chinese international students.73 The students also suffered from isolation and loneliness both in regard to peers and family. The competitive atmosphere compelled many students not to confide in their classmates. As one student who was a junior at the time of the interview recounted (8/5–9): Sometimes you don’t talk about it, because it becomes so deep and personal and you have to have the right setting, like sometimes you don’t talk about it. You don’t talk about it in a random way with your friends, it has a lot of emotions and a lot of you know, you don’t talk about it easily and its too long, like really long story in order to explain it well you have to say so much.

Another student, a psychology major at UC Berkeley, mentioned: I don’t think they will think about me because they have their own life. Yeah. Everyone has their own life to live.

The time difference, general busyness, and the already mentioned academic pressure from parents increased the disconnect between students and their families. Both students and parents prioritized academic performance to a great degree, sometimes going so far as to avoid emotional topics altogether because they were considered to be harmful for concentration and thus could negatively impact grades. Students repeatedly recounted that their parents would omit telling them about recent family events that could be seen as distracting, such as the death or 73

Chen, Akpanudo, and Hasler.

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prolonged illness of a family member. Communication and trust between family members possibly suffered from the physical distance. Even though students kept in touch with their families through social media, the quality of interpersonal contact obviously differed from physically being together. The practices of transnational bonding were examined by sociologist Siqi Tu in her study of parachute children. She described some parents going to great lengths to make themselves available to their children at 3 a.m. and trying not to show annoyance at the time difference.74 Others formed innovative connections with their children, for instance, by continuously reading their credit card purchases to monitor their child’s activities.75 While these practices may have provided emotional relief and a feeling of intimacy for parents, most students still dealt with their various struggles alone—whether deliberately not confiding in their parents so as not to worry them or simply not having the chance due to organizational constraints and academic pressures. The distance further exacerbated the feelings of distance, making students feel that parents couldn’t do much to help them anyway, as one student from the central Chinese metropolis of Xi an expressed (90/4–6): Yeah, they can’t really help me to study, can’t really just solve my problems. Like they can’t address my concerns. Yeah. So I mean like all those responsibilities lies on me.

While some students coped reasonably well and grew with these responsibilities, others felt their unmet needs acutely, such as Bianca, a junior from Shanghai who reflected (127/46–48): I always have a broken heart because I have a serious problem in dealing with close relationships.

She attributed her difficulty with intimacy to all the factors mentioned above: academic pressure, loneliness in the university environment, and a lack of emotional support from her parents. Her way of dealing with these issues was surprisingly mature: as a psychology major, she read and researched about various coping options and tried to better herself through introspection and self-reflection. She concluded (127/47–48): I’m on my way. At first I think it’s because of my background, like family background. And I tend to think it’s unchangeable. Then I read a lot of papers and books, and I 74

Tu, “Destination Diploma: How Chinese Upper-Middle-Class Families ‘Outsource’ Secondary Education to the United States,” 82. 75 Tu, 80.

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realize it’s not a permanent thing. It’s not a fixed thing. I can still change, I can put my effort in and I can change my life. Life is all depends on you, on myself. So I think it’s going to get better.

In conclusion, even though this group of young Chinese are faced with numerous challenges, their lives are so intricately linked with education that even their coping strategies involve some form of it. This practice is not only revealing of Bianca’s personal style but also the education-centered environment she has been raised in. Furthermore, it should be acknowledged that most students in my sample were surprisingly mature and independent in dealing with the challenges of living and studying abroad. Cultural taboos and heightened familial expectations may have hindered the students in sharing their struggles with their parents in some cases. Their narrative of themselves as active agents and crucial players in their families possibly enabled them to take matters into their own hands. Throughout my sample, the students portrayed themselves as powerful members of their natal families, sometimes even the most powerful family member with the ability to persuade others and implement their plans regardless of others’ opposition. However, it should also be pointed out that pursuing education abroad is a highly desirable goal for most Chinese middle-class families with sufficient means, and thus parents’ opposition may be short-lived in light of the socially sanctioned nature of this wish. The following chapter will look into this topic indepth as a necessary background for understanding and interpreting the narratives in regard to their educational experiences in their native context.

5.3

Education and the Family in China

As mentioned previously, economic development, the perceived lack of domestic educational opportunities as well as the increased marketization of education have made studying abroad more viable for Chinese families. This chapter will take a closer look at the dissatisfaction with the educational system within the country as well as the perceptions of “Western” education as push-factors for studying abroad. Additionally, scholars have pointed out that many Chinese middle-class families valorize education and equate it with upward mobility.76 This knowledge will serve as a backdrop for the analysis of the narratives of exceptionalism in the following section. 76

Vanessa L. Fong, Only Hope: Coming of Age under China’s One-Child Policy (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004); Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undergraduate Students at American Universities.

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Cultural Model of Education

In China, education is widely seen as the only path to individual advancement and ultimate success.77

Statements such as D. Yang’s should, in my opinion, be regarded with a critical eye and not taken as an absolute judgment on a population of 1.3 billion people. Individual, situational, and class-related influences should be factored in whenever possible, as well as geographical distinctions. Given the size of the People’s Republic of China, it seems highly unlikely that the same standards of success are held up in rural Qinghai province and ultra-modern megacities Shanghai or Beijing. It is, however, possible to look at the current trend of studying abroad and relate it to historically rooted beliefs about education. It is factual that the Chinese only-child’s life is intimately related to education, particularly higher education, which is widely perceived as crucial for the future well-being of the only-child and his or her family. Tsui and Rich point to the Confucian tradition of equating a person’s educational achievements with success in life as a reason for this.78 Others connect it to the increasing belief in academic attainment to get ahead in today’s China.79 One-Child policy expert and sociologist Vanessa Fong calls this belief system “the cultural model of upward mobility through academic achievement”.80 Similarly, Asian American sociologist Yingyi Ma81 speaks of the “educational gospel” and educationalist Fengshu Liu82 details the increased importance placed on education for young people nowadays, which is in stark contrast to the previous generations. Fong believes this cultural model has its roots in the imperial civil service exam system (detailed in Section 4.1.). Even though the Maoist government (1949–1976) tried to destroy this notion by persecuting intellectuals and severely limiting the socioeconomic rewards of academic achievement, the post-Mao governments revived this cultural model.83 77

Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undergraduate Students at American Universities, 81. 78 Ming Tsui and Lynne Rich, “The Only Child and Educational Opportunity for Girls in Urban China,” Gender & Society 16, no. 1 (February 2002): 74–92, https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0891243202016001005. 79 Liu, “Constructing the Autonomous Middle-Class Self in Today’s China,” 208. 80 Fong, Only Hope; Fong, Paradise Redefined: Transnational Chinese Students and the Quest for Flexible Citizenship in the Developed World. 81 Ma, Ambitious and Anxious. 82 Liu, Modernization as Lived Experiences. 83 Fong, Only Hope, 101.

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Educational reform commenced with China’s move to a market-oriented socialist economy. In 1985, the central government began decentralizing and allowed local governments and institutions more autonomy. In 1993, a “user-pay” system for higher education and a new job assignment system were introduced. These changes led to higher education being seen less as an elite privilege. Instead, it was perceived as a purchasable commodity. University students are now charged as consumers, in the sense that their fees make up about 30% of the budget of public universities, much more for the ten percent of students in private universities. With the introduction of student fees and the freedom to choose their occupations, the majority of university students have discarded the old teaching that they should put “the needs of the country first” and now prefer to look after their individual well-being first.84 The pre-revolutionary valorization of education combined with the meritocratic ideologies of the capitalist world system and the commodification of education produced a much more powerful and widespread cultural model than previously. This model promised upward mobility for all youth, regardless of their gender or background. Additional factors such as the empowerment of women and the leveling out of socioeconomic differences have further contributed to strengthening this model.85 Under these circumstances, extrinsic factors tend to dominate individuals’ motivation to pursue higher education, and the formula “university degree = good jobs = better income = social prestige” appears to have provided common people with a clear understanding as to why they need to invest in education.86 Education, qualifications, social mobility, and the “good life” have become inter-related concepts. Subsequently, higher education diplomas have become highly sought-after since the reform era. A widespread belief in credentials for individuals to get ahead is common. As a result, one can observe a phenomenon reminiscent of the “diploma disease” that Dore87 spoke of and the “Credential society” that Collins88 discussed. As such, the assumption in today’s China—as in many other societies—that one should get as much credentialized education as possible in order to cash in on as much 84

Limin Bai, “Human Capital or Humane Talent? Rethinking the Nature of Education in China from a Comparative Historical Perspective,” Frontiers of Education in China 5, no. 1 (2010): 104–29, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-010-0008-z. 85 Fong, Only Hope, 101. 86 Bai, “Human Capital or Humane Talent? Rethinking the Nature of Education in China from a Comparative Historical Perspective,” 120. 87 Ronald Philip Dore, The Diploma Disease: Education, Qualification and Development (London: Institute of Education, University of London, 2000). 88 Randall Collins, The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019).

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career advancement as possible often constitutes what Brown89 has referred to as the “opportunity traps”. This means that in realizing the broadened range of choices of opportunities in the neoliberal market economy, few can afford to opt out of the competition for a livelihood, and meanwhile the return on investment does not always materialize.90 Hamamura, Xu and Du pointed out the correlation of the government’s expansion of higher education and the soaring number of college graduates. Indeed, there are many more college graduates than available white-collar jobs as the graduation rate has outpaced job growth. 91 Job growth in China in recent decades has occurred in a number of sectors such as manufacturing which require only low-level qualifications, thus making the career outlook of college graduates bleak and fueling competition for the few available white-collar jobs. This has led to societal tension and dissatisfaction with the educational system among Chinese families which will be detailed in the following section. Before examining what Chinese families in general and the participants of my study specifically hold against the educational system, I will shortly introduce the structure and technicalities of secondary and tertiary education in the country.

5.3.2

Dissatisfaction with the national Educational System

After undergoing various reforms since the opening up and reform period, the education system is currently based on a 6-3-3 model. Six years of primary education are followed by three years of junior high (初中chuzhong) and three years of senior high school (高中gaozhong). After senior high school, students participate in the notorious national University Entrance Exam, also referred to as the gaokao (高考). In addition to the university-entrance stream, there are several vocational or technical options for secondary education. The most desirable option for most students are key point junior and senior high schools, which are prestigious and competitive. These schools are model schools that have greater resources and are considered to provide better education. In order to gain university entrance, students must perform well in two dominant gateway exams, 89

Phillip Brown, “The Opportunity Trap: Education and Employment in a Global Economy,” European Educational Research Journal 2, no. 1 (March 2003): 141–79, https://doi.org/10. 2304/eerj.2003.2.1.4. 90 Liu, “Constructing the Autonomous Middle-Class Self in Today’s China,” 197–98. 91 Takeshi Hamamura, Qinmei Xu, and Yushen Du, “Culture, Social Class, and Independence–Interdependence: The Case of Chinese Adolescents,” International Journal of Psychology 48, no. 3 (June 2013): 346, https://doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2011.647030.

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the chukao (初考entrance exam for senior high school) and the gaokao (university entrance exam), which consequently dominate the student experience. Poor results in either of these can mean the closure of doors to academic success.92 As described by Heidi Ross and Jimin Wang: The College Entrance Examination (CEE) is a centralized and high-stakes examination. The CEE defines who has the right to access higher education and what kind of higher education. As the gap between quality and social recognition among Chinese higher education institutions has expanded, in turn exacerbating social stratification, the competition and desire for admission to elite universities has increased even as the size of China’s college-going population has exploded.93

Students with average grades may be refused admission to an elite university but be accepted by a second- or third-tier, less prestigious university. Applicants who score below the minimum criteria, or ‘cut-off’ point, for their choice of institutions must choose either to study at an allocated university, undertake a major to which they have been allocated, or re-sit Gaokao by attending one more year of high school.94 In university, students’ timetable is usually filled with compulsory subjects and pre-decided appointments, making it nearly impossible to individually select courses so as to pursue special interests. Students are sorted into groups according to their majors, which they have determined in their application and is difficult to change at a later time. These groups consequently form a kind of class that completes the majority of courses together, often shares the same dormitory, and are supervised by the same academic adviser.95 This streamlined system contributes to China’s remarkably low college dropout rate. In 2011, Beijing-based MyCos Institute estimated that only 3% of China’s university students drop out. China’s Ministry of Education immediately disputed that figure

92

Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 18. 93 Heidi Ross and Yimin Wang, “The College Entrance Examination in China: An Overview of Its Social-Cultural Foundations, Existing Problems, and Consequences: Guest Editors’ Introduction,” Chinese Education & Society 43, no. 4 (July 2010): 3–10, https://doi.org/10. 2753/CED1061-1932430400. 94 Sablina, Soong, and Pechurina, “Exploring Expectations, Experiences and Long-Term Plans of Chinese International Students Studying in the Joint Sino-Russian Degree.” 95 Chen, Verbessern Chinesische Studierende Ihre Sprechfertigkeit Im Deutschen Während Des Fachstudiums in Deutschland?, 36.

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as too high, saying the true number was just 0.75%. In comparison, the attrition rates in the United States (54%) seem high.96 Despite ongoing reform and modernization in recent years, this educational system obviously comes with its own set of challenges and evokes complaints. After giving an overview of the structure of this educational system, the following section will illustrate some of the grievances with this system. Firstly, the CEE has been critiqued for its unequal distribution of university places. Provincial fixed quota admissions and province-specific questions place rural students at a disadvantage compared with students in urban areas, especially those with more available resources. This is especially true when competing for places in elite universities. It was two to three times more difficult for examinees from remote Tibet or Qinghai province to get into the prestigious Peking or Tsinghua University compared with students from Beijing or Shanghai. The researchers Hamnett, Hua, and Bingjie highlighted the direct correlation between an applicant’s place of residence and their chances of admission.97 The correlation is more indirect in other countries, such as through differences in class, income, or race. Furthermore, the combination of decentralized admissions and the centralized entrance examination forces students in some provinces to submit their applications before knowing the results of Gaokao and thus directly affects not only the number but also the kind of opportunities students from different geographical origins might have.98 Recently introduced policies aimed at balancing these inequalities, such as recommendation-based university admission and independent enrollment schemes for students with special leadership or artistic skills, have not been successful. In contrast, they have exacerbated the discrimination of students in rural areas, as well as those without significant cultural capital or social networks.99 In spite of the competition and inequalities, the incentives and

96

Eric Fish, China’s Millennials: The Want Generation, 2016, 779, http://www.vlebooks. com/vleweb/product/openreader?id=none&isbn=9781442248847. 97 Chris Hamnett, Shen Hua, and Liang Bingjie, “The Reproduction of Regional Inequality through University Access: The Gaokao in China,” Area Development and Policy 4, no. 3 (July 3, 2019): 252–70, https://doi.org/10.1080/23792949.2018.1559703; Houxiong Wang, “Research on the Influence of College Entrance Examination Policies on the Fairness of Higher Education Admissions Opportunities in China,” Chinese Education & Society 43, no. 6 (November 2010): 15–35, https://doi.org/10.2753/CED1061-1932430601. 98 Sablina, Soong, and Pechurina, “Exploring Expectations, Experiences and Long-Term Plans of Chinese International Students Studying in the Joint Sino-Russian Degree.” 99 Wang, “Research on the Influence of College Entrance Examination Policies on the Fairness of Higher Education Admissions Opportunities in China.”

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opportunities associated with success in the CEE remain attractive in the impoverished countryside, where the CEE is often the only avenue to postsecondary education and social mobility for students. Some students in rural areas repeat their senior year of high school several times and retake the CEE until their scores allow them to enter university. Students in “Gaokao county” Huining in Gansu province gained national fame for their persistence in retaking the CEE three to four times each. Such phenomena further corroborate the meritocratic ideology surrounding the CEE. The hope of “fairness” and the idea that “Everyone is equal in the system of a grade” is still shared by many people and is reinforced through the state’s national policy discourse and developmental agenda. This kind of “fairness” also is seen as preferable to the politicized selection criteria of the chaotic Mao period, which many parents still vividly recall.100 Secondly, due to the close link between degree attainment, personal income, and social status, most schools construct their curriculum around exams and tests, and the purpose of education is to pass the exams in order to advance to the next level.101 More importantly, the examination system has been metamorphosed into a system encouraging students, parents, and teachers to pursue high marks, which have become not only the purpose of schooling but also the crucial factor determining students’ future. The critics of this examination system have almost all agreed that students who perform well under this system do not necessarily turn into rencai 人才, or human talent.102 Research conducted in Yunnan province high schools by Kirkpatrick and Zhang explored the negative influences of exam-oriented education systems on students.103 They warned that the view of education as nothing more than merely passing examinations might stifle students’ creativity and sense of self. The study pointed out that moderate pressure in combination with deemphasizing high-stakes testing better motivates students and improves students’ academic success and psychological health. As university education is currently seen as significantly improving students’ future

100

Yimin Wang and Heidi Ross, “Experiencing the Change and Continuity of the College Entrance Examination: A Case Study of Gaokao County, 1996–2010,” Chinese Education & Society 43, no. 4 (July 2010): 75–93, https://doi.org/10.2753/CED1061-1932430407. 101 Bai, “Human Capital or Humane Talent? Rethinking the Nature of Education in China from a Comparative Historical Perspective,” 120. 102 Bai, 108. 103 Robert Kirkpatrick and Yuebing Zang, “The Negative Influences of Exam-Oriented Education on Chinese High School Students: Backwash from Classroom to Child,” Language Testing in Asia 1, no. 3 (2011): 36, https://doi.org/10.1186/2229-0443-1-3-36.

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career trajectory, this system creates heated competition in society and job market.104 While Kirkpatrick and Zhang105 describe that the Gaokao as one of the most stressful standardized national examination systems in the world Wei Li and Yuxin Li106 go even further in their remarks: Many schools, teachers, parents, and students admit that the study before the entrance exam to university is a purgatory-style study that is against human nature and is a physical and mental destruction for the human being. It is not surprising to say that nowadays, in China, the most tired people are children. Their childhood which is supposed to be pressure-free, has been deprived by various after-school classes and classes for special skills. One more point of the score may decide a person’s whole life, making students and families unbreathable.

Inter-student competition is indeed prevalent in secondary schools even before preparation for the Gaokao begins. Students are streamed into classes within schools and ranked within classes. This results in students having an objective understanding of their comparative position as well as their chances of progression into the next level of education.107 A typical school day starts at 7:00 a.m. with morning reading class followed by a 10-minute break every 45 minutes until noon. Next, afternoon classes begin at 14:30 p.m. and end at 18:00 p.m.108 The grind and pressure from the educational system have also been memorialized in several idioms such as “Black July”, the month of Gaokao testing, and sayings such as “thousands of people trying to run simultaneously through a single bridge which can only accommodate one person at a time”109 or “one examination determines one’s whole life.”110 Failure in Gaokao is sometimes regarded as 104

Zhang, “Past Expectations, Current Experiences, and Imagined Futures: Narrative Accounts of Chinese International Students in Canada,” 36. 105 Kirkpatrick and Zang, “The Negative Influences of Exam-Oriented Education on Chinese High School Students.” 106 Wei Li and Yuxin Li, “An Analysis on Social and Cultural Background of the Resistance for China’s Education Reform and Academic Pressure,” International Education Studies 3, no. 3 (July 12, 2010): 212, https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v3n3p211. 107 Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia,” 18. 108 Kirkpatrick and Zang, “The Negative Influences of Exam-Oriented Education on Chinese High School Students,” 37. 109 Li and Li, “An Analysis on Social and Cultural Background of the Resistance for China’s Education Reform and Academic Pressure,” 212. 110 Bai, “Human Capital or Humane Talent? Rethinking the Nature of Education in China from a Comparative Historical Perspective,” 123.

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bringing shame to the whole family.111 The competition is daunting. Even in Beijing, only 0,03% of applicants were able to gain admission to Peking University. In the United States, even ultra-competitive Ivy League schools have admission rates of 4–5%.112 The relentless pressure to succeed academically against almost impossible odds was a widespread lament among parents, teachers, and students alike in a study conducted by Yang. Parents frequently mentioned that given their rising incomes and standards of living, they were more than willing to spend as much as necessary to ensure that their children (all the only child in their respective families) escape the painstaking grind of preparing for the college entrance examination.113 In such a context, going abroad for higher education becomes a highly desirable alternative for many Chinese families. A study conducted by Zhang even goes so far as to state that avoiding the highly competitive education system, especially Gaokao, may be a decisive factor for studying abroad.114 When investigating the family decision-making process, Bodycott found that the parents rated an inadequate supply of university places in China and improved employment and immigration prospects as the most important push factors.115 The perceived quality of American education stood in contrast with negatively viewed domestic institutions. In the eyes of many families, Chinese universities are antiquated, research-anemic institutions bound up in red tape that have failed in their mission to equip students with the knowledge and skills that are easily translatable to the marketplace.116 In conclusion, one father in Yang’s study expressed this bleak view of education and opportunities in China: There is no Chinese Dream. The rhetoric is present, but the reality is absent. The American Dream, however, is alive and well in China. Anyone who wants to be anything in life or strives to be the best in their industries will study abroad or send their children abroad.117 111

Zhang, “Past Expectations, Current Experiences, and Imagined Futures: Narrative Accounts of Chinese International Students in Canada,” 36. 112 Hamnett, Hua, and Bingjie, “The Reproduction of Regional Inequality through University Access,” 266. 113 Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undergraduate Students at American Universities, 1067. 114 Zhang, “Past Expectations, Current Experiences, and Imagined Futures: Narrative Accounts of Chinese International Students in Canada,” 36. 115 Bodycott, “Choosing a Higher Education Study Abroad Destination,” 359. 116 Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undergraduate Students at American Universities, 1027. 117 Yang, 73.

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The following section will look into the perceptions of Western education when compared and contrasted to domestic education. In order for the reader to better comprehend the differences between these two systems, I also give an overview of the U.S. American educational structures.

5.3.3

Idealization of “Western” Education

The United States has a decentralized education system with a great variety of public, private, and home schools that set their own curricula.118 This is in contrast to the People’s Republic of China, where homeschooling is illegal, and all public or private institutions undergo strict government control.119 Despite the absence of a legally enforced national curriculum, there is considerable commonality across the U.S. education system. Examinations such American College Testing Program (ACT) or Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) are widely administered and accepted by institutions and organizations.120 Even though there is considerable diversity in the U.S. education system in regard to the structure and content of curricula, many Chinese are convinced of its superior overall quality. Decision-making processes are strongly influenced by perceptions of this foreign educational system as families may have limited personal experience in the United States apart from short business trips or tourist excursions.121 University rankings are often held at face value, and many families are not aware of the measurement bias inherent in the majority of tertiary education ranking systems. As large Anglo-Saxon research universities are usually ranked the highest, these institutions are perceived as the most desirable options and allegedly provide a better quality of instruction than domestic institutions. 118

U.S. Department of Education, “Structure of U.S. Education,” USNEI, 2008, https:// www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-structure-us.html; U.S. Department of Education, “Structure of U.S. Education: Evaluation and Assessment,” USNEI, 2008, https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-eva luation.html; Accessed 7.4.2020. U.S. Department of Education, “Organization of U.S. Education,” Government Website, USNEI, 2008, https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-org-us.html. Accessed 7.4.2020. 119 Central Government Portal, “中华人民共和国义务教育法—Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China,” Government Website, June 29, 2006, http://www. gov.cn/flfg/2006-06/30/content_323302.htm. Accessed 1.12.2020. 120 U.S. Department of Education, “Structure of U.S. Education: Evaluation and Assessment.” 121 Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undergraduate Students at American Universities; Bodycott, “Choosing a Higher Education Study Abroad Destination.”

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The perceived differences between the educational systems are illustrated in the material gathered by Zhao, Huang, and Zhou122 . One student made up two diaries as responses to an open-ended essay question, in which he described a contrasting image of a Chinese and an American student: I am a 100% Chinese, a hard working Chinese student. I am sitting at my desk piled with numerous reference books and examination papers. Above the blackboard in front of the classroom hangs a bright five-star Chinese national flag, and beside it, there are four big words: Love Our Country Dearly. Yes, our goal is: Contribute to Our Country. —Diary of a Chinese student Yes! 7 days of holiday! At last, I can go to the mountain I’ve desired to practice my climbing skills. My feet can hardly resist the temptation, and I long to fly there right now. And the little game I started designing a couple of days ago! I must finish it soon. The competition deadline is coming next month. I’m not far from victory. Hooray!!! —Diary of an American student

To many, Chinese education cultivates students’ patriotic, collective spirit and instills values of hard work and sacrifice. American education is perceived as emphasizing the development of creativity and life skills. The Chinese student in the imaginary diary is focused on his schoolwork, yet he does not have a chance to develop his interests. The American student is depicted as absentminded in the classroom, yet he has a dream as well as the ability to pursue hobbies. This portrayal of a Chinese and an American student reflects many Chinese students’ idealization of American education. In their concluding remarks, Zhao, Zhou, and Huang wrote: Many believed that America has the best education and that every American student is provided with ample opportunities to succeed. This belief stimulated students to learn more about American education and contributed to the desire to study abroad.123

Unlike other aspects of American society, such as the availability of guns and the prevalence of racism, American universities were admired and often equated with Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and MIT.124 The students interviewed by Bodycott also perceived the standard of education and teaching overseas to be better 122

Zhao, Zhou, and Huang, “Chinese Students’ Knowledge and Thinking about America and China.” 123 Zhao, Zhou, and Huang, 20. 124 Zhao, Zhou, and Huang, 17–18.

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than at home. This goes hand in hand with their criticism of the domestic system as too rigid, traditional, and lacking a student focus.125 A study conducted by Ozturgut among teenagers in Guangdong province revealed similar results. He found that students’ idealization of American education correlated with the academic and psychological pressure they experienced in school. Some students thought that they did not need to go to school every day or only a few hours per day. Students thus projected their ideals onto America, where they imagined schooling to be fun, interactive, and leisurely.126 They appreciated the freedom of expression, diversity of methods, and less academic pressure. The perceptions of better quality education in the USA were shared by parents who asserted that children learn better through American ways of teaching, with focuses on independent creativity, problem-solving and efficient writing skills. These skills were held responsible for yielding an entrepreneurial zeal that explains the perpetual emergence of industry-changing companies on American soil.127 Not only the content, diversity of opinions, and non-test-based methods of American education were described as appealing, but well-known American institutions of higher education carry a certain degree of prestige in the Chinese context. As stated by Kraus, who investigated the connection between Western music education and social status: “The trappings of Western culture are a status symbol for many wealthy Chinese.”128 This section has examined the perceptions of Western education through Chinese eyes. Many Chinese families are apparently aware of the advantages of the American approaches to education and deem these as desirable options for their offspring. In the following chapter, I will analyze the material collected through my own fieldwork in light of this background.

5.4

Narratives of Exceptionalism

In the interview material, the participants indicated that many factors combined to push them abroad. These factors were frequently mentioned during the interview process and incorporated into the students’ narratives as justifying or explaining 125

Bodycott, “Choosing a Higher Education Study Abroad Destination,” 359. Osman Ozturgut, “Chinese Students Perceptions Of Life In The U.S.,” Journal of College Teaching & Learning (TLC) 9, no. 1 (December 21, 2011): 6, https://doi.org/10.19030/tlc. v9i1.6709. 127 Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undergraduate Students at American Universities, 1090. 128 Richard Curt Kraus, Pianos and Politics in China: Middle-Class Ambitions and the Struggle over Western Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 25. 126

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their choices. This culminated in narratives of identification as a non-typical but nonetheless talented learner. When taking a closer look at the narratives, several tendencies can be observed. In line with Giddens’ theory of the reflexive self, the students attempt to paint a coherent picture of their journey until the present. They achieve this by rationalizing of their choices on the one hand and adapting their self-identifications on the other hand. Rationalizations included detailed criticisms of the Chinese educational system and expressions of admiration for the American, holistic style of education. The students portrayed the educational system they grew up in as undesirable, exhausting, overly theoretical, and thus inadequate in the transmission of knowledge. It is important here to distinguish between perceptions and reality. Comparative educational studies such as PISA have shown that education in cities such as Shanghai was indeed effective in the transmission of knowledge.129 However, the students’ descriptions of such a system made going abroad sound like the obvious choice. After all, who would want to stay in such a rigorous and cruel environment? A crucial point that remains unspoken in their characterizations is that while this educational style may not be aligned with their preferences, many of them have simply not been successful within it. For those who have not achieved the necessary grades, studying abroad is often the only option left if they want to attend college. For others, who came to the USA for high school, unsatisfactory performance in middle school may have been influential and could have led parents to assume their child would not thrive in China. Another unspoken factor is privilege. Some wealthy parents may have wanted to spare their offspring the struggle of long hours of Gaokao preparation.

5.4.1

“I don’t fit into the Chinese System”

While students may be aware of these somewhat unpleasant truths, they understandably have not highlighted them as central in their identification narratives. They may feel embarrassed or ashamed of these facts. Instead, presumably influenced by negative experiences in the Chinese system or observations of the more holistic educational approach in the American context, an identity narrative of the exceptional yet misconceived individual emerged. Within the Chinese educational system, they were diamonds in the rough. Their talents were unrecognized

129

OECD, “PISA—Internationale Schulleistungsstudie Der OECD” (Paris: OECD, 2018), http://www.oecd.org/berlin/themen/pisa-studie/. Accessed 12.1.2021.

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in the test-oriented and fast-paced curriculum. Only when completing their journey abroad, could they shine and develop their full potential. Ricky, a senior in physics at the University of California Davis formulated it like this (24/27–29): I’m not the average Chinese by any means, once you get to know me; and they knew that I knew that the Chinese education system doesn’t fit me, I felt that the family felt that too. (…). And they knew I had a great potential.

He does not go into detail about why “the Chinese educational system doesn’t fit me.” There could have been a number of factors at play, such as the educational infrastructure in his rural home province of Yunnan, lack of personal connections with teachers, difficulties in keeping up with the material, or having a specific personal learning style that is not appreciated. What he emphasizes instead in his statement: “I had a great potential.” This was evident to both to himself and his immediate family, who he portrays as being certain of it. The conclusion of his experiences in his hometown is apparently that he is fundamentally distinct from other “average” Chinese. He could be mistaken for a typical Chinese from his appearance. But once the conversation gets going, it becomes obvious quickly that he is not ordinary. Bianca, a junior at UC Berkeley, went one step further when she declared (119/41–43): And though I am a purely 100 percent Chinese, but I don’t look like them a lot and I don’t behave like them.

In her case “I don’t look like them” was a referral to her multiple tattoos and piercings, which indeed set her apart from the mostly conservative fashion style of her Chinese classmates. “I don’t behave like them” was further explained to mean her extroversion, superior social skills as well as open-mindedness. Such sentiment was widespread among my sample. Celia, a student who attended high school in the United States before being admitted to UC Berkeley, summarized these feelings succinctly (45/15–17): I think I realized from like middle school that I don’t really fit into the Chinese education system structure because I’m not really a good test-taker.

She was well aware of the unfavorable consequences of not being a good testtaker e.g., not being able to get into a good university. As detailed in the previous section, the CEE scores determine a student’s university admission chances in a

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vast majority of cases. For Celia, continuing in this educational system which clearly doesn’t match her learning style, would have meant: “to go to just a mediocre university” (45/22). As this outcome was unacceptable for her and her family, the option of studying abroad became a viable pathway. She elaborated (46/34–43): The students are supposed to be very obedient to teachers but I was like super active and I couldn’t stop talking and those are the kids the teachers really don’t like. So my primary school teacher like called her (Celia’s mother) a lot on the phone (…). She basically talked to my teacher every week or something and my teacher said: “There is something wrong with your kid because normally boys can be super active and girls are super obedient to teachers or super quiet”. And I was just like, I just didn’t fit in.

Just as in the narratives of Bianca and Ricky, communication skills and extroversion play a vital role in determining Celia’s position as a misfit in the perception of her primary school teacher. Apparently, she was expected to be “obedient to teachers or super quiet” when her disposition was “super active” and talkative. This characteristic was not particularly welcome in the classroom. This is in line with descriptions of the Chinese classroom as authoritarian, hierarchical, and teacher-oriented by Cheng, Andrade, and Yan.130 From Celia’s perspective, she was simply an energetic, curious, and sociable child, while her teacher probably perceived her as disruptive or inattentive. Celia went on to explain how her mother dealt with the teacher’s complaints (46/44–48): I think my mum was very caring because she didn’t really tell me what the teacher said exactly. I think she just wanted me to fit in, but she didn’t want to suppress my sort of nature. Anything from that point, she realized I’m probably just didn’t really fit in the whole system. If I stay there I would probably be very constrained, like a lot of my strengths couldn’t really come out, and I couldn’t realize what I’m really good at.

Celia clearly marks the interaction between her mother and the primary school teacher as the point of departure for her journey abroad. The recurring conflict at school convinced her mother that it would be beneficial to send Celia abroad. The 130

Cheng, Andrade, and Yan, “A Cross-Cultural Study of Learning Behaviours in the Classroom”; L. Jin and M. Cortazzi, “Cultures of Learning: Language Classrooms in China,” in Society and Language in the Classroom, ed. H. Colemon (Cambridge: CUP, 1996), 54; HongYu Cheng and Shu-Yi Guan, “The Role of Learning Approaches in Explaining the Distinct Learning Behaviors Presented by American and Chinese Undergraduates in the Classroom,” Learning and Individual Differences 22, no. 3 (June 2012): 414–18, https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.lindif.2011.12.009.

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underlying argument for this decision was that Celia: “just didn’t really fit in the whole system.” The consequences of staying within this unbefitting system would be (46/48): “I would probably be very constrained, like a lot of my strengths couldn’t really come out, and I couldn’t realize what I’m really good at.” She implies a strong sense of self here, an idea that her authentic self is unchanging and static. This also becomes evident in her statement about “suppress my sort of nature.” In her understanding, her nature appears as fixed and unalterable. In her narrative, it seems as if moving into a different culture is the only option for her to stay true to herself. This narrative, however, neglects to consider that she could have developed in a different way if she had stayed in her hometown. Her self-concept fits well into Gidden’s theory of the authentic self. He recognizes authenticity of the self as the main criteria for structuring and organizing selfnarratives into a coherent whole. This narrative stands in stark contrast to the narratives of the previous sections where students highlighted their agency and determination in the family decision-making process but can also complement such narratives. In a way, students and their families have spun the narrative of the rough diamond—the disobedient yet talented learner—and have internalized it over many years. When the question arises of how and when to go abroad, parents may initially be reluctant to send their offspring far away. But this selfimage can serve as a motivator for students to continue on the path of studying abroad. The experience of Celia’s family during her primary school years is exemplary for a growing middle class that holds education in high esteem while growing dissatisfied with the options available from the government. Many parents have a similar understanding of the so-called true nature and abilities of their children as those expressed by Celia. The combination of parents striving for the best education for their children with a highly child-centered environment has led to the emergence of various forms of alternative education, including homeschooling.131 This was especially prevalent among wealthy and well-educated families in urban areas, who often accept great risks to move forward with this illegal activity. Although motivations differed and included a multitude of factors, sociologist Sheng concludes:

131

Xiaoming Sheng, Learning with Mothers: A Study of Home Schooling in China (Rotterdam: SensePublishers, 2014), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6209-000-2; Fengshu Liu, “The Rise of the ‘Priceless’ Child in China,” Comparative Education Review, 2016, 26.

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It was noticeable that all the homeschooling parents surveyed in this study reported that their children were unique and talented; however, conventional schools could not adequately serve their children’s individual needs132

The parallel to Celia’s experience becomes evident in the following quote by homeschooling mother Zoe: My son is very smart. He is the kind of child who always has questions about something he is interested in. In particular he prefers to find an answer in a creative way rather than just following the teacher’s instructions…However, the teachers do not like him since he always questions the teacher in the classroom…the teacher sometimes blamed him in front of the other classmates…this makes him dislike going school…I spent a lot of time and energy in teaching my son how to fit into a certain environment, which he did not always adapt to…133

Similar to Celia’s mother, Zoe had to deal with complaints from her son’s teachers. Just like Celia, her son was curious, communicative, and more active than the teacher would have preferred. The parent in this scenario was faced with the challenge of “teaching my son how to fit into a certain environment,” even though the child’s learning style and personality weren’t a good match for this classroom environment. Both Zoe and Celia’s mother deemed this undesirable for their offspring and consequently started searching for alternative education options. Parallels to Ricky’s narratives as misunderstood, yet brilliant students, e.g., someone who had great potential, can also be found in media portrayals of homeschooling.134 Both the substantial financial investments of overseas education as well as the possible legal issues as a consequence of homeschooling show parents’ immense motivation to secure the best possible schooling for their children.

132

Sheng, Learning with Mothers, 58. Sheng, 56–57. 134 Elaine Yau, “The Chinese Parents Who Homeschool Their Kids, and Why They Reject Public Education,” South China Morning Post, July 5, 2018, https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/ families/article/2153883/chinese-parents-who-homeschool-their-kids-and-why-they-reject; Accessed 16.11.2020. Dandan Ni, “Outlaw Educators: China’s Growing Homeschooling Movement,” Sixth Tone, December 13, 2017, http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1001294/out law-educators-chinas-growing-homeschooling-movement. Accessed 1.12.2020. 133

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“American Universities really value my other type of Skills”

Celia’s narrative is concluded from the present-day perspective of her experience in the United States (45/40–42): And also, I feel like American universities really value my other type of skills like communication skills, leadership skills, other type of activities I’ve done and I’m really passionate about.

Her appreciation of the holistic educational approaches she has observed in the American university context is noticeable in this statement. She emphasized her communication and leadership skills, which would not have been valued in the same way in the Chinese educational context. She also demonstrated her understanding of American values when mentioning activities she is passionate about. In fact, there are obvious parallels between her descriptions and American cultural beliefs about success. Success was strongly associated with individualistic values such as a passion for or personal interest in certain subjects among American students.135 It is possible that exposure to such ideas during her stay in the United States unconsciously led Celia to emphasize them in her interview. As an extraordinarily observant and self-reflected person, she may have experienced the social fit of such explanations in conversations with her American classmates, friends, and acquaintances. In contrast with Ricky and Bianca, Celia was aware of the advantages of the Chinese system, even though it was not a good fit for her. After recounting her experiences, she pointed out that the system was not at fault for her struggles (45/38–39): I’m not criticizing it, I know a lot of people like thrive really well in this system, I just don’t think it’s like a really good fit for me.

The educational system just wasn’t a good fit. She elaborated (45/20–21): “I do realize that I have other kind of skills that maybe others may not really be that kind of good at it.” A strong sense of being an individual distinct from their peer group emerged as central in many of these narratives. Innate talent of some sort—leadership or social skills especially, but also creative thinking and problem-solving skills—were mentioned as a distinguishing marker. Some 135

Katherine Y. Lin et al., “What Must I Do to Succeed?: Narratives from the US Premedical Experience,” Social Science & Medicine 119 (October 2014): 98–105, https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.socscimed.2014.08.017.

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also noted their increased self-reflection or agency. These were mostly skills that, according to the students, went unrecognized or undervalued in the Chinese educational context. Haidong recounted it like this (21/11–14): I describe Chinese high schools or middle schools or even college as a manufacture chain. They just manufacturing students, following certain procedures, and they came out from the factory all standardized. That’s not human beings; that’s machines; that’s robots. They don’t really encourage creative thinking.

Bianca pointed out that the test- and memorization-oriented system doesn’t leave much room for self-reflection (122/35–44): So it’s basically just study, study, study and for an exam, not for the future. You don’t need to have any of your own thoughts, you just need to learn, read, recites (…) Like you have, you have gone through all your 19 years studying for an exam. And then you suddenly go to the University. And you just, you just start, just slowly start to actually think: What are you actually gonna do in the future? But it’s actually hard (…). You never thought about that and you just all of a sudden you have to make decisions.

It seems that she feels a responsibility to take life decisions into her own hands, repeatedly using the second person singular: “What are you gonna do in the future? You never thought about that and you just all of a sudden you have to make decisions.” She later detailed that this was an issue she and most of her friends and classmates faced and perceived as extremely challenging.

5.4.3

Discussion

As mentioned briefly in the introduction, the privilege of being able to afford to go abroad is a crucial yet unexpressed part of these students’ situations. This becomes clear when contrasting the experiences of Bianca, Celia, Ricky, and Haidong with the experience of Xiaoya, another participant of this study. Bianca and Celia are the offspring of wealthy families from metropolises Shanghai and Beijing. Ricky and Haidong, whose families come from Yunnan province’s capital city Kunming, were able to afford long years of middle school, high school, and university tuition and living costs abroad. If their families had not been able to cover these costs, they would have had to endure in the Chinese educational system they so despised. Xiaoya was one of those students who lived through the struggle of taking Gaokao even though she might have also preferred studying abroad during high school. She had brought it up with her family during

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her middle school years as she perceived the quality of education to be superior in the West (e.g., the U.K. and USA). However, her working-class parents were unable to finance her ambitions. Instead, she remained in her hometown Harbin, the capital of Heilongjian, China’s northernmost province, and retook the CEE three times until she was satisfied with her scores (or until her scores were good enough for her to gain admission to the university of her choice). After successful completion of her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in China, she pursued a Ph.D. in the United States, which she was able to finance through a scholarship. She came to America because she succeeded in China, while others such as Ricky and Celia came to evade possible academic failure in China. What they all have in common though, is the belief in the superior quality of education, instruction as well as research, that is prevalent in the United States. Such beliefs should not be taken at face value. Given the parents’ determination to secure what they believed to be the best education for their children, guilt, and justifications of investing in American schooling obviously also play a role. The eagerness of Chinese parents to access American universities was further exemplified in the 2019 college admissions scandal. The scandal implicated two wealthy entrepreneurial families from China who paid $6.5 million and $1.2 million respectively to a college consultant promising admission to prestigious institutions.136 While the students in my study presumably come from upper-middle-class families and do not play in the same league as those families, the financial expenditures for their studies abroad are nonetheless substantial. Constructing narratives of one’s own exceptional talent as well as lambasting the educational options afforded at home can serve as a justification for this investment. It may also assuage the guilt students’ may feel towards their parents, who often sacrifice a great deal to make these study abroad dreams a reality. Indeed, emotional guilt over the high costs of studying abroad was common among all international students.137 Additionally, there are parallels to be found between the students’ narratives and organizational framing discourses employed by Chinese cram schools and educational consulting agencies. While it cannot be claimed that students are fully aware of such discourses, it is nonetheless plausible that they have influenced the students’ narratives in some ways. The discourses surrounding such supplemental education

136

Kate Taylor et al., “Admissions Scandal: When ‘Hard Work’ (Plus $6.5 Million) Helps Get You Into Stanford,” New York Times, May 2, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/ 02/us/yusi-molly-zhao-china-stanford.html. Accessed 16.11.2020. 137 Ma, Ambitious and Anxious.

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offers were analyzed by Le Lin138 who found that studying abroad was often equated with exceeding one’s limit, making one’s life complete or even as “a must in one’s life and a summit to climb.” Some students in his study even went so far as to say: “If you can study abroad, you are a winner: otherwise you are a loser.”139 Such discourses may have contributed to the self-identifications as an exceptional yet misunderstood learner mentioned by the interviewees in my study. For them, studying abroad was also a way of being or becoming a winner in another educational system. Such thought patterns hold special significance for students who ventured abroad for high school to evade undergoing the stressful college entrance examination. In a system they perceived as highly dysfunctional and unfitting for their learning styles, they might not have been the best performers academically, thus making overseas education the only viable option for them to avoid failure in their eyes (defined in a broad sense). The student in Lin’s study then continues: “I do not know if we have thought about what we would do after we go out. Probably we study abroad simply for the sake of studying abroad”.140 This mirrors the disorientation regarding her life goals expressed by Bianca. The education-centered environment only children in China are raised in may contribute to such feelings and leave students feeling lost once they enter university. Studying abroad simply for the sake of studying abroad and especially for the sake of studying is the norm without broaching the issue of why and what will happen after. Chapter 5 has detailed the self-positioning and self-perceptions in relation to the family. In conclusion, the students in my study have complex and multifaceted relationships with their family, but they do have a tendency to portray themselves as an influential agent and as extraordinarily talented in some way. The following chapter will examine the individualization trends potentially underlying such statements in order to better understand the students’ self-definitions in regard to their peer group.

138

Le Lin, “The Visible Hand behind Study-Abroad Waves: Cram Schools, Organizational Framing and the International Mobility of Chinese Students,” Higher Education 79, no. 2 (February 2020): 259–74, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-019-00408-1. 139 Lin, 267. 140 Lin, 267.

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The Self and the Peer Group

For the numerous students who feel overwhelmed by the pressures of daily university life detailed in the previous sections, the peer group of classmates offers valuable social support, comfort, and a sense of belonging. In dorms, classrooms, and study halls, as well as in their free time—for many students, it is the first time to be away from parental supervision. There are numerous decisions to be made as a young adult navigating independent life for the first time: How do you want to live? In dorms or with roommates? Do you know how to cook, or can you afford to eat at restaurants? How much time and energy are you going to pour into your studies? What kind of activities do you fill your free time with? The answers that students find to these questions reveal a great deal about their positioning within this crucial group. Firstly, there are some obvious ethnic, national, and socioeconomic distinctions. Participants constructed ethnically Asian students as a separate group from white, Latinx, or black students. Within the ethnic group, there were further distinctions of national origin. Those who were born and raised in China or another Asian country separated themselves from those who had grown up in the United States and vice versa. Furthermore, students from financially unstable backgrounds or on scholarships saw themselves as distinct from others who do not need to worry about money. Apart from these basic sub-groups, there were several different subcategories that have emerged from my material: the Enthusiastic Learner, the Global Citizen, and the People Person. This chapter will investigate these categories and the backgrounds that could have led to their formation. In order to fully comprehend these categories, however, I find it necessary to delve into the developments of individualization in Chinese Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1_6.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Y. Köksal, Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1_6

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society in modern times. The explanations in this chapter follow the question posed in Section 3.4. (Giddens’ theories in the Chinese context) of whether theories of individualization and second modernity proposed by Giddens apply to the Chinese context but consider more specifically how individualization plays out in the lived experienced of the young Chinese in my study.

6.1

Developments of Individualization

As mentioned in Chapter 3, Chinese society has undergone fundamental changes after the government introduced an ‘open door’ policy and economic reforms in the early 1980 s. These changes have led scholars to categorize China as falling into an East Asian pattern of “compressed modernity.”1 They have also led to most Chinese international students coming of age in a continually transforming society and contributed to their changed mindsets. Some scholars such as Lian2 and Moore3 argue that the economic growth after the 1980 s reforms has led to a transformation of social structure, including a growing emphasis on materialism, consumption, urbanization, and the accessibility of Western culture. Moreover, the one-child policy has led to altered family dynamics (as detailed in Chapter 5). These societal factors are seen as reinforcing a changing ideology of the younger generation, among which individualism is evident.4 Against this theoretical backdrop, this section will give an overview of the studies examining individualization tendencies over time. Sun and Wang’s quantitative study on the influence of these social changes on the values of Shanghai residents has demonstrated that the younger cohort holds more modern, individualized, and secular values than their older counterparts.5 The younger study participants prioritized personal development, which led the researchers to label them as carriers of individualistic values. Ma, Hu & Goclowska propose a similar stance in their quantitative research on the cultural

1

Beck and Grande, “Varieties of Second Modernity: The Cosmopolitan Turn in Social and Political Theory and Research”; Han and Shim, “Redefining Second Modernity for East Asia: A Critical Assessment.” 2 Lian, “The Post-1980 s Generation in China.” 3 Moore, “Generation Ku.” 4 Ding, “Understanding Chinese International Doctoral Students in NewZealand,” 119. 5 Jiaming Sun and Xun Wang, “Value Differences between Generations in China: A Study in Shanghai,” Journal of Youth Studies 13, no. 1 (February 2010): 65–81, https://doi.org/10. 1080/13676260903173462.

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orientations of different generations of employees in China.6 Other scholars such as Zhu, Chimita, and Xu, who studied Chinese youth in Europe, propose that individualization is connected to immersion in popular culture (films and T.V.) as well as higher educational attainments.7 This leads to a more prevalent sense of independence and self-determination in the younger generations. Moore also points to the emergence of a popular youth culture that took most of its cues from America, Japan, and South Korea in the 1980 s and 90 s as both evidence of and driving factor of individualization.8 He details the new clothing styles replacing the universal, solid blue, grey, or brown loose-fitting shirt and pants combination of the Mao years, as well as the popularity of rock music and literature from beat authors such as Jack Kerouac. While confronting various social forces and competing values, younger generations and particularly the 1980 s cohort, experienced contradictory psychological states (individualism versus collectivism and traditional versus modern values). Croll suggests that this is due to a lack of patterns and cues guiding new behavior in rapidly changing Chinese society.9 This claim has been disputed by notable Chinese academics such as Lau Sing of Hong Kong Baptist University, who maintain that many pervasive assumptions about the values of Chinese youth are not based on evidence.He points out that Chinese and Western teens alike have always been shown to value personal freedom and achievement and prefer not to submit to parental domination. In his opinion, the image of the Chinese as de-emphasizing the self and placing the group interest above their own more than Westerners may have never been accurate.10 As becomes apparent from this brief overview, the question of whether Chinese youth are more individualized than their parents and grandparents is complex and impossible to answer decisively. However, the accounts of students in this study indeed show the impact of individualization developments on their daily 6

Jun Ma, Zhonghui Hu, and Małgorzata A. Gocłowska, “Cultural Orientation in China: Differences Across Five Generations of Employees,” Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal 44, no. 4 (May 18, 2016): 529–40, https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2016. 44.4.529. 7 Zhu, Chimita, and Xu, “Self-Development of Chinese Overseas Students in Their European Travels,” 58. 8 Moore, “Generation Ku,” 362–63. 9 Ding, “Understanding Chinese International Doctoral Students in NewZealand,” 119. 10 Sing Lau et al., “Chinese and American Adolescents’ Perceptions of the Purposes of Education and the Beliefs about the World of Work,” Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal 28, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 74–75, https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2000. 28.1.73.

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life. These include a lack of social cohesion and solidarity within the peer group, as well as high levels of subjective isolation, mistrust, and loneliness. In the context of individualization among participants of my study, the impact of the surrounding American cultural environment should also be considered. The United States has often been described as one of the most individualistic societies11 and it should thus not be surprising if individualistic values observed by students come to influence their worldviews and behaviors over time. The following chapter will examine in detail how living in an increasingly individualized environment can be challenging for the interviewees.

6.1.1

Loneliness, Isolation, and Competition

The daily life of the students in this study was frequently described as lonely even though they were surrounded by peers almost around the clock. The cutthroat atmosphere both in their universities and their hometowns contributed to a lack of social cohesion and general mistrust between classmates. Many students remained guarded towards others as they perceived them to be competitors. Several interviewees also mentioned difficulties in opening up to others about sensitive or emotional topics, which made them feel isolated. Interpersonal connections were obviously not made easier by the distance and time difference which hindered students from keeping in touch with childhood friends or family members back in China. For instance, Bianca, a junior majoring in psychology, talked about her friends back home in this way (124/40–46): I don’t think they (her friends in China) will think about me because they have their own life. Yeah. Everyone has their own life to live, and the only thing changes is we are in different time zones. We don’t have that much chance to chat. For me, myself, because I’m so like, I’m not that good at dealing with relationships. I have a lot of

11

Geert Hofstede and Gert Jan Hofstede, Lokales Denken, globales Handeln: interkulturelle Zusammenarbeit und globales Management, trans. Petra Mayer and Martina Sondermann, Originalausgabe, 5., durchgesehene Auflage, dtv 50807 (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Verlag C. H. Beck, 2011); James Jinguo Shen, “Communicating Through Conflict, Compromise, and Cooperation –The Strategic Role of Chinese American Scholars in the U.S.-China Relationship,” in Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations—Transnational Networks and Trans-Pacific Interactions (Armonk, New York, London: East Gate Book, 2002).

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friends, but I’m not the one always texting my friends. It’s just like if we have something happen, if we have an event, I’ll just call you, and we can hang out. But no further context from that.

She is aware that dealing with relationships is not her strength as she struggles in maintaining her friendships. Her idea of everyone else’s life being more important than her own shows confidence issues. She assumes that physical distance equals immediate oblivion, giving her friends very little credit and attributing very little meaning to her presence in their life. Indeed, the challenge of maintaining their personal relationships seems to be common among Chinese youth, as research has shown that Chinese students reported much higher levels of loneliness than their American peers.12 Some social scientists even speak of “the loneliest generation” and attest a myriad of “social problems and personality disorders” to young Chinese.13 The need for connection is acutely felt by many participants of my study. Jinlan, a 20-year-old sociology major, described her relations with her peers in this way (104/26–30): I think I just have no connection with my classmates because my class is always have a lot of people, and it’s more likely to talk to the teacher about something and we just listening, and the time before the class begin, everyone is silence. So we just watch our phone and do something else.

While many freshmen or exchange students may face initial difficulty getting in touch with their classmates14 , this feeling was shared by many who are not new to the university environment. Yiwei, for instance, was a junior at the time of the interview and had already spent several years in the USA. She expressed a sense of deep isolation. She had immense difficulty talking about emotional topics, such as her experience of culture shock during the first few months of her stay (8/5–10): Sometimes you don’t talk about it, because it becomes so deep and personal, and you have to have the right setting, like sometimes you don’t talk about it. You don’t talk 12

Louise C. Hawkley and John T. Cacioppo, “Loneliness Matters: A Theoretical and Empirical Review of Consequences and Mechanisms,” Annals of Behavioral Medicine 40, no. 2 (October 2010): 218–27, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-010-9210-8. 13 L. Cameron et al., “Little Emperors: Behavioral Impacts of China’s One-Child Policy,” Science 339, no. 6122 (February 22, 2013): 953–57, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.123 0221. 14 Li, “University Integration of Chinese Undergraduate Students.”

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about it in a random way with your friends. It has a lot of emotions and a lot of you know… you don’t talk about it easily, and it’s too long, like really long story in order to explain it well you have to say so much.

From this brief quote, the reader gets the impression that opening up about personal issues does not come easily for Yiwei. It seems talking about her struggles and sharing the negative aspects of studying abroad is such a challenge for her that she often chooses to avoid doing so, thus depriving herself of a profound connection with her friends. Additionally, acculturative and psychosocial stress from navigating a new environment may enhance the desire to belong to a group. With shared language and cultural codes, the ethnic peer-group obviously provides an important safe space for recuperating from acculturative stress and for exchanging anecdotes of cultural misunderstandings, as detailed by Moosmüller in his study of sojourners.15 A participant of my study, a junior from Shanghai, studying at UC Berkeley, explained (106/40–44): When I stay with my Chinese friends, I will feel more comfortable. And the feeling is just like to…sometimes we are very, very, very missing our home, and we talk about this, and we feel better. I think one of them is the food, because Chinese food is very delicious.

However, the urgency of fitting in at any cost can also induce stress, such as in the experience of Juliane, an English major: I seldom talk about my dreams to others. And most of my friends major in English or math or computer science, and we’re very close friends. And I think I don’t want to be really different from them. They will just think, maybe it’s just a one moment, one second if they think: Oh, you’re so different from us.

For this student, being a part of her friend circle is of paramount importance. It seems horrific to her that she could be perceived as different from her friends, and it is something that she wants to avoid at all costs. Her statement stands in contrast to strong proponents of individualization theories. It could be interpreted as a collectivistic orientation with a focus on group membership. The students were noticeably not free from the pressure to conform to the social norms of Chinese society. Among these, the pressure to marry at a certain age and have children was pronounced among female students. Both male and female students were 15

Alois Moosmüller, Kulturen in Interaktion: deutsche und US-amerikanische Firmenentsandte in Japan, Münchener Beiträge zur interkulturellen Kommunikation 4 (Münster: Waxmann, 1997).

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concerned with following certain standard career paths perceived as “successful”. Many youngsters feared that deviating from these standard pathways would lead to even more loneliness. Zishuo, for example, detailed her apprehension (69/41–48): You are just at twenty-six, they (her friends) have a family, and they are having children and around twenty-eight, and they are very stable, but when you are thirty, you still don’t have a boyfriend. You need to have a boyfriend. You need to make up a family (…). Your friends have a family, but you haven’t; that will be a gap for you. It’s my worries.

Worries such as these speak to pronounced ageism and observations of age-related discrimination or societal pressures as common in China. A comparative study conducted by Luo, Zhou et. al. found significantly more negative attitudes towards aging among Chinese students than their American peers.16 Anxiety about career prospects was also frequently mentioned in connection to worries about getting older. There was a strong dichotomy in the descriptions of students’. They seemed to have a clear idea of what constitutes a “right” choice and a “wrong” one, frequently talking of “being lost” and “finding the way.” The pressure and stress surrounding the “right” career choices are illustrated in Yiwei’s statement (4/35–39): Because there are so many things in Berkeley, you don’t know who you are, like which road should I take? There are so many opportunities. But which one should you take? Which one should you do? You’re not young anymore, you can’t just do all of them, you have to choose, right?

Liang Yue, a 20-year-old student from Guangzhou, was a bit more optimistic, considering her timeline provided ample chances for figuring things out (149/9): Yes, I am one of the lost. I don’t have exactly idea what to do in the future so I think maybe I still have chance to try all of them.

Bianca also mentioned (127/4–5): “I always feel bad when I’m not like other people who have this whole clear future perspective.” And Xinyi subsumed the predicament of young people all over the world in her own words (157/42–44): “I

16

Baozhen Luo et al., “Ageism among College Students: A Comparative Study between U.S. and China,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology 28, no. 1 (March 2013): 49–63, https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10823-013-9186-5.

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think the biggest difficulty might be myself. To be confused, to be not knowing what to do in the future, to be not sure what I want to do in the future.”

6.1.2

Positioning within the Peer Group

As the previous chapters have looked into the family context and the role of education, it becomes clear that the students need to position themselves in regard to their families and their educational achievements. Growing up in such an education-focused environment and being continuously engaged in educational activities throughout their life, the topic is unavoidable and naturally becomes part of their identity narratives. The sophisticated ranking, grading, and examination systems have also contributed to the students’ quite objective understanding of their capabilities.17 The students are thus ceaselessly invited to position themselves performance-wise. This invariably leads to positioning in regards to their motivation and ambition. Students are incessantly being asked and also asking themselves: “How dedicated am I?” and “What is the outcome?”. Some students fare well in this high-pressure system and lean into the identity of a high-performing, high-achieving, dedicated learner who is curious, studious, and passionate about his or her subject. The interesting amalgamation of American and Chinese educational ideals and the construction of a narrative as an enthusiastic learner will be examined in detail in Section 6.2. Other students, those who are perhaps not as academically gifted or interested, lean into a different type of ambition to distinguish themselves from their peers. They claim superior social skills, which they often want to use to influence others. In their eyes, being able to empathize and communicate makes them ideal management material, or in their own words: leaders. This category will be addressed in detail in Section 6.3. Similar, but not quite identical, is the category of students who placed intercultural competence18 at the center of their identity narratives. They see themselves as glamorous globe-trotters with international travel experience and the ability to speak several languages. Many used the term “global citizen.” I will investigate 17

Stafford, “The Unexpected Transformations of Chinese International Students in Australia.” 18 “Intercultural competence is the ability to communicate effectively in cross-cultural situations and to relate appropriately in a variety of cultural contexts. (…). The intercultural skillset includes the ability to analyze interaction, predict misunderstanding, and fashion adaptive behavior.” Dan Landis, Janet Marie Bennett, and Milton J. Bennett, eds., Handbook of Intercultural Training, 3rd ed (Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 2004), 149.

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this category in depth in Section 6.4. It goes without saying that these are merely a few categories that lay no claim to completeness. For those students who do not fall into one of these categories, there might be numerous other in-between categories and other ways to delineate themselves from their peers.

6.2

Enthusiastic Learner

A certain subgroup of students was well accustomed to the high-stakes, driven academic environment of the Chinese educational system and subsequently felt comfortable also in the context of a performance-oriented American college campus. The youngsters in this group distinguished themselves from others through narratives about their love of learning. They claimed to be interested in many or all subjects or highly invested in their majors. Many subscribed to ideals of life-long learning or holistic whole-person education. It can be safely assumed that these narratives do not originate with the students themselves (as detailed in Chapter 3), but they have been formed in front of the backdrop of cultural discourses, which will be explained in the following section.

6.2.1

Definition and Discourse

Growing up, the three-word phrase I heard most often was “for an Asian.” The label of “model minority”—one that I rarely find any Asian American actually taking pride in—is more discriminatory than it is flattering.19

As a freshman at UC Berkeley, student journalist Manya Zhao experienced the pervasiveness of the model minority stereotype firsthand. The image itself is a common one that both Asians and non-Asians, from adolescents to adults, are acutely aware of.20 In fact, research showed that over 90% of Asian adolescents living in America had had at least one encounter in which they felt they

19 Manya Zhao, “Model Minority Myth,” The Daily Californian, April 2, 2021, sec. Cal in Color, https://www.dailycal.org/2021/04/02/model-minority-myth/. Accessed 4.5.2021. 20 Frieda Wong and Richard Halgin, “The ‘Model Minority’: Bane or Blessing for Asian Americans?,” Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development 34, no. 1 (January 2006): 38–49, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-1912.2006.tb00025.x.

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were being stereotyped as a model minority.21 The term “model minority” was coined in 1966 by sociologist William Petersen in an article he wrote for The New York Times Magazine entitled “Success story: Japanese American style.” After detailing the discrimination Japanese Americans faced as “agents of the enemy” (including wartime internment), he presumptuously stated that Japanese Americans were “better” than any other societal group, including “native-born whites”.22 Petersen claimed that strong family structure combined with cultural beliefs in hard work had permitted Japanese Americans to “succeed” in the United States; success meaning high educational attainment and household incomes, albeit pervasive discrimination against them. The popular press eagerly picked up on this idea, and numerous articles about the accomplishments of Asian Americans came out. Many journalists agreed with Petersen’s interpretation and attributed these achievements to Confucian values, work ethic or the central role of family. Most overlooked or underestimated the policy changes in 1965 that reversed years of restriction on immigration from Asia and allowed only highlyeducated professionals to enter the United States.23 This radical change in U.S. immigration policy thus partly explains some of the success stories in popular press articles. Several scholars have since pointed out the problematic overgeneralization of all Asian immigrants, which has led to a lack of support and social services for the marginalized ones within this group, such as Hmong or Cambodians.24 The students in my study may not be aware of this stereotype at first when they arrive in the United States. Although their native context holds educational achievement in high regard, and it can be assumed that they have internalized the value of education and possibly associated it with upward mobility (s. Section 5.2), the specific racial component of the model minority myth is new to them. However, it is likely that the students are quickly confronted with this stereotype in the competitive university environment. It is key to how this group of students is perceived by their host society. Thus, the students sooner 21

Taylor L. Thompson and Lisa Kiang, “The Model Minority Stereotype: Adolescent Experiences and Links with Adjustment.,” Asian American Journal of Psychology 1, no. 2 (2010): 119–28, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019966. 22 William Petersen, “Success Story, Japanese American Style,” The New York Times Magazine, January 9, 1966, TimesMachine Digital Archives. Accessed 4.2.2021. 23 Office of the Historian: History, Art & Archives: United States House of Representatives, “Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965” (Washington, D.C: Office of the Historian, 2021), History, Art & Archives: United States House of Representatives, https://history.house. gov/Historical-Highlights/1951-2000/Immigration-and-Nationality-Act-of-1965/. Accessed 4.2.2021. 24 Wong and Halgin, “The ‘Model Minority.’”.

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or later need to position themselves in regard to it. Whether this reckoning is a conscious process or happens on a sub-conscious level is not the question—both are obviously possible and may lead to various degrees of identification with this category. The process of positioning may be influenced by cultural ideals of the host society as well and generate innovative belief systems that are an amalgamation of both cultures. Specifically, cultural beliefs about success, the “American Dream,” and the importance of critical thinking became central to the students’ identity narratives. The analysis in the next section focuses on the perceptions, definitions, and categorizations of the students. It is beyond the scope of this study to determine, if they are, in fact, as high-achieving or dedicated as they claim to be.

6.2.2

“I’m Curious about the Truth”

Across the three different campuses, students with diverse majors and phases of study, a pattern emerged of students’ passionate stories about learning. These took different forms: some students reported that they were on a profound quest for the facts of life in a certain area such as physics, while others claimed an interest in all disciplines and wanted to absorb as much scientific knowledge as possible. A typical statement in the category of “Enthusiastic Learner” came from Xuanyi, a sophomore in mechanical engineering (73/33–35): “I feel like since I was little, I’m a really curious person. I ask a lot of questions to my teachers since elementary, middle and high school. And I care a lot about truth.” It became clear in her further explanations that her high regard for “the truth” and her subsequent dedication to academic excellence, which she considered a quest for the truth, was an identity marker, used to distinguish herself from her peers. “I think truth is like one of the most important things in life”, she concluded (73/40–41). During her high school years, she had found connecting with classmates to be an insurmountable challenge due to differing priorities and their lack of interest in her quest for the truth. She went on to explain that she had limited her social contacts in order to focus on her academic goals. While getting into a good university was certainly one of them, she repeatedly emphasized that her ultimate goal was coming one step closer to “the truth out there.” She eventually came to the realization that being sociable was integral to her mental well-being but made it clear that she only wanted to “build good relationships with some people who have the same dream with me.” (74/5–6). A strong motivation to learn from a naturally inquisitive personality but with different views on the community can be seen in the following statement

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by Mandy, a sociology major, when she is describing her behavior after class (133/37–48): I always have a question list and I’m always the last one in the question line because I know everyone else has short questions but I have so many questions there. And it becomes a tradition, I mean, three of us, we have a group of three persons, and we come to him (the professor) every after class time and asking a bunch of questions from very basic to the miracles you can’t explain it, hope the professor will give some explanation things like that. And you know the class after class will take longer than the official class. So the class is one hour and a half but the last time we did it almost two hours, standing there, asking questions (…) I feel like I’m not only learning knowledge, but I’m creating the future. It’s amazing, it’s crazy.

Her eagerness to engage with her professor and the material indicates that she is interested in more than a satisfactory performance in the exam. She also expressed that she felt much more at home in American classrooms than in China as she perceived the atmosphere to be more discussion-oriented. She recounted that she had often been the only student in the class to ask questions during her secondary education in China. Scholars have made similar observations and studied such behavioral patterns in the context of educational cultures and ideals. Although recent scholarship has criticized the essentialization and generalization of Chinese learners, there seems to be agreement about a tendency towards a more authoritative teaching style and memorization-oriented learning style in Chinese classrooms.25 The unlikeness of academic cultures has led to intercultural conflicts between faculty and students, which have also been studied widely.26 In this case, Mandy notably does not conform to widespread stereotypes of Chinese learners who have been described as passive, uncritical, and shy. She portrays 25

Qi Wu, “Re-Examining the ‘Chinese Learner’: A Case Study of Mainland Chinese Students’ Learning Experiences at British Universities,” Higher Education 70, no. 4 (October 2015): 753–66, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-015-9865-y; Jin, “Mind or Virtue: Western and Chinese Beliefs about Learning”; Cheng, Andrade, and Yan, “A Cross-Cultural Study of Learning Behaviours in the Classroom”; Cheng and Guan, “The Role of Learning Approaches in Explaining the Distinct Learning Behaviors Presented by American and Chinese Undergraduates in the Classroom,” June 2012. 26 Wu et al., “Exploring Factors for Achieving Successful Educational Attainment among Chinese Doctoral Students in the United States”; Trice, “Faculty Perceptions of Graduate International Students”; O’Connell and Resuli, “Academic Challenges for Chinese Transfer Students in Engineering”; Emma Kingston and Heather Forland, “Bridging the Gap in Expectations Between International Students and Academic Staff,” Journal of Studies in International Education 12, no. 2 (June 2008): 204–21, https://doi.org/10.1177/102831530 7307654; Jin and Schneider, “Faculty Views on International Students”; Gu and Brooks, “Beyond the Accusation of Plagiarism”; Glass et al., “Uneven Experiences: The Impact

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herself as vocal during class sessions, even during her secondary education in China. Although she was often uncomfortable being the only student to take an active role in class, this did not actually hinder her from speaking out. This becomes a key point of identification for Mandy, who feels a strong attachment to her new American classmates. She senses that she has found a community of like-minded students who are just as curious and outspoken as she is. At her American university, she is no longer the only one asking questions. Instead, she is one of many who are actively participating. She feels that this new environment is actually a much better fit than her Chinese classroom. She conveys a strong spirit of optimism and happiness when she says: “I’m creating the future. It’s amazing, it’s crazy.”

6.2.3

“I’m Interested in all Subjects—I Want to Choose What I Learn”

What these noble truth-seekers share with other students was a strong intrinsic motivation to learn. Many statements showed an inherent internalized value of learning, possibly influenced by the high values attributed to education and academic learning by many Chinese families (as described in Section 5.2). Learning was seen not only as useful but also as meaningful and enjoyable. Amy, a junior at UC Berkeley, expressed such sentiments in her own words (43/26–31): And I feel like learning is just much more fun. And I feel like a lot of times, when you’re doing work, it’s a lot of repeated tasks, it’s like not always new things like you can learn from, so yeah, so I feel like when I’m studying like every semester I’m taking a lot of really hard classes but like they all taught me a lot of things to learn, like interesting and things I’ve never explored before. So I really like it.

From her statement, we can see her varied interest in all kinds of subjects and her love of learning, as well as her intrinsic motivation for studying. She is interested in things “never explored before,” i.e., willing to broaden her mindset and open up to new areas of knowledge. She also distinguished herself and her friend group from other people in her major, computer science, emphasizing not only

of Student-Faculty Interactions on International Students’ Sense of Belonging”; AdrianTaylor, Noels, and Tischler, “Conflict Between International Graduate Students and Faculty Supervisors.”

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her commitment to her major but to learning and becoming a well-rounded individual, an idea very much in line with the University of California pedagogical philosophy27 which requires students to complete several courses outside of their area of specialization (40/8–15): Like I really wanted to take these classes so I can like explore a different view, but a lot of people thought: oh, this is such a waste of time. I can’t even do more math or do more C.S. anymore. And what they do is they pass-pass the course, they don’t really go to the lecture a lot, so in the end, they don’t really learn almost anything. I feel like that I don’t like this way. Ye::ah. Like I’ve been to really interesting breadth28 before and I feel like they’re definitely worth my time of like actually seriously taking it.

From her statements, it is evident that she is convinced of the value of knowledge and learning. She is fully invested in learning and finds it worthwhile. This becomes a key point of demarcation from her peers in the highly competitive environment of an elite university where many driven and ambitious students invest all their efforts into excelling at their chosen major. For Amy, however, the university experience holds more potential than “just” achieving excellence in her given field. She wants to understand more about the world outside of her field. She gives examples of philosophy and politics courses that really enriched her life and gave her new perspectives. This shows her maturity as a student and a learner, someone who appreciates the diverse courses a university like UC Berkeley provides. It also shows that she values education deeply and sees it not only as a means to achieve a career or upward mobility. While a deep appreciation of learning could be associated with Chinese cultural values, the idea of a well-rounded individual is more rooted in the American educational system. Students such as Amy thus formed their own combination of these two educational cultures, mixing different elements and incorporating those which served them. A similar infusion with American ideals can be seen in the following statement by Haidong in his criticism of the Chinese educational system (24/4–9):

27

University of California Berkeley, “Seven-Course Breadth,” UC Berkeley Official Webpage, 2020, https://lsadvising.berkeley.edu/degree-requirements/seven-course-breadth. Accessed 24.9.2020. 28 The Breadth requirements at UC Berkeley: each student must take at least 7 classes outside of their major: Breadth courses give students a view into the intellectual life of the University while introducing them to a multitude of perspectives and approaches to research and scholarship, according to UC Berkeley pedagogical philosophy University of California Berkeley.

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What they (university administration) will do is they will still take you, and they’ll assign you to a different major, and the students do not have any say in it. So that was horrible for me. I see my five years here as solely escaping from that fate. Otherwise I am may end up learning about something that I am not excited about. That don’t sit well with me. I want to learn something I want. I’m escaping the probability of doing something I don’t love. I don’t want that.

In his statement, he contrasts the Chinese educational system with assigned majors to the American system, where students choose their majors freely. He uses drastic words to express his displeasure with the Chinese system, calling it “horrible” and wanting to “escape from that fate” as if it were completely doomed. It is unimaginable to him that one might grow to love a subject one was initially assigned to. Instead, he prefers to have the choice all to himself and select something that he is passionate about. His strong individualistic values are mirrored in sentences such as “I want to learn something I want.” His own freedom and preference are paramount. This is in contrast to collectivistic orientations frequently associated with Chinese upbringing, where the tendency might be to subordinate one’s own desires to the benefit of the group.29 Previous generations of Chinese might have stated: “I will do whatever the party needs me to do” or “I will do whatever my family wants.”30 Haidong’s statements could likely be influenced by the American cultural environment surrounding him, where a great emphasis is placed upon individualistic career choices. Individualistic elements such as passion, excitement, and a strong attachment to one’s chosen field were associated with future success in a study of American undergraduates. Many believed that without these individualistic connections to their majors, they would not be able to excel.31

6.2.4

“I’m More Dedicated and Hard-Working than Others”

While personal freedom of choice was important for some students, others emphasized a different point in their self-descriptions. Their commitment to hard work and subsequent high-powered work ethic was apparent in the material. Many students highlighted these aspects at the very beginning of the interview and reiterated them often during the process. This makes it likely that they are

29

Hofstede and Hofstede, Lokales Denken, globales Handeln. Liu, Modernization as Lived Experiences. 31 Lin et al., “What Must I Do to Succeed?” 30

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key to their self-understanding. When introducing herself, for instance, Xiaoya began her story in this way (162/11–16): So initially I was admitted to the department of economics (…). Then I took a chance to study a second degree in mathematics at the same university, but in a different school. So from Monday to Friday I’m in econ department, and Saturday, Sunday and any other holidays, I’m in math department.

While she does not explicitly state that she sees herself as more hard-working than others, she later described other students as lazy and not dedicated enough. She distinguished herself from them by describing her strict timetable, which does not allow for any breaks while studying two demanding subjects simultaneously. She also makes it clear that this choice was not driven by any external factors. According to her, the decision to take on this extra workload was solely driven by her love of learning and her personal interest in both subjects (although the bureaucratic nightmare of changing one’s major in her previous university might have contributed to such an arrangement). She wanted the extra challenge and was dedicated enough to actually go through with it. Intellectual curiosity and dedication to learning also became a key factor when choosing a social circle. Statements such as the one below from Amy were not uncommon (42/42–45): My friends are interesting enough for me to like them and be friends with them, and they are also smart enough so that we can study together and I can get some help for my study.

This statement elicits the question of whether not being able to study together would be a hindrance for friendship. In any case, it seems as if she prefers to surround herself with studious and high-performing classmates who would be able to support her in her academic endeavors. While the competitive environment undoubtedly contributed to such sentiments, academic performance and dedication are nonetheless crucial distinguishing factors.

6.2.5

“I want to get an M.A. or Ph.D.”

The students’ commitment to learning and academic achievement also played a role in their future plans: Out of twenty-two undergraduate students, sixteen expressed the wish to pursue graduate education. Five students expressed the goal to pursue a Ph.D. This seems like a disproportionately high number given the young age of the students. Undergraduate studies are often seen as a time of

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orientation. Especially in the United States, not all students need to or want to pursue graduate studies. The search for an academic challenge seems to play a key role in the students’ conviction that graduate school is the best way forward. For instance, Hallie described studying abroad for graduate school as a more intellectually challenging path (66/1–8): Because it’s interesting, so I choose to go abroad. You know if I stay in China, I can know what my life will be in five years. I will enter the graduate school, and perhaps get a Ph.D. degree. It’s much easier in China. And I graduate, and get a job in a university, and that’s boring. In China to get a PhD degree is much easier because less workload. That’s much easier. Perhaps some of the top universities in China, it’s also really difficult to get a Ph.D. degree but I think my hometown university not, it’s easier to get a Ph.D. degree.

Even though the option of pursuing a Ph.D. degree in her hometown is described as accessible and within her capabilities, she has little interest in it and finds it unappealing: “… and that’s boring.” In fact, she reiterated that it was easier in China to get a Ph.D. four times. The statement: “Because it’s interesting so I choose to go abroad.” says a great deal about her and her priorities. She purposefully chose the more risky and possibly uncomfortable path because she felt that there was more learning potential. In fact, most students perceived the quality of education and research in China to be inferior to that of the United Kingdom or the United States. This was further corroborated with examples from their specific fields, such as criminology or special education, which were either politically sensitive or underdeveloped in China. Considering the prestige an overseas education confers upon graduates among their Chinese family and friends, there may be hidden aspects of motivation not mentioned here. Furthermore, the high value associated with education in Chinese society and “the cultural model of upward mobility through academic achievement”32 may have been possible influences on Hallie and her attitude as portrayed here. She seems to have some adventurous spirit in her as well, searching for captivating and fresh experiences. She does not specify that the interesting part of living abroad is connected to academia. She merely states that getting a Ph.D. in China would be “easier” and thus to her underwhelming and making her life predictable in the sense that: “I can know what my life will be in five years.” This sentiment is mirrored in Ye’s study of Chines doctoral students in the UK33 , 32

Fong, Only Hope. Ye, Intercultural Experience and Identity Narratives of Chinese Doctoral Students in the UK, 2953–71.

33

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whose participants expressed: “If you could anticipate everything, you will find this very reassuring, but in the meanwhile, it becomes less interesting, right?” And: “actually, we could have an easy life in China, right? Is there anything that we cannot there, right?” For the doctoral student Peipei in Ye’s study, the “easy life” that she could have had in China was not desirable, just as Hallie felt that remaining in her hometown would have been uninteresting. Although both women are aware of these alternative trajectories, the more traditional and possibly gendered biography of staying in China i.e., finding a job, getting married, and having a family, was not their preference. According to Ye, this life trajectory is one where the students can be seen as reflexive and goal-oriented agents of late modernity. By taking on the “thrill of risk-taking” and intentionally exposing oneself to uncertainty34 , the future is colonized, and a life path consistent with independence, courage, and goal orientation is plotted. As such, these decisions are not about “how to act” but “who to be”, a lifestyle choice referred by Giddens.

6.2.6

“Others are Better than me”

While some students identified with and internalized the importance of learning, not all were so much in accord with the predetermined norms in this regard. This section serves to illustrate the alternative narratives which were infrequent but recurring among my sample. One student reversed the identity construct of a dedicated learner and placed being unmotivated in her studies at the center of her identity narrative. She said (108/19–21): Myself, oh well, I have to say that I’m not a really good student cause it’s how I define myself. Yes. Because I, every weekend, I watch at least two movies.

Her definition of not being a good student hinges on not spending 100% of her time studying. This is revealing of the competitive environment as well as the high standard she apparently holds herself to. Seeing her friends and classmates dedicate most of their weekends to homework and exam preparation, she sees herself as a slacker who cares more for enjoyment than academic results. By many other standards, it would be questionable if watching two movies on the weekend is too much. In her further remarks, it became clear that studying is 34

Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 131.

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simply not her priority, even though she was still able to perform satisfactorily in terms of exams and grades. Those students who were motivated but not high-performing would probably not be so casual about defining themselves as “not good students”. Indeed, it came with a great deal of frustration as Mayu, a recently arrived freshman, described (117/21–24): I think it’s my problem, because students here are very hard-working and very outstanding. I need to go see my adviser to ask her to give me some advice and some learning strategies so that I can learn better. Maybe it’s my problem, I think.

In this student’s case seeing her peers outperform her was not something she could easily cope with. Instead, it motivated her to better herself. However, such descriptions could also be influenced by cultural values of modesty. It could be seen as impolite to attribute excellence or extraordinary talent to oneself. Speaking highly of others and modestly of one’s own achievements—or like this student speaking of others’ achievements and one’s own struggles—is sometimes considered the more appropriate social protocol.35 This can also be seen in external attributions of success, such as this one from Wenzi (142/36–44): So to be honest I’m not really the kind of person that could capable of anything and I’m not really good at statistics, to be honest (…) I still got the support from my professors, and I still got the support from the friends around me, and they helped me so much and that’s how I ended here.

She attributes her success in entering a prestigious university largely to her support system of teachers and peers and not to her own abilities. In doing so, she diminished her own accomplishments while amplifying the role of her surrounding.

6.2.7

Discussion

To sum up, the students seem to hold strongly internalized values of learning. For many of them, studying is not only something that is expected of them but also something they see as worthwhile, enjoyable, and coming close to the ideal 35

Ana Sofia Gonzalez, The Influence of Cultural Contexts in Learners’ Attributions for Success and Failure in Foreign Language Learning (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publ, 2015).

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life (such as Xuanyi with her ideal of truth-seeking as the only meaningful life goal). This high regard for learning comes together with an idealization of higher education and academic achievement, which is evident in the students’ expressed desires to continue to graduate studies. However, such wishes may be influenced by the cultural model of upward mobility put forward by Fong36 and examined in detail in section 5.2. It is also worth mentioning that the observations from my study in this regard run parallel to the research findings of Yuan, Li, and Yu at Chinese universities.37 They found that many students took up the identity as a “dedicated learner” with a strong desire towards academic success in the university. The researchers attributed the formation of such an identity to the increasingly fierce competition in the job market. The cutthroat situation on the job market as well as in the university environment may contribute to the students positioning as enthusiastic learners. Their whole life, they have been told that learning is a certain pathway to success. In this way, academic excellence has become enmeshed with the ideals of “a good life” and subsequently appreciation from family and society. It is, therefore, almost logical that the students chose to identify with such ideals and portray themselves as very much in line with following them. When considering such identifications vis-à-vis Giddens theories, it is questionable whether this identity category can truly be viewed as an alternative, fresh identity category creatively constructed by the students. In this case, I would argue that the students are re-interpreting certain cultural frameworks to their own end. This is especially true of the amalgamation of cultural elements from the two cultural contexts. It is evident that the students make sense of their intercultural experience in combining values, viewpoints, and behavioral patterns from both American and Chinese cultural backgrounds. Lastly, the students’ commitment and dedication to hard work remains to be mentioned. From an intercultural point of view, the glorification of labor, as well as the societal recognition hard-working individuals receive, are a common element of both Chinese and American value systems.38 It is quite possible that the students who are already familiar with these values from their native contexts have witnessed a confirmation or even amplification after their arrival in the United States. The influence of the model minority stereotype as the key perception of this group from the host society should not be underestimated in the process. As mentioned 36

Fong, Only Hope. Yuan, Li, and Yu, “Neither ‘Local’ nor ‘Global,’” 969–70. 38 Yue Pan et al., “A Cross-cultural Investigation of Work Values among Young Executives in China and the USA,” ed. Alan Kai Ming AU, Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal 17, no. 3 (August 2010): 283–98, https://doi.org/10.1108/13527601011068379. 37

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previously, however, it is not assumed that this reckoning happens on a conscious level for the students. While this chapter has aimed to analyze those narratives which emphasize academic prowess and love of learning a central to their self-identifications, the following chapter will look into the group of students who distinguish themselves from their peers not through academic rigor or curiosity but through their gregariousness.

6.3

People Person

Students, who are not academically inclined, lean into a different type of ambition than the Enthusiastic Learners to distinguish themselves from their peers. The identity narratives presented in the following chapter center on superior social skills, meaning the ability to interact and communicate effectively, reach out and form new connections, as well as empathize with others. The youngsters described in this chapter considered their social abilities to be more well developed than those of their peers. From the point of view of this group of students, such interpersonal skills make them ideal management material, or in their own words: leaders. This category will be addressed in detail in the following chapter.

6.3.1

Definition and Discourse

Most of us who have attended an American University have seen the Chinese student. We know him to be a clean, serious, earnest, thorough young man or woman, enthusiastic about the academic activities of the campus, little participating in the athletic activities. Have we realized that these Chinese students in our American universities are going back to be leaders in Chinese life, and that they are here obtaining that training which will enable them to achieve that leadership and wield it for the common good?39

As Percival Symonds accurately observed in 1923, foreign-educated Chinese often landed influential leadership positions in politics, business, and education upon their return to China. Although Western-educated intellectuals were discredited as a group after 1957, numerous examples of prominent ex-students can be found: Hu Shi, who attended Columbia and Cornell universities and emerged 39

Percival Symonds, “A Study of the Traits of Chinese Students in America,” Journal of Educational Psychology 14, no. 1 (1923): 63–64.

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as the chief spokesperson for the May Fourth Cultural Movement; Zhu Kezhe, a Harvard-trained meteorologist who served as the vice president of the Academy of Natural Sciences in the People’s Republic; Zhao Yuanren, a pioneer in China in the fields of linguistics and musicology, whose Chinese-language textbooks are still being used by universities across America; and Zhang Pengchun, a Columbia-trained educator who contributed significantly to the development of both Qinghua and Nankai, two highly acclaimed universities in twentieth-century China, and who also helped introduce modern theater to China.40 The legacy of these and many other influential foreign-educated intellectuals contributed to the prestige and reputation of studying abroad in general and of American universities specifically. In this light, it is perhaps not surprising that many of the students in my study consider themselves the leaders of tomorrow. Full of ambition and confidence, this group of students portrayed themselves as managers-to-be and visionaries with superior social skills. Experiences of being the praised only child (s. Section 5.2) from their familial contexts, as well as the desire to justify the sizeable financial investment of studying abroad, may further contribute to their identification with leadership. However, they are not megalomaniacs. Underneath their ambition lies a profound public spirit, a sincere interest in their surroundings as well as an idealism typical of this age group.

6.3.2

“I Love People—I am Outgoing”

While students in the other categories pointed out their academic prowess (enthusiastic learner) or their worldliness (global citizen), some students chose to highlight their sociability, likability, and extroversion. This became a distinguishing maker in their narratives when they compared themselves to their friends and classmates. As detailed by Wenzi, a graduate student in statistics (139/48): I am a very outgoing person, so, but many of them are (…) introverted person. I would say that’s the difference.

Juliane, an English major and junior, specifically mentions her distinctness from her more academically inclined friends when describing herself (113/36–39):

40 Ye, Seeking Modernity in China’s Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900–1927, 97.

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As you see, I’m really outgoing and love making friends. But many of my Chinese friends, they are shy, and they think the most important thing here studying here is to get a high score, gets high grades, get A plus, A.

The life of striving for academic excellence was not really enough for her. She later explained that her classmates’ excessive studying bored her. She wanted to explore her new surrounding and enjoyed socializing with locals. She felt that her friends’ “shyness” often hindered them from immersing themselves in the new environment (114/20–26): When we have a trip together and think that: Oh, they need some help from the passengers, just like when they get lost. And really, I feel it’s really easy to seek for help because I think I am friendly, and I think all the other passengers around me are friendly, so they are willing to help me. Cause if they offer some… If they show they need something, I would offer some help too. But my friends don’t think so. They are shy to…They think this makes some trouble to others.

Even though she defended her friends by saying (114/28): “I don’t think shy people are not good. I admire them because they have much more inner power in their mind.”, it became clear that, in her eyes, shyness was not useful for overcoming cultural barriers. She felt that (114/31–33): “as an open person, as the outgoing person I’m more easy to overcome the culture shock or something. I think so.” Research in the field of intercultural psychology has indeed indicated that personality traits such as openness and extroversion alleviate sociocultural adaptation, and individuals who scored high on these personality traits might be better suited for international relocation.41 Among the group of Chinese students, a high amount of intercultural contact with peers and teachers, was also shown to facilitate students’ adjustment process.42 For Juliane, the process of getting to know local people and their way of life is exciting and fun. The positive aspects of intercultural exchange clearly outweigh the emotional challenges of culture shock, in her opinion. She recounted (114/15–19):

41 Michael B. Harari et al., “Personality and Expatriate Adjustment: A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 91, no. 3 (September 2018): 486–517, https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12215. 42 Virginia M. Tong, “Understanding the Acculturation Experience of Chinese Adolescent Students: Sociocultural Adaptation Strategies and a Positive Bicultural and Bilingual Identity,” Bilingual Research Journal 37, no. 1 (January 2, 2014): 83–100, https://doi.org/10. 1080/15235882.2014.893462.

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I think, for me, the culture shock is enjoyable because after the culture shock, I’m supposed to make some improvement. And I just improve myself cause I know another kind of culture (…) But most of my friends don’t think so. They just shy, and they don’t know to make friends with local people.

Similarly, Haidong felt that restricting his contacts to other Chinese would deprive him of a unique learning opportunity. He assumed that other Chinese would have similar experiences and backgrounds as he did, and could thus not bring much novelty into the conversation. He expressed it in this way (29/28–33): I’m a business major. I talk to people so I don’t want to talk to people I’ve been talking to my entire high school, middle school. I want to get to know new things. I know them already, well, now I don’t really know them, I don’t want to know them, I want to know the better version more. It’s not something interesting to me or attract my attention.

Even though he was aware that he was making an assumption about his Chinese classmates not being interesting, he remained steadfast in his opinion that it would not be worthwhile to spend time with them. His desire for new knowledge and perspectives drove him to connect with students from more diverse backgrounds—local or international from other countries—as well as locals from different age groups and professions. He was proud of making friends with an elderly American woman whom he had met on a study tour. He referred to her affectionately by her nickname Kiki and told me how hearing about her unconventional career trajectory as a writer and activist had really enriched his life and made him think more deeply about what he wanted. It is worth pointing out here that Haidong attributed a great deal of homogeneity to his classmates—whether this is accurate and goes beyond obvious linguistic and cultural similarities remains questionable. In further distinguishing himself from his Chinese classmates, Haidong also mentioned the aspect of “face” or mianzi 面子. When learning a new language and navigating a new cultural surrounding, making mistakes—be it grammatically incorrect sentences or occasionally putting one’s foot in one’s mouth in awkward social situations—is obviously unavoidable, and the concept of face can contribute to being overly cautious in trying to avoid such blunders. A longitudinal study by Min Wang at the University of Alabama has given evidence of this.43 Haidong observed the issue and succinctly summarized it (20/41–45): 43

Min Wang, “The Impact of Cultural Values on Chinese Students in American Higher Education:,” The Qualitative Report, April 3, 2016, https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2016. 2225.

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And I’m a very outgoing person. I’m not afraid of making mistakes. As long as people can understand me, that’s my goal. Personal opinion here, language is not something that we use to take the exams. It’s something we use as human being for others to understand our feelings, our thoughts. I don’t care about the face problem as many Chinese students do here.

His understanding of communication as connection between people has helped him overcome his pride and furthered not only his language skills but also his intercultural adaptation. It can be assumed that Haidong has witnessed the struggles of other Chinese who are more concerned with their appearance and reputation to follow in his footsteps, which leads him to the premise that they must care more about face than he does. He sees being outgoing and unafraid of mistakes as a unique attribute that sets him apart from his classmates. However, as research by Jingyue Maeder-Qian44 has indicated, personal attributes may not be the only factor hindering interpersonal connection between Chinese international students and their local peers. In a study of Chinese students in Germany, she found that not only do modes of socialization vary among different student groups but that Chinese students disliked “the favorite means of socialization of most young people in the West” such as parties and sports. Even outgoing Chinese might not feel comfortable in such settings due to intercultural differences. This aspect is not considered in the narrative of Haidong. In his case, social skills became something he could be proud of. This can also be seen in Bianca’s case. As a psychology major, who needed to be socially well versed for her career goal of becoming a therapist, she described her social skills as her only talent (122/27–30): I’m like super into people. I think that’s also saying I am good at this. I’m just gonna keep this pace and just head on in. To use my talent. Yeah just. Like talk with people. And I think it’s also like the only thing I think I’m good at.

From her statement it can be deduced that she sees her communicative finesse as her only strongpoint but she also seems to enjoy social engagements. She further explained (123/1–3): I just really like people. I have this super strong instinct. Or I have this naturally born talented on understanding what are you thinking about. I mean, I just can have a lot of information when you’re talking to people.

44

Maeder-Qian, “Intercultural Experiences and Cultural Identity Reconstruction of Multilingual Chinese International Students in Germany,” 583.

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The ability to communicate and empathize with others was equated with coordination and management. Some students also delineated such social or managerial skills from other competences. This is evident in Zhaohui’s descriptions of her goal to one day run her own company (34/12–14): I feel like my ability is I can do leadership, I can organize my team, rather than do some like real skill, like technical skills. Ye::ah, that’s my skill.

The difference of “real skills” and social skills was especially pronounced for her as a double-degree student majoring in computer science and business. She uses the terminology of hard technical skills versus soft skills prevalent in the IT industry but exaggerated it a bit when she characterized leadership abilities as not real. Social skills may not be as tangible as technical expertise such as programming, but such skills are nonetheless a valuable asset for individuals and companies alike.

6.3.3

“I want to Influence People”

The logical next question that arises for students after they have attested superior social skills to themselves is how to use these skills and to what end. In this sense, the students estimate their communicative abilities to be quite powerful. This includes social and intercultural skills. In Haidong’s words (20/28–29): For me, I always say, if there is a problem, let’s solve it. And if I know your culture, I can get you to do anything. (…) I admire that phrase very much and I believe in that very much. If I know your culture I can get you to do anything.

For him, convincing people to follow his ideas is positively connoted. While it could potentially also be seen as manipulation, he equates it with being a leader and role model. He continues his train of thought in this way (28/48–29/2): I want to influence the people surrounding me, giving them the American values that I inherited from these past five or six years, making them a better person, but also giving my family a better life.

His goal is to influence his classmates and peers, both those of Chinese origin and locals. It could be deduced from his descriptions that he views his way of life and specifically the American values he has learned during his stay abroad

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as clearly superior in comparison with the people around him. In this sense, he sees himself as a self-appointed ambassador for the American way of life. This becomes clear in the following statement (21/3–9): For what I’m having is what I think is the good part of my culture I try to influence them. That’s how a society evolves, that’s how people get better and better every day. If people never think about others, never put themselves in others shoes, we never learn, we never grow, never develop. And I think that’s a core problem for many international students. They need to be open-minded and thinking creatively and critically here in the States.

In his opinion, his outgoing nature and expertise in the field of self-optimization have made him successful enough in his context that he feels entitled to give advice to others. He understands what they need to do, such as “be open-minded” and think creatively. In doing so, he claims that they—his friends and peers— will get be able to improve their lives. For a 21-year-old student without any experience outside of the educational system, he yields an impressive amount of confidence (or ignorance). It is interesting to note here the contrasting nature of Haidong’s statements. On the one hand, he calls on others to be more openminded; on the other hand, his harsh judgments of Chinese culture, as well as his understanding of Chinese as an extremely homogenous group, is not exactly open-minded either. Similarly, he insists that critical thinking is vital, while he is not critical of his own person. Yiwei’s ambitions are even loftier than Haidong’s. She wants to influence not only her surroundings but leave a lasting impact on society. This obviously exceeds her friends’ more humble objectives of self-optimization. She expressed herself in this way (6/37–41): Some of them (her friends) say: I want self-development, I want to be a better version of myself every day, I want to be a better self when I die. But I feel like that’s not enough for me. I feel like I want to influence others or the society. I feel like that’s how I got my satisfaction.

This statement shows her self-confidence and drive. She is not content with merely improving herself and her own life. She believes that she has knowledge and ability not only to improve the lives of people around her, but also everyone in society. Such overarching confidence and ambition could be connected to the vast sums these students’ families are spending on their education. Youngsters such as Yiwei and Haidong may feel a need to justify their family’s expenditures, and this may take the form of confident narratives. Obviously, such strong

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self-conviction have also served them well in the past and possibly contributed to their successful entrance into an American institution. Haidong’s case proves a point. He became a student representative due to his being “energetic, loving to help and having great ideas for other school-related stuff” (25/10) which led to “the administrative staff and other people in the school they loved me.” He then used this position to his advantage (25/13–16): Every school has a certain number of students can participate (in a study abroad program). When that nomination came to my school, they hand out the hand to me first. They asked me to distribute and select the participants. I selected myself.

While his strong social skills enabled him to be in a position of influence, it was his ambition, opportunism, and entitlement that more directly contributed to his placement in the study abroad program of his school. This dynamic was possibly enhanced by his dissatisfaction with the Chinese education system and his sentiment of not fitting in, as detailed in Section 5.2. where he attributed only very slim chances of success to someone with his outgoing personality type. Such convictions possibly made it more appealing for him to select himself for the opportunity to go abroad rather than giving a chance for his classmates to compete. Although the moral of his actions could be questioned, he was proud of his previous behavior and shared this story with no regrets. He appeared as someone who is willing to game the system in order to get ahead, and such cunningness in his eyes made him suitable for leadership positions.

6.3.4

“I am Shy”

While the outgoing types were numerous and vocal, they were certainly not the majority. Self-selection bias should also be taken into account. It is possible that more outgoing and self-confident personality types would feel more enticed to participate in a research interview. Around one-quarter of the students highlighted shyness in their self-introductions. This was frequently connected to a lack of language fluency and other acculturation challenges. The following description of the time immediately following the start of their studies from Yingkang, a recent arrival at UC Berkeley meets several criteria of culture shock according

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to theories first put forth by Canadian anthropologist Kalervo Oberg.45 Yingkang explains her state of shock and disillusionment (51/45–52/3): When I arrive here, what I want to do is just stay at home. I don’t know why. During a period, about maybe one week ago, I just don’t, didn’t dare to go outside the house. I even didn’t dare to go shopping. I’m just afraid of talking to others. Because what they are talking is a little bit different from what I learned in China in the English.

Fear and stress stem from her unfamiliarity with the new environment led to a desire for seclusion. She also mentions shyness in the sense of being afraid of getting in touch with others but quickly points out that it is connected to language difficulties. Similarly, LiangYue construes shyness as a common feature of all her Chinese international classmates: “Although we come from different university, different area of China, we are all a little shy.” However, she is aware that this might not be most people’s dominant personality trait (151/31–38): Maybe it’s not our personality. We may maybe not act like this in China because there is no language problem. But here when the professor or the teacher ask some questions, and everybody is silence. Yeah, because it’s kind of like you need to think about what you should say, and you need to make sure I will be saying makes sense so just don’t have they don’t want to make mistake in front of people. So just don’t talk. It’s not just about loosing face.

She brings up the topic of face, as mentioned by Haidong. The wish to avoid embarrassment and mistakes apparently and understandably leads students to hold back in class (or other social situations). While Haidong makes a point of overcoming this—he mentions explicitly that making mistakes is an essential part of the learning process—LiangYue is not at that point. She still very much cares about not saying grammatically incorrect sentences and will prefer not to speak at all if she is unsure. This section aimed to provide an alternative narrative to that of the extroverted People Person, as it should be clear that not all participants of my study fell into this category. The following section will look into the possible background of the formation of the narratives detailed in this chapter.

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Kalervo Oberg, “Cultural Shock: Adjustment to New Cultural Environments,” Practical Anthropology os-7, no. 4 (July 1960): 177–82, https://doi.org/10.1177/009182966000 700405.

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Discussion

Several cultural and environmental factors should be considered as contributing to the emergence of this particular narrative. Firstly, the highly competitive campus of a world-class institution such as the University of California Berkeley could pressure students to accentuate their talents and strengths in their selfpresentations. Those who are not academically gifted or inclined may choose to highlight other aspects of their personality, such as social skills and leadership potential. The substantial cost of studying abroad could further reinforce this tendency. The students may feel compelled to condone their parents’ considerable spending and search for reasons why it is legitimate. After all, the narrative that their parents are wasting their hard-earned money on them is not very satisfying and does not contribute to a stable sense of self. The vital sense of coherence in a narrative, according to Antonovsky46 and Giddens could not be achieved with such a storyline. Consequently, the students form a narrative that includes their extensive abilities and promising future careers in management as a central element. Such a view on themselves and their capabilities ties into the perception of education as an investment and a pathway to upward mobility, as detailed by Yang47 and Fong48 (s. Section 5.2). Lastly, the different cultural assessment of shyness or extroversion could play a role. According to a study conducted by Xu and colleagues49 , Americans tended to view shyness as social incompetence. In contrast, shyness or social inhibition was associated with maturity and self-control in Chinese culture. The students may be taking these different cultural meanings into account in constructing their identity narratives. The positive outcome associated with gregariousness and the subsequent emphasis placed upon this characteristic may reflect the students’ adaptation to their new cultural environment. In other words: students may have an understanding that this characteristic is specifically valued in their American surrounding and subconsciously include it in their identity narratives. The students who choose to highlight their shyness might be more connected to their native contexts still, either recently 46

Antonovsky and Sagy, “The Development of a Sense of Coherence and Its Impact on Responses to Stress Situations.” 47 Yang, The Pursuit of the Chinese Dream in America: Chinese Undergraduate Students at American Universities. 48 Fong, Paradise Redefined: Transnational Chinese Students and the Quest for Flexible Citizenship in the Developed World. 49 Yiyuan. Xu et al., “Moving Away or Fitting In?: Understanding Shyness in Chinese Children,” Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 53, no. 4 (2007): 527–56, https://doi.org/10.1353/mpq. 2008.0005.

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arrived and not yet immersed in American culture, or more inclined to consider a future in China. As mentioned previously, these reckonings may be happening on a subconscious level and be more intuitive than rational. For instance, students are most likely not aware of the exact historical details of studying abroad as having led to influential positions in society for previous generations of Chinese but may still have a vague understanding of this being on an auspicious path towards a comfortable life and successful career. The narratives in this chapter overlap with those of the following: Global Citizen. For both groups of students, being outgoing and immersed in American society is essential. The subtle difference, in my opinion, lies in the desire for leadership which is more pronounced among this group. The next chapter will examine the category of Global Citizen more closely.

6.4

Global Citizen

Similar to the People Person-type, another group of students also emphasized their social talents. In contrast to the previously mentioned group, they foregrounded the aspect of intercultural competence and placed it at the core of their identity narratives. They see themselves as glamorous globe-trotters with international travel experience and fluency in several languages. I will investigate the construction of this narrative in depth in the following chapter, beginning with a short introduction to the general discourse surrounding the notion of global citizenship.

6.4.1

Definition and Discourse

In recent decades, the concept of global citizenship has increasingly been at the forefront of academic and political discourse. The traditional concept of citizenship as membership of and participation within a nation-state has been challenged and reshaped in the context of globalization.50 The increasing flow of resources, people, and ideologies across borders has “blurred boundaries of citizenship rights and obligations, broadening the way in which citizenship is understood

50

Rebecca Grimwood, “Producing Global Citizens? How New Zealand Universities Implement the Concept of Global Citizenship,” 2018, 97.

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and debated.”51 Matthews and Sidhu add that: “contemporary interest in global citizenship is prompted by the need to explore alternative understandings of loyalties, membership, identities, rights, and obligations arising in the context of globalization.”52 However, understanding of two crucial categories—global citizen and global citizenship—remains a subject of debate.53 That debate is due to their various theoretical and ideological underpinnings, as well as diverse meanings associated with them: from Kantian cosmopolitanism, through the neoliberal ideal of “the citizen of the world,” to the notion of the critical, engaged global citizen.54 For some scholars, global citizenship implies “universality and a deep commitment to a broader moral purpose”, while for others it cannot exist, due to the “absence of a ruling authority (e.g. a world government) on which to base such an idea of citizenship”.55 Some see global citizenship as a “descriptive term, intended to capture various cross-border identities, relationships and allegiances that have been developing during the current period of intensive globalization”.56 The term connects moral and political ideas, promotes engagement with or acceptance of multiple worldviews, signals a move away from national ties and places a greater

51 Engin Isin and Bryan Turner, Handbook of Citizenship Studies (1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Road, London EC1Y 1SP United Kingdom: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2002), 4, https://doi. org/10.4135/9781848608276. 52 Julie Matthews and Ravinder Sidhu, “Desperately Seeking the Global Subject: International Education, Citizenship and Cosmopolitanism,” Globalisation, Societies and Education 3, no. 1 (March 2005): 53, https://doi.org/10.1080/14767720500046179. 53 Nigel Dower and John Williams, Global Citizenship A Critical Introduction, 2016, https:// public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4511846; Hans Schattle, “Education for Global Citizenship: Illustrations of Ideological Pluralism and Adaptation,” Journal of Political Ideologies 13, no. 1 (February 2008): 73–94, https://doi.org/10.1080/135 69310701822263. 54 Magdalena Kuleta-Hulboj, “The Global Citizen as an Agent of Change: Ideals of the Global Citizen in the Narratives of Polish NGO Employees,” Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 14, no. 3 (2016): 220; Dower and Williams, Global Citizenship A Critical Introduction; Martha Nussbaum, “Education for Citizenship in an Era of Global Connection,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 21 (2002): 289–303. 55 Laura Oxley and Paul Morris, “Global Citizenship: A Typology for Distinguishing Its Multiple Conceptions,” British Journal of Educational Studies 61, no. 3 (September 2013): 303, https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2013.798393. 56 Linda S. Bosniak, “Citizenship Denationalized,” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000, 449, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.232082.

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focus on collective responsibility for global issues.57 While these basic foundations of global citizenship are generally accepted, there is an absence of consensus on the practical value and meaning of the concept. Definitions in the literature can range from a vague sense of global belonging to participation in global politic to a desire for a world government.58 When critically evaluating this concept, I find it worth pointing out that the international mobility associated with global citizenship ideals is usually connected to vast amounts of cultural and economic capital. This remains attainable only for the privileged few, mostly from industrialized countries.59 It is not a lifestyle nor an identification that is available to every unskilled migrant who would like to benefit from the opportunities of a globalized economy. Not every migrant is afforded freedom of movement with existing visa restrictions in place. Only few, usually highly skilled or wealthy migrants, have the ability to transition between national contexts frequently.

6.4.2

“Global Citizen” in the Chinese Context

During the past decade, Chinese educators have joined educators in other countries in trying to add global content to curricula. The international divisions of many public high schools in China have touted the value that they place on global education, sometimes explicitly framing this value in terms of global citizenship. The Chinese government apparently is concerned about the content of citizenship education due to its affinity with Western democracy and its potential to be devoid of national identity. Ma recounted that educators engaged in teaching courses on citizenship education were pressured by the municipal government. One such 57

Valerie Clifford and Catherine Montgomery, “Challenging Conceptions of Western Higher Education and Promoting Graduates as Global Citizens: Promoting Graduates as Global Citizens,” Higher Education Quarterly 68, no. 1 (January 2014): 28–45, https://doi.org/10.1111/ hequ.12029; Kevin Lyons et al., “Gap Year Volunteer Tourism,” Annals of Tourism Research 39, no. 1 (January 2012): 361–78, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2011.04.016. 58 Grimwood, “Producing Global Citizens? How New Zealand Universities Implement the Concept of Global Citizenship,” 98–99; Elena VanderDussen Toukan, “Educating Citizens of ‘the Global’: Mapping Textual Constructs of UNESCO’s Global Citizenship Education 2012–2015,” Education, Citizenship and Social Justice 13, no. 1 (March 2018): 53, https:// doi.org/10.1177/1746197917700909; Ian Davies, Mark Evans, and Alan Reid, “Globalising Citizenship Education? A Critique of ‘Global Education’ and ‘Citizenship Education,’” British Journal of Educational Studies 53, no. 1 (March 2005): 68–70, https://doi.org/10. 1111/j.1467-8527.2005.00284.x. 59 Vanessa Andreotti, ed., The Political Economy of Global Citizenship Education, 1st published (London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014), 33.

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course was eventually renamed from “global citizenship” to “global outlook, Chinese heart.”60 According to Ma, the Chinese government’s sensitivity is not surprising because the concepts of citizenship and global citizenship are rooted in the discourse of Western democratic institutions. Especially the advocacy-based forms of global citizenship related to civil or human rights activism are hard to enact among Chinese students and may be viewed as undesirable by the Chinese government. Ma concludes: The Chinese government, conversely, has been pursuing and promoting social harmony and stability in the face of various kinds of social tensions and injustices in its fast-changing society. The last thing it wants is to nurture a form of education that promotes outrage and, thus, potential instability.61

However, cosmopolitan-based understandings of global citizenship are widespread among Chinese, as shown in a study by Hui Han.62 Other scholars, such as Cheng, Lin, and Aiai point out, that concepts of cosmopolitanism are not confined to western civilization.63 As Appiah64 argues, the ideal of cosmopolitanism has independently existed all around the world at various times in history. In his comprehensive history of civic ideals, Heater compares the concept of greater unity in Confucianism to “the world commonwealth in which all men once strove for general welfare and harmony and which should be restored”.65 He concludes that this is quite similar to cosmopolitans’ allegiance to humankind. However, given the limitations on citizenship education in China, Chinese students seem to have more opportunities to engage with such ideas after they come to the United States. Courses on citizenship or global citizenship are popular

60

Ma, Ambitious and Anxious. Ma, 15908. 62 Hui Han et al., “Exploring Perceptions of Intercultural Citizenship among English Learners in Chinese Universities,” in From Principles to Practice in Education for Intercultural Citizenship, ed. Michael Byram et al., Languages for Intercultural Communication and Education (Bristol, UK; Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters, 2017), 25–44. 63 Baoyan Cheng, Le Lin, and Fan Aiai, “The New Journey to the West: Chinese Students’ International Mobility,” 2020. 64 Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Education for Global Citizenship,” in Why Do We Educate? Renewing the Conversation., ed. David Coulter, John Wiens, and Gary Fenstermacher (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), 85. 65 Derek Benjamin Heater, Citizenship: The Civic Ideal in World History, Politics, and Education, 3rd ed (Manchester; New York: New York: Manchester University Press; Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 2004). 61

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freshman electives in the universities of this study, thus further bringing such discourses to the forefront of the students’ consciousness. The typology presented by Oxley and Morris serves as a theoretical tool in categorizing the students’ perceptions of global citizenship. Oxley and Morris identified eight prevailing conceptions of global citizenship and grouped them into two types66 : cosmopolitan and advocacy. According to them, cosmopolitan types dominate the literature on the subject and hence can be perceived as mainstream. Cosmopolitan types include: – Political global citizenship, which focuses on the relationship between the individual and the state. – Moral global citizenship, rooted in Stoicism and in Kantian cosmopolitanism and focused on the ethical aspects of global community, on the idea of human rights and moral obligations. – Economic global citizenship, which brings into focus “the interplay between power, forms of capital, labor, resources and the human condition”67 – Cultural global citizenship, which promotes values of cultural awareness and highlights the role of cultural symbols uniting and dividing people. – Advocacy types of global citizenship are described by Oxley and Morris as embracing “more relativistic or holistic (anti-individualistic) ideologies”.68 This category includes: – Social global citizenship, which manifests itself mainly through civil society organizations working toward global community and focuses on interconnections and interdependencies; – Critical global citizenship rooted in critical, post-colonial and postdevelopment theories and promoting deconstruction and critique of social norms, institutions and structures reproducing inequalities and oppression. The proponents of this type advocate action to improve the lives of those who have been marginalized and to be responsible towards them—not for them. – Environmental global citizenship, which focuses on environmental issues, both from ecocentric and, more often, anthropocentric positions with the main concept of sustainable development. It advocates changes in human actions in relation to the environment.

66

Oxley and Morris, “Global Citizenship.” Oxley and Morris, 6. 68 Oxley and Morris, 11. 67

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– Spiritual global citizenship, which “generally promotes a form of a holism and connections between faith (or emotion) and our relationship to the world”69 . It includes faith-based conceptions of global citizenship. These definitions and different types will serve as a framework for the analysis of my data in the following section. The material indicated that self-identification as a global citizen was central to the students’ identity narratives. Reiterations, detailed elaborations, and prolonged lingering on the topic also point in this direction. The analysis of the students’ global citizenship narratives shows that their understandings of the term almost exclusively fall into the cosmopolitan-based category. Their definitions and ideas of what constitutes a global citizen are most closely aligned with Oxley and Morris’ categories of “cultural global citizen” and “economic global citizen”. While several students explicitly made use of the term “global citizen”, others spoke about related concepts such as cultural awareness, critical reflection of stereotypes, and intercultural competence70 . The interviewees often mentioned their international travels or encounters with different cultures even though such topics were not explicitly raised by the interviewer. Usually, the topic came up naturally when discussing either future plans or interactions with classmates on the American campus. Most of the students’ plans for the immediate future of the next three to five years involved at least one international move, either back to China or “wherever the opportunity arises,” although most wanted to gain several years of working experience in the USA before leaving. Several participants specifically welcomed international mobility for career-related reasons. Some expressed a preference for working for international companies which could facilitate expat life or business travels. When discussing relations with their classmates, the distinguishing marker of being more open-minded, well-travelled or immersed in American culture emerged. The constructed “other” in this peer group was frequently the withdrawn, shy Chinese classmate who preferred socializing and cohabitating within the ethnic community (or alternatively the locally oriented, sedentary American). Although students were careful in their phrasing, avoiding negative language when describing such classmates, they nonetheless clarified that this “other” was distinct from them and their social group and thus not their desired choice of 69

Oxley and Morris, 15. “Intercultural competence is the ability to communicate effectively in cross-cultural situations and to relate appropriately in a variety of cultural contexts. (…). The intercultural skillset includes the ability to analyze interaction, predict misunderstanding, and fashion adaptive behavior.” Landis, Bennett, and Bennett, Handbook of Intercultural Training, 149.

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friend. The demarcations between out- and in-group ran along the line of globalmindedness and interest or immersion in American culture. Confrontation with a white, foreign researcher could have augmented the release of such identifications. Advertising the search for participants in Chinese (Mandarin) and on Chinese-language social media (WeChat), as well as providing the option of using Chinese as the primary language of the interview (s. Chapter 2), were meant to counter-balance self-selection of participants. Although self-selection could have played a role regardless of these cautionary measures, the material also shows counter-narratives of culture shock, homesickness, and the preference of one’s own comfort zone. These will also be addressed, albeit briefly, in this chapter.

6.4.3

“I Really Like Learning Languages”

As has been shown in numerous studies, exposure to different culture and international travel contribute to the forming of intercultural skills.71 The following quote from Yanhao (146/11–14) exemplifies this: Actually, I also went to Germany. I went to Belgium, UK, France, and Mexico, many, many places. I think it opened my mind. I talked to people from different places. For example, sometimes they are similar. Sometimes they are different. It’s changing me, changing how I see the world, changing how I think the world.

The conclusion he drew from his visits to the countries mentioned above is: “people from different places (…) sometimes they are similar.” The chance to interact with people from different backgrounds made him appreciate the connections between diverse people that could transcend cultural or national boundaries. He attributed personal transformations to this experience by stating: “It’s changing me, changing how I see the world, changing how I think the world.” He highlights two points here: his perceptions of the world (“see the world”) and opinions he forms about the world (“think the world”). According to British

71

Kun Dai and Jaime Garcia, “Intercultural Learning in Transnational Articulation Programs: The Hidden Agenda of Chinese Students’ Experiences,” Journal of International Students 9, no. 2 (2019): 362–83; Lixian Jin and Martin Cortazzi, eds., Researching Chinese Learners: Skills, Perceptions and Intercultural Adaptations (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Yuefang Zhou, Keith Topping, and Divya Jindal-Snape, “Intercultural Adaptation of Chinese Postgraduate Students and Their UK Tutors,” in Researching Chinese Learners: Skills, Perceptions Intercultural Adaptations, ed. Martin Cortazzi and Lixian Jin, 2011.

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sociologist Delanty72 , each intercultural encounter makes a unique contribution to the individual’s learning experience and developing cosmopolitan identity. Lilley, Barker, and Harris described these transitions in learning as self-formation.73 Other students went out of their way to emphasize their interest in learning about different languages. A junior in psychology described her approach to foreign cultures like this (48/36–41): So besides German, I also know little bit of Spanish, French. Only a couple of words. I sort of had to have it when I travelled somewhere I had to learn a couple of words, so to show like respect. So I travelled to Serbia last summer, so I learned a few words, but I was travelled by a Russian airline, so I also learned a few Russian words. I really like learning languages.

For her, learning some basics of a language is a sign of respect towards the people who speak it. She then detailed all the languages she had started learning: French, Spanish, Serbian and Russian in addition to her mother language Chinese (Mandarin), as well as English. By making a point of mentioning her efforts to master multiple foreign languages simply for the purpose of traveling, the importance she places on appreciating other cultures comes across. She is not learning languages for self-serving purposes such as career advancement, but her only motivation is “to show like respect.” Her example of learning a few words of Russian merely for traveling with a Russian airline further depicts the importance she places on showing a sincere interest in other cultures. She also conveys an image of herself as very well-traveled by implicitly listing the countries she has been to as equivalent to the languages she has learned. To the experienced intercultural scholar, however, neither Yanhao’s statements nor interest in learning languages qualify as intercultural competence, in the sense of having the ability to communicate effectively in an intercultural setting. These statements merely illustrate that the students perceive these international experiences as central to their identity. While the previous two examples didn’t make any direct mention of the term “global citizen” and paraphrased intercultural competency skills, there were also 72

Gerard Delanty, “Cultural Diversity, Democracy and the Prospects of Cosmopolitanism: A Theory of Cultural Encounters: Cultural Diversity, Democracy and the Prospects of Cosmopolitanism,” The British Journal of Sociology 62, no. 4 (December 2011): 633–56, https:// doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2011.01384.x. 73 Kathleen Lilley, Michelle Barker, and Neil Harris, “The Global Citizen Conceptualized: Accommodating Ambiguity,” Journal of Studies in International Education 21, no. 1 (February 2017): 8, https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315316637354.

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several explicit uses of this term, such as in the following remark by Roberto, a freshman at UC Berkeley (79/28–30): I consider myself to be a citizen of the globe, not like citizen of China or citizen of United States, I consider myself citizen of the globe, since I’ve been to so many places.

It is important to note here that even though Roberto references two nation-states and explicitly mentions the concept of “citizen”, his understanding of citizenship is not the literal one of a “constitutionally defined relationship between an individual and a nation-state”74 , comprising rights and obligations. As observed by Toukan75 , the construct of global citizenship does not imply a legal status76 and instead refers to a sense of belonging to a broader community and common humanity. For Roberto, this sense of common humanity arises from encounters during his international travels. What constitutes global citizenship for him is not a relationship to an ominous world government. It is having visited “so many places” that makes him global-minded. Roberto elaborated his experiences (80/40–81/4): So I guess partially due to the background from my mom’s side, I got to travel a lot. I’ve been to Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, China, United States, of course Qatar, United Arab Emirates. You know where Dubai is? There are some more. Like Turkey. Plenty more. I guess there are a few more but I can’t remember at the time. Yes, I guess I got to travel a lot early on, so I formed this global perspective early on and it’s like built inside of me. So I see people more in a global way instead of like a local perspective, although a lot of Americans do tend to have just a very local perspective. I think the most important thing in life for people living in 21st century is to have to form this special global perspective. It’s like it’s going to be essential for your success, I guess, for people’s success.

Notable is his enumeration of countries that he has visited. He mentioned Australia twice, followed by questioning the interviewer: “You know where Dubai 74

Michael Karlberg, “Discourse, Identity, and Global Citizenship,” Peace Review 20, no. 3 (September 2008): 310, https://doi.org/10.1080/10402650802330139. 75 VanderDussen Toukan, “Educating Citizens of ‘the Global.’”. 76 According to Bowden the notion of global citizenship is incompatible with the “general theory and ideal of citizenship.” Bowden argues that any potential ‘world citizenship’ would be hollow, constantly giving way to existing nation-states because it is still nation-states that are responsible for securing and maintaining international laws (such as human rights). Brett Bowden, “The Perils of Global Citizenship,” Citizenship Studies 7, no. 3 (January 2003): 349–62, https://doi.org/10.1080/1362102032000098913.

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is?” and concluded that his travels had been so copious he could scarcely remember all the places he had frequented. Traveling and experiencing different cultures seem to be at the core of his self-concept. Although he acknowledges that “the background from my mom’s side”, as being employed in the tourism industry, contributed to his international upbringing, he sets himself apart from others through the forming of a “global perspective”. The ability to “see people more in a global way” is what distinguishes him from “a lot of Americans”. This statement may not make him seem very critical or reflective towards his own stereotypes. He later detailed that this “global perspective” not only encompassed physically being in other countries but also being open-minded towards different lifestyles, striking up conversations with people who think or look differently, and keeping a check on your own judgments. This “global perspective” was “essential for people’s success”, according to Roberto. Obviously, several of these statements are problematic. Research has shown that the development of global perspectives is complex and not easily achieved through touristic travel.77 Whether a global perspective does, in fact, crucially determine someone’s career success remains questionable. His statements could also be interpreted as a sense of superiority. He believes global mindedness to be crucial for success in the 21st century and “the most important thing”. Additionally, he is convinced that he has developed this “global perspective” whereas many of his peers have not, thus making him more likely to succeed than his classmates, friends, and acquaintances. His worldview fits in neatly with self-beliefs of being extraordinarily global-minded: the quality he finds to be essential is conveniently also the quality he has developed since childhood. It is also interesting to note that he connects this “global perspective” with being successful and not with other attributes such as general life satisfaction, tolerance, or mental health. He further portrays himself as the ultimate cosmopolitan in making an effort to spread his cosmopolitan spirit (81/17–22): But also in the meantime, there are so many people who are not that open minded. You do still have a lot of discriminations and bias. Yeah that’s something that we can’t really change overnight. I guess it’s like a slow process. So I tend to encourage people, to influence people who are around me by forming just a global perspective.

He shows awareness of the deep-rootedness of internalized stereotypes, bias, and prejudices, which can lead to discrimination when he says: “that’s something that we can’t really change overnight.” Simultaneously, he makes it his mission to “encourage people, to influence people.” The goal is for others to develop a global 77

Davies, Evans, and Reid, “GLOBALISING CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION?”.

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perspective just like him. Haidong’s position is quite similar. He even asserts that it is entirely pointless to study abroad if you are going to pass up the opportunity to build relationships with host nationals. In his own words (29/25–28): You don’t get yourself into the American society; you just stay in your comfort zone, stay with those Chinese students all day long; you speak Chinese. You play Chinese games; you do Chinese stuffs. What’s the reason to be here in the States?

Yiwei’s understanding of global citizen was less associated with Roberto’s love of travel or Haidong’s disregard for co-nationals but shared the emphasis of openmindedness and diverse viewpoints. She explained it in her own words (6/47–7/5): I see myself as a global citizen, especially in your thoughts. You can’t be stagnant in your thoughts, like sticking to one thought or one value you have to see things from different perspectives. I feel like I get bored a lot, so I can’t be in the same place for too long. Because I went to high school at the east coast, so I had to come to west coast. I was accepted to Georgetown, but I was like, no I want to see what California is like.

She portrays herself as a dynamic personality, someone who gets itchy feet if she feels too comfortable. She is understimulated quickly and often, which in her mind necessitates a constant change of location. She presents herself as someone who can’t stay “in the same place for too long”. She had moved from her hometown, Xi’an, to a private boarding school at the Eastern Coast of the United States and then transitioned to college life across the country in California. Even though she described the challenges of settling into a new environment when she first arrived in the USA, she seemed to see the advantages of this itinerant lifestyle. A junior at the time of the interview, she had already made plans to move to Hong Kong after graduation, work there for a few years and eventually move again to Mainland China. The self-concept of an itinerant world traveler also arises in a story she tells about an old friend in her hometown who was planning to participate in a student exchange (7/45–8/3): I don’t want to spill cold water on her like … no, no… I feel like it’s going to be very hard for her to live in another country, because for me I have been through this whole thing, but for her, she has not, and she is so hopeful. Like I hesitate to warn her but …. It might be different than what she is expecting… But she has to experience it to know it, there is nothing we can do.

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Even though Yiwei and her friend share a similar family background and upbringing, Yiwei sees herself as distinct due to her international experience. In her explanations, the fact that: “I have been through this whole thing” whereas her friend has not is an insurmountable difference between them. She portrays her intercultural skills as something wholly untransferable: “there is nothing we can do.” She cannot reiterate or explain her intercultural learning process to her friend. She also cannot give her friend any advice: “I hesitate to warn her.” However, she does not elucidate why she cannot convey any of her experiences to her friend, choosing instead to portray her silence as the kinder option: “I don’t want to spill cold water on her.” She prefers not to shatter her friend’s hopeful expectations. In contrast, in a study conducted by Tang Heng78 , students currently studying abroad were asked to give advice to incoming internationals and had a great amount of helpful and concrete tips. The students stressed the importance of linguistic and cultural preparation, extroversion when meeting new people and self-care in overcoming culture shock. Yiwei could have given her friend similar advice but chose not to.

6.4.4

“Just See Where the Opportunities Come from”

Yiwei’s descriptions of herself as a cosmopolitan world traveler who could flexibly follow opportunities comes close to Oxley and Morris’ definitions of economic global citizenship. According to them, economic global citizenship, which brings into focus “the interplay between power, forms of capital, labor, resources and the human condition”79 assumes the neoliberal, internationally mobile self. Many students expressed the belief that they could follow opportunities wherever they arose, epitomized in the following statement (77/1–3): I don’t really have a strong desire to either stay here or go back to China. I would just see where the opportunities come from, maybe all about another country or something.

This statement indicated that the students in my study may have already internalized concepts of the neoliberal self who could completely submit to market

78

Tang T. Heng, “Chinese International Students’ Advice to Incoming First-Year Students: Involving Students in Conversations With Them, Not About Them,” Journal of College Student Development 59, no. 2 (2018): 232–38, https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2018.0020. 79 Oxley and Morris, “Global Citizenship,” 6.

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demands, to a great extent. However, this global mobility did not stretch to developing countries of Latin America, Africa or Asia. The broad “all about another country” usually encompassed European countries, which were deemed as desirable locations due to employee-friendly labor laws and equitable gender policies, as well as China and Anglophone countries, such as United States, Canada, and Australia. This internalized hierarchy of countries has been part of criticisms of the concept of global citizen as “intended for those who can afford to think globally”.80 In other words, the “free-floating, fleet-footed, globally mobile individual for whom the world is borderless and opportunities boundless is problematically premised on the dispositions, aspirations, and opportunities of the first world, elite, masculine subject”81 . The question of who can be a global citizen arises, as well as who is the one making such decisions. Furthermore, the students also showed a clear hierarchy of occupations, revealing an interesting paradox. The participants of my study were eager to demonstrate their global-mindedness and show off their various travels, but none of them expressed an interest in admittedly internationally-oriented (but not conventional) career paths such as developmental aid, diplomacy, journalism, or advocacy. Instead, white-collar jobs in finance, engineering, or academia were frequently mentioned as career goals. These jobs, in the imaginary of the students, included glamorous business trips or work-related relocations for which their intercultural skills would come in handy. Conservative influences from parents who had invested a lot in their children’s education in the United States may have contributed to the forming of such life goals. Several students expressed that they had adapted their career choices to their parents’ wishes: Huaguan had wanted to be a professional soccer player and had promising career prospects in this regard, but his parents: “want me to be highly educated and find a better job” (14/2–3). At the time of the interview, he was pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science, which shows how far he had strayed from his original intention. Juliane’s dream was to become a director. As she knew her parents would never agree for her to follow this ambition, she was presently considering changing her major from English literature to mathematics in order to earn more money. Drawing on these observations, the question arises of to what extent international education and the pursuit of certain majors constitute mechanisms of class reproduction among this group. According to Siqi Tu’s study of Chinese parachute students in the United States, narratives of this sort could be considered as a discursive 80

Grimwood, “Producing Global Citizens? How New Zealand Universities Implement the Concept of Global Citizenship,” 100. 81 Matthews and Sidhu, “Desperately Seeking the Global Subject,” 53.

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re-enforcement of class status.82 The students are—probably unintentionally— showing off their transnational lives and gained intercultural competence. Both of these are only made possible through the considerable privilege of being able to afford expensive tuition costs, international travel, and high living expenses in California.

6.4.5

Discussion

In the typology of global citizenship conceptions by Oxley and Morris, the students’ descriptions can be categorized into the first type: cosmopolitan-based global citizenship. The students almost entirely omitted advocacy-based forms of global citizenship. Few students were involved in political or civil society organizations or pursued advocacy of any kind. Some interviewees mentioned joining humanitarian organizations as volunteers. However, they viewed this a part of their college application process with the goal of improving their admission chances. None of the students mentioned interest in continuing their volunteer engagements after entering university. Nonetheless, it would be going too far to say they were not interested in politics. The topics of human rights, international relations (especially the trade war between China and the USA), and reflections on political and social issues in both countries came up often during the interviews, even though such topics were not prompted by the interviewer.83 The focus on or reduction to cosmopolitan-based forms of global citizenship was widespread among students in other countries as well, as comparative studies by Irina Golubeva and colleagues have shown.84 The description of a global citizen as someone who „traveled a lot, has been to many countries, knows about 82

Siqi Tu, “Destination Diploma: How Chinese Upper-Middle-Class Families ‘Outsource’ Secondary Education to the United States” (Ph.D. Dissertation, New York, City University of New York, 2020), https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4022/. 83 This social dynamic may also be connected to students’ preconceived ideas of socially acceptable statements towards a Westerner (s. Methods Chapter). 84 Irina Golubeva, Manuela Wagner, and Mary Yakimowski, “Comparing Students’ Perceptions of Global Citizenship in Hungary and the USA,” in From Principles to Practice in Education for Intercultural Citizenship, ed. Michael Byram et al., Languages for Intercultural Communication and Education (Bristol, UK; Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters, 2017), 3–24.

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different cultures and their traditions“ or „speaks different foreign languages” 85 was mentioned by 18.9% of participating students in their study. Such definitions are similar to those expressed by Roberto, Celia, Yiwei, and Xuanyi in the previous sections. Other aspects such as the right of abode, mentioned by 13% of students, or equality, mentioned by 6% of students, were not at the forefront of perception. It could be observed that students’ understanding of global citizenship was mostly equivalent to intercultural awareness or some facets of it. Students in Golubeva’s study emphasized “knowledge” in the sense of learning facts about other cultures rather than about social interactions in intercultural contexts. The same could be said about students in my study. Although they were keen on interacting with people from different backgrounds, knowledge about foreign cultural traditions or the ability to speak several languages was more weighty in their eyes. In conclusion: “global citizenship was seen merely as resulting from travel or from having the right to live in more than one country(…). Responses tended to point to a vision of global citizenship that happens rather than is actively achieved. And the implication is that we can only achieve global citizenship through traveling (…) and more importantly that nothing more is required”86 . Such an understanding is also apparent in Yiwei’s explanations of why she couldn’t give her friend any advice on coping abroad. In her opinion, global mindedness is something that develops automatically through the experience of staying overseas for a longer time period. It cannot be taught or actively accomplished through any other means. Educators specializing in intercultural awareness or competence training would probably respectfully disagree with such a narrow comprehension.87 Research by Yuan, Li, and Yu88 has even indicated the emergence of cosmopolitan identity constructs of Chinese students in China: “Even though students remained in their domestic university, exposure to international classmates and teachers in an internationalized business program lead to the development of a cosmopolitan identity.” 89 The identity as a global citizen with high English proficiency, strong abilities in intercultural communication, as well as an international perspective was central for the students in Yuan,

85

Golubeva, Wagner, and Yakimowski, 8. Golubeva, Wagner, and Yakimowski, 11. 87 Michael Byram et al., eds., From Principles to Practice in Education for Intercultural Citizenship, Languages for Intercultural Communication and Education 30 (Bristol, UK; Tonawanda, NY: Multilingual Matters, 2017). 88 Yuan, Li, and Yu, “Neither ‘Local’ nor ‘Global.’”. 89 Yuan, Li, and Yu, 971. 86

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Li and Yu’s study. Students placed a strong emphasis on international experiences and engagement with peers from other cultural contexts, which became an essential component of their identity constructs. Obviously, exposure to different cultures is magnified during a longer period of studying abroad and can thus contribute to the development of intercultural skills, as well as the forming of a cosmopolitan identity. This has been acknowledged as a key feature of students’ intercultural learning experience.90 According to Lily Ye and Vivian Edwards91 , studying abroad encourages the kind of self-reflexivity essential for stimulating self-exploration and self-critique. This self-reflection eventually facilitates intercultural adaptation as it enables students to question their own perspectives and show empathy for others. The narrative of global citizenship also allows students to reflexively re-organize their experiences from the standpoint of the present so as to maintain a sense of ontological security in Giddens’92 sense. By portraying themselves as having successfully formed a cosmopolitan mindset, they are not only highlighting their agency in navigating a new cultural environment with divergent social protocols but also minimizing the challenges of doing so. The processes of intercultural adaptation at the beginning of their stay, including struggling with a second language or undergoing culture shock might not be their most fond memories. However, when weaving everything together into the narrative of becoming a global citizen, such difficult times become a heroic and necessary part of their path to the present moment. The poignant idea of this global-mindedness being essential for success in later life, as formulated by Roberto, further adds to a sense of continuity and thus ontological security. This narrative provides much-needed stability in a lifestyle portrayed as itinerant by Yiwei and others. The idea of “I could live and work anywhere in the world” becomes less intimidating when combined with the conviction of possessing the ability to adapt to any culture at will. In conclusion, even though the students’ conceptions of global citizenship are superficial and connected to clear hierarchies of countries and professions, this narrative can be seen not only as a direct result of the need for ontological security but also as a perfect solution in making sense of stressful intercultural encounters and adaptation processes. Furthermore, this narrative offers students an elegant solution to the dilemma of having to situate themselves between two national contexts. Establishing an identity narrative of global citizenship allows them to switch between contexts at will and select 90

Lilley, Barker, and Harris, “The Global Citizen Conceptualized,” 8. Ye and Edwards, “Chinese Overseas Doctoral Student Narratives of Intercultural Adaptation,” 8. 92 Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity. 91

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positive aspects from cultures all around the world to incorporate into their narrative. However, those students, who have not successfully adapted to the new cultural environment, may also not be able to develop such a narrative. Those students who still face sociocultural adaptation difficulties on a daily basis may center Chinese-ness in their narratives and construct China as a place of belonging and security. These aspects will be discussed in the following chapter on national identity.

7

The Self and the Country

Their geographical region of birth provides most people with a certain group membership — nationality.1 Nationality is an imagined membership because an individual member will never know most of the fellow members; yet in their minds, each lives with an image of his or her community2 . National identity, as an ideology, encompasses the ideas of belonging wherever you are and being recognized by the surrounding people.3 It is the “reproduction and reinterpretation of the pattern of values, symbols, memories, myths and traditions that compose the distinctive heritage of nations, and the identifications of individuals with that pattern and heritage” 4 .

7.1

Literature and Media Review

Chinese overseas students who engaged in pro-Beijing protests in 2019 have lent a specific visibility to this aspect of identity. Images such as the one above 1

Joan Kelly Hall, Teaching and Researching: Language and Culture, 0 ed.(Routledge, 2013), https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315833712. 2 Benedict R. O’G Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). 3 Madan Sarup and Tasneem Raja, Identity, Culture and the Postmodern World, Repr (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1998). 4 Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History, Key Concepts (Malden, Mass: Polity Press, 2001), 18. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1_7.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Y. Köksal, Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1_7

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sparked interest from the public and have been covered extensively by the media. Numerous scholars have examined this phenomenon. Social scientists in China have investigated how to strengthen Chinese overseas students’ bonds with the motherland,5 and how the students can promote positive images of China abroad.6 In his research on the backgrounds of patriotic sentiment among Chinese students in the United States, American sociologist Henry Hail found that the experience of studying abroad may even cause international students to identify more strongly with their home countries. Chinese sojourners in his study commonly reported that living in the United States caused them to feel more attached to China and appreciate China’s positive sides. Many felt uncomfortable hearing host country nationals criticize any aspect of China, including topics as specific as China’s air quality or the government’s repression of free speech. Most took the criticisms as a personal attack. Such encounters led to a closer alignment of the concepts of “the people” and “the government” in sojourners’ minds. Some interviewees reported that they had often questioned the Chinese government before coming to the United States. Their stay abroad, however, changed this, as national identity became more salient.7 Hail further details this dynamic: Sojourners realized that members of the host country saw them as foreigners, and they would never be “totally accepted.” Feeling that China was the only place they could identify with and think of as home, it became more important for them to view China in a positive light.8

Additionally, disillusionment with America, negative media portrayals of China, as well as encounters with stereotypes or racism may reinforce this tendency. Yige Dong, a Chinese American sociologist, points to the anger and frustration triggered by such negative experiences:

5

Xiaoting Xu and Hong Jiang, “Investigation of Patriotic Consciousness of Overseas University Students,” Journal of Anhui Agricultural University (Social Science Edition) 27, no. 2 (March 2018): 137–40. 6 Xiaojian Liao, “中国留学生促进中外文化交流的作用初探- A Preliminary Study on the Role of Chinese Students in Promoting Sino-Foreign Cultural Exchanges,” Overseas Chinese Journal of Bagui 2 (June 2016): 20–27. 7 Henry Chiu Hail, “Patriotism Abroad: Overseas Chinese Students’ Encounters With Criticisms of China,” Journal of Studies in International Education 19, no. 4 (September 2015): 311–26, https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315314567175. 8 Hail, 319.

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Without a critical vision that can transcend the unit of analysis beyond the nationstate, they (the students) handle these feelings of frustration by reconsolidating a psychological link with the motherland. Once cynical about the CCP, they are now giving more credit to its achievements in eliminating poverty, providing welfare, developing infrastructure, and so forth.9

While the analyses of Dong and Hail are concise and surely accurate for certain subgroups of students, Siqi Tu10 and Yingyi Ma11 show a counter-tendency in their research. The families who sent their children to study abroad may have conflicted relationships with the Chinese nation-state or hold critical views of the CCP’s policies. Such critical views fuel the desire to go abroad. Some parents may even consider overseas degrees as the first step of long-term immigration for the whole family and building a new life in the United States. This holds especially true for criticisms of the Chinese educational system and labor market conditions, which even insiders considered as problematic in Ma’s study.12 This perspective has been underrepresented in research on Chinese students and their national identity so far. Due to my unique position as a third-party researcher, which I will examine in the following section, my findings constitute an enriching contribution to this discussion.

7.2

Position as a 3rd Country Researcher

As mentioned in the methodological chapter, my own identity as a third-party researcher has the potential to yield unique contributions to the field. A new dynamic comes into play when talking to a researcher from a country that is neither the host country nor the country of origin of the study participants. In the following section, I would like to illuminate the challenges for both ethnic Chinese and American researchers in contact with Chinese international students in the United States. Chinese scientists working with this group have pointed out 9

Yige Dong, “How Chinese Students Become Nationalist: Their American Experience and Transpacific Futures,” American Quarterly 69, no. 3 (2017): 563, https://doi.org/10.1353/aq. 2017.0050. 10 Siqi Tu, “Destination Diploma: How Chinese Upper-Middle-Class Families ‘Outsource’ Secondary Education to the United States” (Ph.D. Dissertation, New York, City University of New York, 2020), https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4022/. 11 Yingyi Ma, Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020). 12 Ma.

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the benefits of being part of the ethnic or national in-group such as easier contact and connection. The shared language and culture lowers inhibitions for study participants and makes it more likely for them to open up. Additionally, many researchers share similar experiences of living abroad and can naturally relate. They have neglected, however, to consider the negative ramifications of such a research setup. For instance, students may feel suspicious about the background or intentions of a Chinese researcher. They may not be too forthcoming about criticism of China or the CCP’s policies with regard to possible future consequences this could entail. Students may feel pressured to assert their loyalties for the Chinese nation-state, praise the government or state their plans of returning to China for similar reasons. In short, students may be subject to underlying pressure to conform to social norms or approved discourses. Speaking to an elder and higher-ranking Chinese researcher may also trigger their sense of hierarchy. This may lead them to avoid voicing differing opinions out of respect or to express only those thoughts they assume the researcher wants to hear. As the topic of national identity and belonging can be seen as controversial and divisive in the context of being a Chinese abroad, this subject may be especially vulnerable to such social dynamics. Conversely, when talking to an American researcher, students may feel defensive and hesitant to express criticism of their homeland. This was experienced and reflected by Hail, who is American, in his study of patriotic sentiment among Chinese students: While being interviewed, several Chinese participants started to complain about various problems in China, only to follow their complaints with an expression of guilt and a desire to reestablish their sense of loyalty to China. For example, one student, after spending several minutes talking about corruption in China, suddenly asked me, “Do you think that I’m a traitor? I shouldn’t say bad things about China to you.” Although the respondents had personal complaints about some aspects of China, it was also important to them that they profess loyalty to China while talking to me, an American.13

Both dynamics mentioned above can influence an increase in nationalistic responses from study participants, leading to an overrepresentation in scholarly research on this topic. I observed similar patterns as Hail during my interviews. This included frequent relativizations and repeated assurances of loyalty after stating criticism of China. In the words of one participant (147/48–148/3): “But I’m not saying everything about the China is bad, but I’m just seeing the problem of China. Maybe US also have some problems. You know I still like China.” 13

Hail, “Patriotism Abroad,” 316.

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However, I still feel that there is a different dynamic at play when it comes to my interviews and Hail’s or other American researchers’. Firstly, talking about national identity was not a primary goal or specified subject of my interviews. The topic arose naturally in conversation, and utterings surrounding this topic were thus more casual and authentic than in studies explicitly examining this subject. The fact that interview participants brought up this subject of their own accord shows that it is at the forefront of their consciousness. This also led to more diverse statements about national identity and feelings towards the two national contexts in question, the United States and the People’s Republic of China. I tried to give the interviewees a neutral platform to voice their opinions regarding both, and the data reflects my efforts. There were complaints and praises of both national contexts and systems, as well as various expressions of emotional attachment, cultural familiarity, or opportunistic opinions on the benefits of living in either of the two nation-states. I found that students’ understanding of national identity was more nuanced than previous research had led me to believe. Much more than blind patriotism, the students in my study expressed fondness for China as a nation-state as well as a cultural and emotional place, as well as criticism of both. Their sentiments will be examined in detail in the section below.

7.3

China—National Identity

When discussing national identity, the question of inclusion quickly arises: Who is Chinese and who is not? Where is the boundary of who belongs to this community and who doesn’t? And more importantly, who is drawing these boundaries? For the scope of this chapter, I will focus my interpretations on the definition of the students in my study. They were very clear in their delineations of who they included in the national peer group. Asian Americans, i.e., Asian immigrants of the second generation who were either born in the United States or arrived as children, were a distinctly separate group in their understanding. They also didn’t include Taiwanese, Singaporean, or Hong Kong international students in their demarcations of who belongs to the in-group. Their peer group of other Chinese international students only included Mainland Chinese with their own experiences of migration in their adult or late teen years. The students also identified several significant sub-groups within the national-ethnic peer group, which will be mentioned here but not discussed in detail. Firstly, they distinguished between Chinese who had attended high school and those who had come as freshmen in college. Those who had been in the United States longer felt in a separate group from those who had only recently arrived. They attributed a better understanding

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of American culture as well as higher English proficiency to their in-group. The second subgroup constituted “rich kids”. The stereotype about this group, which nobody openly identified with, was that they had been academic failures in China and had only gotten admitted to their American universities due to the financial contributions of their parents. They were seen as spoiled and lazy, as well as unintelligent. While my sample undoubtedly included students from wealthy families, nobody placed him- or herself in this category. This group remained a rumored one: everyone knew one of these rich, lazy kids and pointed out that they were not one of them. One student, for instance, delineated her friend group from the rich kids in the following terms (49/22): “We like to save money, so we travel by bus instead of Uber.” Lastly, there were several subgroups with pronounced regional identities, which seemed to hold a strong, although not overwhelming significance, for the study participants in question. The most conspicuous of these subgroups were students from Shanghai, all of which expressed a great sense of pride for their city and detailed how different Shanghainese were from other Chinese. Another notable group consisted of Cantonese-speaking students, mostly from Guangdong province, with an obvious attachment to their mother tongue and a sense of distinctness from their Mandarin-speaking classmates.14 In conclusion, all of these subgroups are worth mentioning here but were not prominent enough to override the Chinese national identity, which I will focus on in the following section.

7.3.1

China as an Emotional Space

As mentioned previously, the participants of my study did not express strong nationalistic sentiments about China. There were no statements of superiority about Chinese culture, people, or the government. Instead, what I encountered were well-thought-out personal reflections of the pros and cons of living in China and the United States. The students I spoke with used relative terms and avoided strong judgments in the process of positioning. What became clear more than anything else was the emotional attachment students felt towards both countries and imagined communities. China emerged from their various and multi-faceted descriptions predominantly as a home and referred to places where they felt comfortable. It was a place of family, security, and familiarity, which they were 14

It is safe to assume that students who have been educated in Mainland China are also fluent in Mandarin; the only difference between the two groups is that Mandarin is not their mother tongue.

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adept at navigating and where they felt socially connected. Obligations towards their families also played a role. As Huaguan stated (16/23–24): I’m considering going back to China is because of my parents. I really want to take care of my parents. They are getting old.

As most of the interviewees were singletons, the responsibility for their aging parents fell exclusively to them. This contributed to a strong sense of commitment towards their parents. The students were keenly aware of the duty of supporting their parents in old age and would never shirk from it. However, it was not only familial ties that bound them to China. Other social connections such as friendships were also embedded with deep meaning for most of the students. Sabrina, a 20-year-old psychology major, for instance, felt such a strong connection with her friends in China that the option of staying in the USA seemed ridiculous to her. When I asked if she could picture a future outside of China, she only laughed, as the answer seemed extremely obvious to her (37/16–19). Researcher: Do you prefer to live in America or China? Participant: Of course China. (laughs) Because I have friends in China. I can play with them all the time and eat foods. They gave me warmth and encouragement.

Having friends in China while being on your own in the United States—this sentiment was shared by many students who felt that social ties and long-standing friendships in their hometowns or universities were no match to the new connections they had formed in the United States. This contributed to a sense of comfort zone. Lynette, a junior at UC Berkeley, explained (57/33–35): I love my city. I love Shenzhen. I want to work here. It’ more comfortable for me. My parents here… I don’t feel that lonely sometimes and most of my friends live there.

From Lynette’s statement, we can see that several points are important to her: not being alone i.e., living in close proximity to her friends and family, and being comfortable in the working environment of her hometown Shenzhen. This sense of being comfortable seemed to be essential for students who may feel exhausted from adapting to a new environment. Familiarity was key for them. This becomes clear in an analogy from Zhaohui (34/34–41): Personally, I feel like I want to go back to China. I feel like that’s my country; I feel like I’m more familiar with there. Especially I saw a video of the North Korea, like

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you know the North Korea, is like people live there have like a very difficult life; even though they have a very difficult life in North Korea, even though they have a chance to escape the North Korea and go to South Korea, I saw one video, the North Korean saying that the happiest time I have is during the time living in North Korea because that’s my country.

She describes China as her country—although the only connection she explicitly states is the aspect of familiarity. She then goes on to compare her connectedness to her country to those of North Korean refugees who admittedly live a burdensome life. In Zhaohui’s understanding, even though life in one’s own country can come with a number of challenges and hardships, the sense of belonging can make up for almost anything and contribute to profound happiness. “Because that’s my country” can apparently be enough to constitute satisfaction and contentment with life. It is interesting that she chooses such an extreme example of the world’s most secluded dictatorship. Her statement could even be considered romanticizing the conditions in North Korea. Following her line of thought, China is the challenging place that still makes one happy, albeit all the difficulties one is faced with, whereas America is the place of refuge, where one might be safe but never truly belong. Her reasoning doesn’t seem to allow for the option that one could become familiar with a new place and subsequently belong there, even though being familiar with a place is the only argument she gives for belonging to her country. Furthermore, it is questionable if she will still be as familiar with Chinese culture and society after her return and after having spent several years in the United States. She had already been living abroad for four years at the time of the interview and was planning to stay for at least three more. In the descriptions of most students, familiarity with China is something they count on and take for granted. It is not something that can also evolve or fade away. Some students even felt so secure in China that they became uninterested in planning a future there. Statements such as Meixiu’s were not uncommon (96/10–13): My life in China is some kind of boring and you know what all the things will be and what you will learn and what you will exam. It’s predictable but life in here is unpredictable because I know nothing about this.

The attributes of boring and predictable made life in China unattractive for her. She portrays China as an unchallenging place while she herself comes across as a confident adventurer-type, looking for fresh experiences and ready to explore (s. Section 6.4. Global Citizen). Instead of fatigue with her new cultural environment, it is precisely the lack of knowledge about “life in here” that makes it exciting for her. In this sense, her home country has become a comfort zone

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that is too confining and not challenging enough. She is looking to make life more entertaining and stimulating for herself, which led to her decision to study abroad. She wants to break free from the standard pathways of life in China, where life is foreseeable. These views are similar to the desires for an academic challenge in the American context as expressed by Hallie in Section 6.2.2.4. who perceived continuing her studies in China as predictable and uninspiring. These views stand in contrast to others, such as Mimi, who is also an English major. She stated (97/13–16): There are really a lot of people in the university in China and the competition is everywhere in China. So many people want to get better education; so many people want to go to a high social status and want to be better than their parents.

While there is unquestionably tough competition in China, the contrasting views of Chinese education as competitive and of mediocre quality may play into statements such as these. A degree from an American university may be imbued with higher value and prestige due to the influence of rankings and various dynamics detailed in Section 6.2. American universities may also be desirable due to the fact that it is comparatively easier to secure admission in a highly-ranked university than in China. The statements in this chapter show the nuanced relationship the study participants have with their homeland. While it is a safe haven above all else for some like Sabrina and Zhaohui, others, such as Hallie and Meixiu find it boring to remain in their comfort zone. There are obvious parallels to the self-identification as a global citizen or an enthusiastic learner among those who expressed such sentiments. For yet others, such as Mimi, the intense competition over university admission and white-collar jobs makes their native country a stressful and unappealing place to plan a future.

7.3.2

China as a Political System

Apart from these emotional descriptions of their home country, the students also had a great deal to say about political and systemic issues. They showed that they were well informed and critical of the circumstances they had grown up in. The experience in the United States and their various travels since leaving China, as well as their education, prompted them to compare the different systems. Although the interviewees were aware of the problematic issues in American society (see next section), such comparative reflections did not always shed a positive light on China. Favoritism or corruption, lack of freedom of speech as

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well as harsh working conditions, and labor laws were the most commonly mentioned criticisms. Many students supported the ideal of a socially equal society. For Yanhao, this was also connected to his own experiences (146/37–44): I hope China can be more open, can treat everyone fairly. I think now it’s not very fair in China, because some people from the powerful families, they control the railway, they control the IT industry, they control the bank. It’s very hard for maybe… I think before I went to college, I was a low-class people in China. Now I go to China, they will treat me maybe as a high-tech person, yeah. But before I went to college, I’m a low-class people. It’s very hard for the low-class people to succeed in China.

Yanhao is aware of the social and cultural capital he has gained from his American education that significantly improves his chances for upward mobility and career success. However, he still decries the importance of guanxi (关系)—or connections—or getting ahead that has been described by numerous scholars15 , as unfair. He considers such instances of favoritism or corruption an obvious obstacle to upward mobility. He concludes by expressing his hope that this could change and more fair treatment of individuals could become possible. Through these statements, he shows his continued solidarity with “low-class people”, a group that he used to belong to and had now moved on from through his education. At this point, it should be noted that the Chinese government has installed a number of measures aimed at both combating corruption (such as the Anti-Corruption Campaign in 2012), alleviating poverty, and improving living conditions of lower social classes.16 However, the one-party state is neither transparent nor fully accountable to its citizens, which makes Yanhao’s hope for fairness seem somewhat optimistic. In his own words, he goes even further in denouncing the government and wishing for change (145/33–35): I think China should be more open, should have a … I think the Chinese government is kind of dictator now. But they think China should keep the same.

The wish for transparency was also connected to the importance he placed on a free and neutral press. From the following statement, Yanhao’s dissatisfaction with government-affiliated media becomes apparent. It should be noted for better 15

Gold, Guthrie, and Wank, Social Connections in China. Amanda Lee, “China’s Xi Jinping Declares Victory on Poverty Alleviation, but Warns of ‘Unbalanced’ Development,” South China Morning Post, December 4, 2020, https://www. scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3112554/chinas-xi-jinping-declares-victory-pov erty-alleviation-warns. Accessed 19.2.2021.

16

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understanding that most news outlets make extensive use of the social media platform WeChat to spread their publications (145/36–43): And also, there are many rumors in WeChat every day: it says China invented that, but it’s a fake news, not all of it is true. For example, my father, he only graduate from high school, he went to college, but I don’t know he graduate or not. So he didn’t know something about technology, it’s very easy for the Chinese government to cheat him, to mislead him. You know I’m studying CS (computer science), I know some technology, some technological details so I can tell which one is fake news, which one is true.

In Yanhao’s understanding, the government does not have any interest in genuine news coverage, but only uses the media to further their agenda, regardless of objective facts. He claims the government could have an interest in misleading people like his father on purpose. The use of the verb “cheat” which implies criminal intent shows how strongly he feels about this subject. Other students used such extremely negative language when describing government-related events in China as well. One mechanical engineering major, for instance, referred to a situation when her school was being inspected by the local governors (71/42–44): “Teachers teach you how to tell lies sometimes (…) they just tell you what to tell.” It can be assumed that the teachers understandably wanted to show the school in the best possible light. But for this student’s understanding of absolute truth, this was equivalent to lying and deception. The underlying questions in both statements revolve around what is “true” and what is “fake”. Some things are “fake news” and “lies” while the absolute truth exists. Many students pondered such profound philosophical dilemmas. Ricky, a physics major at UC Davis, brought up the idea that (25/38–39): “News it’s not something that we can comment on. News is the fact.” And he entered into a discussion with his friend being interviewed alongside him. While both agreed that news was biased to a certain extent and rarely completely objective, they stressed the importance of various news sources and education in crafting one’s own opinion. They both viewed the lack of diverse media voices as well as people’s lack of critical thinking skills as problematic. In Haidong’s own words (26/3–18): And here in the States, I cannot say the CNN or CBC are news; they are a channel of news. But for me as an individual, I can get more information. And I got more angle to look at different things. But in China things from one, two, or maybe three different angles and never get the full picture. While I don’t get the full picture here either, I get more angles so I can make a better decision. And this is also related to education, definitely. If you don’t have the mindset to analyze or to think in that way, how would you know what is happening around you? How would you observe the society

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in an objective way, right? So the news, the entire freedom, the first amendment to the second amendment, what happened with laws and rules that we have here that protect our freedom. Freedom of speech, the five freedoms I cannot name them all right now. That’s the fundamental basis, I think, for education. Education is not I tell you, you should do this and then you do this. Education is a process. On teaching you how to think as an individual individually.

There are several points I would like to underline in this statement. Firstly, while he acknowledges that news in the United States also cannot reach his ideal of news as a fact, he appreciated the availability of different views and comments. Even though there might also be different news sources in China, they are all under government control and thus can never contribute to a genuine understanding of events or “the full picture”, as he puts it. Secondly, it is very interesting how he connects the aspect of a free press to education. These freedoms are a vital prerequisite for education, in his opinion. Otherwise, the function of education of “teaching you how to think” could not be fulfilled. In consequence, education enables people to think critically and form their own opinions, which may or may not be in line with official agendas. He placed paramount importance on education and the cultivation of this ability when he states that it would be impossible otherwise to understand or observe society. He also implicitly makes a statement about himself: he and his friend, who live in the United States and are educated there, are the ones who have this ability. In this way, they also distinguish themselves from others in China who have not had the chance to develop this ability. They are the ones who are educated and thus able to think for themselves, no longer subject to the government guidelines or vulnerable to input from government-affiliated news outlets. Such an understanding of the self and the role of the self in the context of the Chinese political system is even more pronounced in the following statement by Hailu, who places herself clearly above other Chinese (59/7–8): Because most civilians are stupid to believe such propaganda… not stupid, but I feel pity that they can’t see more, the larger world.

While the others are unable to comprehend the reality of society or transcend government propaganda, she attests superior critical thinking skills to herself. Not only does she understand the “real” social and political goings-on, she even expressed pity for the others who do not have the ability to “see the larger world.” She thus places herself in a separate category as an independent, smart, critical thinker and discerns herself from other Chinese citizens. As in Yanhao’s case, her

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family doesn’t always agree with her views. This does not make her doubt or reevaluate her position. She is nonetheless hesitant to enter into an argumentative confrontation, especially with her senior family members (59/12–19): First of all, I can’t publicly resist their view and say: oh, you are stupid, because they are my family members and they are older than me, most of them, and I am supported by them now, so I can’t reject what they say generally, so I think just being eclectic, I will just say: Oh, I’m not here to support America, I’m just here to contact with more people, to see the larger world and fulfill my personal academic goals… to experience, that’s all I can say now. I hope they can comfort; I hope that this views can balance their nationalism and their expectations for me.

It is nonetheless a strong image that she paints through this statement. Firstly, she again uses the very strong attribution of “stupid” to describe the majority of Chinese and also her own family members. She emerges as clearly superior in comparison. It is only her financial dependence on the aforementioned “stupid” family members that hinder the expression of her political opinions. Could it be assumed that once she has completed her studies and is able to support herself financially that she would more openly try to further her political convictions and influence her family? She also proves her understanding of social norms and expectations placed upon her by listing off the acceptable aspects of studying abroad. She is aware that her family will not object to such goals as pursuing academic excellence, making new friends, or expanding her horizon through traveling. She makes a decision to leave it at that in order to avoid conflict. However, she still secretly wishes to show her family a fresh perspective and counteract their nationalism. In conclusion, while many students expressed their criticisms towards political conditions in China, they were more reserved when facing their family members. The students most frequently mentioned corruption, censorship, propaganda (or misinformation) as problematic. In a broader sense, they wished for a more transparent government and more accountable and critical press. The sentiments of Yanhao and Hailu in this chapter were shared by other interviewees. They often saw themselves as more politically informed and more critical towards the government when compared to their friends and family members whom they perceived as gullible, willing to believe the obvious misinformation from the government. These critical views of the Chinese government also fed into the students’ opinions on the United States and the political and legal circumstances there. The following chapter will look into this in more detail.

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USA—a new National Identity?

Chinese students have usually had some type of exposure to the popular version of the “American culture” prior to their arrival in the United States. Their impressions are based on books, media, Hollywood movies, and the filtered interpretation of friends or relatives who have preceded them to the United States.17 For them, the Statue of Liberty is the symbol of freedom, welcome, and wealth. Some of their impressions are accurate; others are exaggerated. This may make the Chinese students feel more confused about the new culture facing them. When they actually arrive in their new host country, they suddenly realize that some of their dreams are illusions.18

7.4.1

USA as a Land of Freedom and Human Rights

There were a number of positive aspects that the students admired about the United States. While there were obvious mentions of the weather and pleasant campus environment, most of the topics they highlighted were surprisingly political. The majority of students expressed support for ideas connected to social equality and inclusion. They complimented practices they had observed since their arrival, such as wheelchair accessible buildings around campus and the inclusion of sexual minorities in public discourse. One student personally identified as LGBTQ and named a more accepting environment in the USA as the main motivating factor for her stay abroad. Participating in public pride events and LGBTQ-related social events was a unique chance and a welcome change from being closeted in China. These experiences inspired her to plan a future in the United States, where she felt she would have more freedom from the social conventions of marriage and child-rearing. She described the pressure she felt in interactions with her parents and peers in China (63/2–17): Oh, you don’t get married, is there some problem with you, maybe your colleagues will say that (…). You have to get married, you have to have children, you have to have a stable job, you have to otherwise you are deviant. Not only failure, but also

17

Xiaokang Tang, Daniel Collier, and Allison Witt, “Qualitative Study on Chinese Students’ Perception of U.S. University Life,” Journal of International Students 8, no. 1 (January 1, 2018), https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v8i1.158. 18 Yanhong Huang, “A Study of Chinese Students in the United States and Its Implication for English Teaching in China,” Sino-Us English Teaching 2, no. 2 (2005): 45.

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very odd, very queer, very quirky. How can you be like that, you are not like us, not like normal people.

She saw a potential future in the United States as a great opportunity, that she wished she had realized and planned for earlier. However, she remained hopeful to eventually successfully settle down in the USA (63/11–12): “Maybe there are still opportunities open for me. I hope that it’s not too late for me.” Another frequently mentioned topic were the working conditions and labor laws in the United States which were perceived as more fair to employees. Chinese companies were seen as undesirable employers due to long working hours, normalized as “9-9-6” i.e. from nine a.m. to nine p.m. on six days of the week. The top-down hierarchical structures of many Chinese companies which usually leave little room for ideas of junior staff were criticized as well. Worries and complaints about the Chinese working style and companies as well as expressions of admiration for American circumstances were especially prevalent among female interviewees. They cited concerns about gender-based discrimination in the context of the Chinese labor market such as harsh conditions surrounding maternity leaves and childcare-related job absences. Most students had heard of cases where companies had let go of female employees due to family-related time constraints. The students reflected upon both the legal aspect of such instances as well as the social pressures surrounding ascribed gender roles. They felt that the United States could offer protection of individual rights to a certain extent and placed trust in the American judicial system. In the case of being fired for pregnancy or maternity-leave-related issues, for instance, it was a viable option to seek retribution in court in the United States. The same could not be said about China. Mistrust of the judicial system and perceptions of corruption ran deep among this group. In summarizing the comments made about the USA by the participants of this study, most statements were concerned with the political, and legal environment and very few were related to the economic or career-related possibilities. This is surprising when compared to the previous literature on this group. Vanessa Fong, for instance, had claimed that studying abroad was a long-term strategy for families to gain flexible citizenship and global mobility through high-profile careers.19 It is possible that since Fong’s study, there has been a shift in attitudes

19

Fong, Paradise Redefined: Transnational Chinese Students and the Quest for Flexible Citizenship in the Developed World.

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among young people who prefer equitable working conditions and value worklife balance. Some are no longer willing to invest all their efforts into building lucrative careers.20

7.4.2

USA as a Land of Racism and Violence

While many students had idealized the United States before their arrival, imagining it to be a promised land of fair competition, freedom, and personal success and wealth, they soon realized that America is not as perfect as they had thought. Feelings of disillusionment and disappointment were common for many.21 Some aspects brought forth by the participants of this study were related to the challenges of acculturation. This included convenience and organization of everyday life as well as adaptation to the new academic and social environment. There were several acknowledgments of the difficulties of opening a bank account and how such handlings would have been much more efficient in China. Students who had already been in the United States longer were more adept at navigating daily life and thus did not mention such aspects. Continued feelings of disappointment, however, hinged on two factors that were mentioned by the majority of participants: the perceived difference in safety as well the challenges of living in a racially diverse society. These societal issues were commonly seen as “American” problems, which, according to the students, simply do not exist in China. Firstly, frequent robberies and other crimes in neighborhoods around campus were shocking to students who all criticized the lax gun control laws in the United States. Vast numbers of homeless people in surrounding areas, especially around UC Berkeley, also scared students and contributed to their perception of a dangerous environment.22 These concerns were shared and amplified by parents and family members in China who generally viewed America as an extremely unsafe place and definitely much more dangerous than the Chinese hometowns. They frequently worried about their offspring’s safety and warned them of the 20

Lydia Feng, “‘Lying Flat’: The Millennials Quitting China’s ‘996’ Work Culture to Live ‘Free of Anxiety,’” ABC News, October 13, 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/202109-23/tang-ping-lying-flat-generation-rejecting-chinas-work-culture/100477716. Accessed 12.10.2021. 21 Dong, “How Chinese Students Become Nationalist,” 562. 22 Marissa Kendall, “The Bay Area Is Fed up with Homelessness,” Times Herald Online, April 5, 2021, https://www.timesheraldonline.com/2021/05/04/bay-area-residents-are-fedup-with-the-homelessness-crisis-2/. Accessed 12.10.2021.

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dangers of going out at night. Almost all students and parents in my study voiced such opinions. Secondly, entering the complex racial reality of America from an ethnically very homogenous society was certainly a novel experience for Chinese international students.23 Being part of the dominant majority group and then becoming an ethnic minority was challenging and brought new reflections on race and status in their new environment. As most students were the target of racist (micro)aggressions for the first time in their lives, many understood racism to be a specifically American issue. Some even went so far as to claim that there was no racism in China. As pointed out by Lee and Rice, international students studying in the U.S. are likely of a high-socioeconomic status in their home country and may not have been subject to discrimination in their native contexts. Therefore, many students may be especially sensitive to prejudices that place them beneath the dominant culture in the U.S. in economic and social terms.24 The study participants were keenly aware of such prejudices and stereotypes. Discrimination during the search for part-time jobs or scholarships had been experienced by several interviewees and was a shared concern for all. Frustrations surrounding such experiences led to strong feelings of disillusionment and profound doubts about the decision to come to the United States. As one student expressed it (26/46–47): “We hear about the opportunities, and then you come for that, and you don’t get it.” Such sentiment was often a crucial factor when deciding to return to China. The multiracial American dream of upward mobility and success no longer seemed to be within their grasp. Given the setting of California with an extremely high share of Asian immigrants, which are not a marginalized group by any means, such strong disenchantment can be considered surprising and has significant consequences on identity formations. These will be investigated in the following section. 23

The United States are more racially diverse than the People’s Republic of China. This is obvious: various ethnic minority groups make up around 40% of the U.S. population, while in China—even though there are 55 official minority groups—they constitute less than 10% of the overall population. The dominant ethnic group, Han Chinese, make up around 92% of the Chinese population. United States Census Bureau, “National Population by Characteristics: 2010–2019,” Census 2018 (blog), 2020, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2010snational-detail.html. Accessed 8.4.2021. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, “Chinese Ethnic Groups: Overview Statistics” (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2021), https://guides.lib.unc.edu/china_ethnic/statistics. Accessed 22.1.2021. 24 Jenny J. Lee and Charles Rice, “Welcome to America? International Student Perceptions of Discrimination,” Higher Education 53, no. 3 (March 2007): 392, https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10734-005-4508-3.

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Discussion

Through these descriptions of their home country, the students painted a certain self-portrait of their role within the Chinese system. They presented themselves as caring and social—but also superior and critical thinking. Being close to family and friends in their hometowns was an important part of their self-understanding. As most of the interviewees were singletons, they shared an acute sense of responsibility for caring for their aging parents. Living in close proximity—in the hometown maybe—or at least in the same country and time zone as their parents was a big motivator for the move back to China. Friendship ties were another factor that drew many students back to their hometowns. Many still kept in close contact with friends from their childhood. Such connections constituted a vital sense of community. The desire of not wanting to be alone—as they felt they were alone when abroad—was a powerful emotion. It can be assumed that the general atmosphere of collectivism described by intercultural scholars such as Hofstede25 possibly plays a role in this. The shared sense of isolation that many students felt while in the United States could be explained by a culture of individualism which stands in contrast to community life in more collectively oriented societies such as China. Even though developments of individualization have been observed in Chinese society, and it is plausible that young Chinese today hold more individualized values than previous generations (s. Chapter 6), the United States is still considered to have one of the most highly individualistic cultures overall by intercultural scholars. This environment thus can be challenging to adapt to for people who are more community-oriented. Apart from social ties to family and friends, career aspirations also factored into the decision-making process of whether to stay in the USA or to return to China. Especially for students from bigger cities such as Shenzhen, Shanghai, or Xian, a return to their hometowns provided attractive career options. Armed with a foreign degree, fluent English, and overseas experience, the students assumed they would be able to land suitable jobs easily. They were confident in their abilities to navigate the job market even though they were aware of the seemingly vast competition. Some could even be called over-confident. They described the option of a successful career in China as so easily achievable that it became boring. This is key in their self-descriptions and for their sense of identity. They see themselves as the ones who have done everything right and who are readily able 25

Geert Hofstede and Gert Jan Hofstede, Lokales Denken, globales Handeln: interkulturelle Zusammenarbeit und globales Management, trans. Petra Mayer and Martina Sondermann, Originalausgabe, 5., durchgesehene Auflage, dtv 50807 (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Verlag C. H. Beck, 2011).

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to succeed. In other words: after having braved their foreign adventures, they can accomplish anything once they return to their native context. They are the adventurers who can succeed outside of their comfort zones—in the United States—and also within their comfort zone—in their hometowns. In their understanding, this puts them at an advantage compared to their peers who have stayed in China for university. Through their overseas education, they have not only overcome their own limitations and become more attractive for Chinese employers. They have also gained invaluable critical thinking skills allowing them to transcend Chinese societal issues and understand them better than the average citizen. A frequently cited example was the ability to distinguish between government propaganda and “real events” or facts which was gained through American education and life overseas. This ability was not attributed to the rest of the Chinese population: average citizens who were vulnerable to the misinformation by the Chinese government. In short: the students saw themselves as more educated and experienced and, in consequence, more open-minded than the average Chinese who had never lived abroad. An interesting point I would like to highlight here is that even though the interviewees’ sense of superiority and distinctness from other Chinese was substantial, none of them expressed a desire to settle down in America. Only one student, Haidong, expressed a desire to stay in the United States permanently and become a citizen. For others, their rootedness in and connection to China was still stronger. Even for Haidong, although he saw his future in the United States, he did not deny the deep attachment he felt to China. In his own words (22/22–25): And like I told you I want to become the better version, and here I got more things to learn to involve than in China. I study from American society. I can benefit from American society. Also, I know in the very core I’m a Chinese.

From Gidden’s point of view, this combination of national identities is very much in line with theories of modernization. Haidong’s amalgamation of learning from American society while being a Chinese at his core is a perfect example of a newly formed, self-reflective identity that encompasses two previously incontestable identity categories. For him being Chinese at his core and envisioning his entire future in the United States are not a contrast. Instead, he created a new identity category for himself: that of a global citizen. The formation of such in-between identities also supports Giddens’ observations that previously fixed identity categories such as nation, ethnicity, religion etc., have lost significance

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in modern times and could even be considered obsolete in some cases. The students in my study have self-reflexively formed their own identity categories and thus avoided the question of whether or not to include themselves into these more traditional categories such as national identity. They are no longer asking themselves: Am I Chinese OR American? In forming their own categories, they can be both or neither. Such individualized identity categories reflect perfectly their own experiences of navigating these two cultural contexts. Their subjective feeling may indeed be that of “both and neither.” While their distinctness from other Chinese may feel obvious to them during visits back home, alienation and culture shock may also discourage them from complete assimilation into American culture. Forming an in-between identity and positioning themselves as global citizens provides stability for their identity and a sense of coherence for evaluating future experiences.

8

Conclusion

…Many have lost themselves in the environment They step on a thousand flowers in the red carpet; …A caller wants to discuss conditions in the old country; The boys blush and know not what to say. Though they can use the foreign tongue to call one another to play, To summon the waiters to the dinner tables, To chat on varying subjects among themselves, Or to sing high-pitched solos, Yet, as for the Shanghai or Canton dialect, They have forgotten and ceased to understand. … They live a mirage, a paradise, And are showered with fragrant blossoms by the fair ones. They have found the country of superb happiness; They are too happy to think of their fatherland.1 This poem written by Huang Zunxian, the consul-general of China to the USA in 1881, commemorates the premature closure of the Chinese Educational Mission. It touches upon the transformations that the students have gone through in regards to adaptation to their new environment and in regards to their self-identity. They are no longer interested in the “old country” but have established a new sense of belonging in the “country of superb happiness.” This poem also serves as a reminder that migration has been associated with identity re-positioning for as long as it existed. While Huang Zunxian’s conclusion is relatively negative in claiming that the participants of the Chinese Educational Mission are living in 1

William Hung, “Huang Tsun-Hsien’s Poem: ‘The Closure of the Educational Mission in America,’” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 18 (1955): 50–73.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 S. Y. Köksal, Self-Identity Narratives of Chinese Students in the United States, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40627-1_8

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an illusion, he even acknowledges the benefit of successful integration and repositioning in a strange environment. His idyllic notion of being showered with delectable flowers by the “fair ones,” i.e. the foreigners, illustrates the satisfaction of having found one’s place in a new country. For the present-day successors of the students described in this poem, the interviewees in my study, this place of happiness might not be either China or the USA—it might be the more abstract space of global opportunity. The dominant narratives that have emerged show the students as global-minded and highly agentic individuals. This chapter draws the dissertation to a close by providing a summary of these narratives in relation to the research questions. Furthermore, the chapter highlights the contributions to the body of knowledge on this topic. It considers the limitations of this research project as well as potential areas for further inquiry. As outlined in the introduction, this study aimed to investigate the students’ views on themselves and their experience abroad. This includes their detailed self-positioning and self-definitions in regard to the most important social groups, namely the family, the peer group, and the nation-state or broader cultural environment. In short, the question I set out to answer in this study was: what are the students’ narratives of self-identity? How do they tell their stories? Which points do they emphasize when telling their stories? Furthermore, I intended to discuss which societal and cultural discourses could have contributed to the formation of the narratives in my sample. As these processes are multi-faceted, it is evident that the origins of such narratives cannot be finally designated. However, I chose to address certain discourses which I found to be connected to the formation of the narratives or being so dominant as to necessitate a positioning from the side of the study participants. In organizing my findings, I have been inspired to follow the chronology of the students’ journey from China to America. I first inspected their positioning when growing up in China, including their experiences in the Chinese educational system and the family decision-making process preceding studying abroad. I then moved on to their arrival in the United States and discussed their self-definitions in relation to their peers and their new cultural environment. I examined how they set themselves apart from their peers, and what they construed as distinguishing markers. Lastly, I investigated their positioning within the broader national context and their considerations for the future. In conclusion, this study has illustrated how participants interpret their experiences in the United States and which issues they identify as significant for their self-definitions and self-identity. At the center of the analysis is the individuals’ articulation of their perceptions, experiences, and themselves in relation to their surroundings. Students’ narratives reveal how they reflexively reconstruct

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their narrative of past events in China, make sense of their present in the United States, and actively engage in strategic future planning in a highly transnational way. This study has explored the identity formation of Chinese students in the context of study abroad against the backdrop of late modernity. The research project investigated how these individuals construct their self-identity by reflexively creating and maintaining narratives of the self. The participants’ narratives have illustrated how their decision to study abroad shapes their self-identity in the sense that it leads to a reordering of their previous experiences within the Chinese educational system and their families; how they position themselves in regard to their peers and their new environment. According to theorists of late modernity such as Giddens2 and Beck3 , today’s post-traditional society is characterized by globalization and individualization to a greater degree than in previous generations. Subsequently, personhood is no longer predetermined by traditional collective categories such as ethnicity, gender, age, and social class, but it is self-reflexively constructed by each individual in terms of his or her life trajectory and becomes a “reflexive project of the self.”4 The reflexive organization of identity involves maintaining coherent biographical narratives which are dynamic, flexible and revised in order to include critical life events. These narratives typically include memories and future plans in which private “stories” are shaped by the external sociocultural environment in order to create a coherent storyline. Narrative offers a way of understanding the self as a unity. The ability to narrate life events of all kinds—including the transformative move abroad to study—provides individuals with a vital sense of continuity of identity.5 The post-traditional world allows for more freedom of choice in the process of identity construction.6 Nonetheless, there are constraints on the stories individuals’ produce, since narratives of identity would simply not make sense if they did not accord with the broader ‘intelligibility norms’. Social and cultural milieus provide a set of resources on which individuals draw to produce their stories. There are, for example, the plots provided by the literary tradition, by soap operas, ‘expert’ advice talk shows, and so on.7 This understanding of identity forms the basis of my study of Chinese students’ self-definition narratives. In

2

Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity. Calhoun, “Beck, Asia and Second Modernity.” 4 Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity. 5 Taylor, Sources of the Self . 6 Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 5. 7 Lawler, Identity, 237. 3

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line with Giddens’ concept of the reflexive project of the self, I have used narrative methodology to collect material from the study participants. This approach allows the focus group members to share their perspectives and aims to approximate their lived experiences. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 currently enrolled degree students from Mainland China at three University of California institutions. As pointed out by my adviser, Professor Hochgeschwender, California has one the highest densities of students from Mainland China and thus offers better availability of research participants. As it can safely be assumed that the one-child policy, which has been implemented in the People’s Republic of China, excluding Taiwan, Macao, and Hong Kong, has had profound effects on family dynamics and identity, I have selected students who come from the areas where the policy was enacted. The data I collected shows that the child-centered environment brought about by this policy has indeed shaped the young Chinese’ sense of self and contributed to growing individualism in this generation. The interviews prompted participants to reflect on the perception of the United States as a place of study, life experiences before and during their course of study, and potential career progression after graduation. In the interviews, the participants were guided to share their individual backgrounds and previous learning experiences, reflect on their decisions, as well as project into their future. Furthermore, the students were asked to describe their relationships with family members and peers. At the end of the interview, I gave the interviewees space to share something they felt was important but had not come up in the interview. This allowed research participants to direct my attention to new issues. The shortcomings of this qualitative approach, such as the limited representability and generalizability, were considered in the Methods Chapter. Nonetheless, the nature of this highly personal topic necessitated such an approach. My position as a third-country, non-Chinese researcher certainly influenced the interview responses, and implications of this circumstance were mentioned throughout the empirical chapters. The transcribed interview protocols formed the main data for analysis. These were supplemented with several expert interviews, which served the purpose of more thoroughly understanding the study context. Qualitative content analysis, according to Mayring, was used to identify the main themes in relation to the research questions.8 This method for qualitative analysis illustrates data, analyses, and identifies patterns or recurring themes from the data. Throughout the interviews and transcription process,

8

Philipp Mayring, Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse: Grundlagen und Techniken, 12., überarbeitete Auflage (Weinheim Basel: Beltz Verlag, 2015).

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the data were continuously searched and coded for themes which were then analyzed and interpreted as described in the Grounded Theory method.9 The data analysis process is an iterative and recursive process as I moved back and forth between the data and the conceptual framework. Analysis began with open coding, whereby the experiences of the participants were assigned to categories for comparison. I then identified a range of identity codes. All the identity codes were compared across different participants, leading to a set of main identity categories. The specific denominations of the categories were taken from the interview data itself, with only one exception in the category of “People Person.” This denomination was chosen by me as I deemed it the closest approximation of the students’ self-descriptions. All other categories were aligned closely to the students’ self-designations. In the following chapter, an in-depth examination of the historical beginnings of and societal factors fueling the study abroad trend among young Chinese served as an introduction to the context for the reader. Traditions and values associated with education in Chinese culture were discussed, as well as the appraisal of Western education in the context of previous waves of the study abroad movements such as the Chinese Educational Mission and the Boxer Indemnity Scholarships. Factors leading to the establishment of studying abroad as a standard career trajectory among certain social classes have been identified as: firstly, the increasing economic affluence combined with a willingness to invest in education as a pathway to upward mobility; secondly, the cutthroat competition for university places in the domestic setting and growing dissatisfaction with the local educational system; and lastly, the increased marketization both in the Chinese and the American context has consolidated this phenomenon. These developments have been placed within the greater context of the internationalization of education and the growing international student mobility in recent decades. After this historical and societal overview, the Chapters 5, 6, and 7 present the main empirical findings from this study. Chapter 5 examines the self-identity in the familial context and in regards to the domestic educational system. Regarding the decision-making process surrounding the transition abroad, it is notable that the study participants emphasized their agency and portrayed themselves as the active part of the family equation. They often mentioned that they had initiated the conversation about studying abroad or convinced their family members that this was an idea worth pursuing. This was discussed in detail in Section 5.1. The narratives constructed by the students highlighted their dominant role within 9 Juliet M. Corbin and Anselm L. Strauss, Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory, Fourth edition (Los Angeles: SAGE, 2015).

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the family and presented them—mostly singletons—as a powerful family member, while the parents often appeared as mere financial enablers. While other research on the single child generation confirms such tendencies and points to the gained emotional value and generational impact of children, the bias inherent in the data, which was collected only from the students, is not lost on this researcher. If detailed interviews had been conducted with the parents, it would have allowed for a more nuanced view of actual communication in families. This was initially included in the study design but not implemented due to Covid-19related travel restrictions. The following Section 5.2. investigated the connections between education and upward mobility in the perception of the Chinese families who decided to send their offspring abroad. Their views of an overseas degree as a sort of investment leading to a competitive edge in the job market, a potentially lucrative career, and finally, financial security for the other family members were discussed. This chapter also looked into the study participants’ experiences in the Chinese educational system, which contributed to their desire to study abroad. Their narratives centered on their uniqueness and individual talents which were not recognized in the Chinese system, such as leadership abilities, critical thinking, or creativity. A common storyline constructed by the students was that they were full of potential but not able to thrive within the confines of the rigid educational system in China; that their bubbly or practically oriented personalities made them a better fit for the more holistically oriented American educational structures. Many students appreciated the integration of sports or social engagements such as volunteering into the application process and assumed that such activities were more valued in the context of the American system. In Chapter 6, I examined the different subcategories that have emerged from my material when it comes to positioning within the peer group: the Enthusiastic Learner, the People Person and the Global Citizen. The chapter investigated these categories and the backgrounds that could have lead to their formation. While it would not have been feasible within the scope of this dissertation to conduct a discourse analysis on each of these categories, the societal, cultural, and historical backdrop is vital for their analysis. For instance, the pervasive stereotype of Asians as a model minority could influence the students’ positioning as model pupils. The term “model minority” was coined by journalists in the 1970 s after immigration reform made it possible for highly qualified migrants to enter the United States in unprecedented numbers. Their skills and education made the “American dream”—stable, white-collar employment, homeownership, etc.—more attainable for them than for previous working-class immigrant groups. The students in my study are probably not aware of these historical details; however, they may have

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been confronted with this common view on people of their ethnicity in mainstream American society, and this in turn potentially shapes their self-narratives. Students in the category People Person chose to highlight their sociability, likability and extroversion. This became a distinguishing maker in their narratives when they compared themselves to their friends and classmates. They centered their superior social skills which they wanted to use to influence others. From the point of view of this group of students, their interpersonal skills make the ideal management material, or in their own words: leaders. While the two previous categories consider worldliness (global citizen) and academic prowess (enthusiastic learner) as their main distinguishing criteria when relating to their peer group, this category is speaks less to obvious externally measures criteria but is more personality-oriented. In an environment rife with stereotypes about shy Asians, it seems plausible that the participants of my study feel the urge to set themselves apart and rectify this patronizing image. For the category of Global Citizen, I pose the question of where this term comes from and what is associated with it in the context of the lived experience of the students. In fact, the students had a relatively narrow understanding of this very nuanced term. For them it was equated with travel experience and speaking more than one language. It is nonetheless interesting to witness how they highlighted the transnational aspects of their lives and strove to present themselves as cosmopolitan. It certainly speaks to the deep meaning they attach to living and studying abroad as a vital component of their identity. In order to fully comprehend these categories, I also delve into the developments of individualization in Chinese society in modern times. These follow the question posed in Chapter 3 (Identity) of whether or not theories of individualization proposed by Giddens apply to the Chinese context but consider more specifically how individualization plays out in the lived experiences of the young Chinese in my study. The profound political and societal changes that have taken place in China during their lifetime have certainly entailed a shift in values. Several studies have shown that today’s youth is more secular and individualized than previous generations. The findings in my study also show the tendency of the young generation to orient themselves towards smaller social units than before, such as the family or their immediate friend group. Whereas it might have been the norm in the 1960 s or 1970 s to submit personal interests to the greater good of the work unit or the Communist party, today’s youth are more pragmatic, opportunistic, and self-actualized. However, the participants of my study may also have been influenced by the highly individualized cultural environment surrounding them and come from urban, affluent backgrounds. Many have grown up in child-centered families with their parents’ and grandparents’ attention focused on them. They are thus a specific group of Chinese that may

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be more attuned to individualistic viewpoints than other societal groups, such as in rural areas. The last chapter inspects national identity narratives. I tried to give a neutral platform for students to voice their opinions regarding both countries—China and the United States. There were complaints and praises of both national contexts and systems, as well as various expressions of emotional attachment, cultural familiarity, or opportunistic opinions on the benefits of living in either of the two nation-states. I found that students’ understanding of national identity was more nuanced than previous research had led me to believe. Much more than the blind patriotism discussed in previous scholarship and in the media, the students in my study expressed fondness for China as a nation-state as well as a cultural and emotional place, as well as criticism of both. Among the topics most frequently criticized were corruption, censorship, and misinformation from the government paired with a lack of transparency, accountability, and free press. Several interviewees also expressed their frustrations with the lack of equitable working conditions and labor laws in China, which made them hesitant to take up employment there. Simultaneously, the students still felt very connected to their families and friends in their hometowns. Only children were acutely aware of the responsibility of taking care of their parents in old age, and most saw this as an obligation to take seriously. While students remained emotionally attached to China, many expressed admiration for the American way of life, specifically for the inclusion of minority groups such as LGBTQ or disabled people and more favorable working conditions. Overall, the students positioned themselves towards the United States in a balanced and critical way, showing off a deep understanding of cultural practices and societal realities. However, even those students who planned a future in the USA didn’t identify themselves as American. Most still foregrounded their Chinese-ness and perceived it as a central part of their identity. The participants of my study all showed great agency and determination to create a good life for themselves. Although this study offers various contributions, it is unrealistic to regard any study as ‘perfect’ and, thus, it is necessary to be critical and transparent about the limitations of the present study. Firstly, the 29 participants of this study are obviously too small as a sample to offer broad generalizations to other international student groups or other intercultural settings. The sample certainly does not intend to be representative, and this is one of the study’s main shortcomings. While this dissertation has illustrated the processes of identity formation, reflexivity, and agency in depth through the benefits afforded by a qualitative research design, it is nevertheless only a partial account. Secondly, a longitudinal approach would have allowed me to map out identity developments during the participants’

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stay in the United States in a more profound way. Identity is, after all, not static but highly dynamic, and it can be assumed that identity formations change to a great degree during a critical life event such as a transition abroad. Unfortunately the limited available time and high living cost in California hindered me from spending more time on the ground. A certain amount of attention has been paid to temporal milestones through participants’ retrospective interviews, but a longitudinal study design would have enriched the data and served to understand the students’ experiences better. Following the students over the course of several years would have allowed the researcher to map out their identity development and acculturation process in great detail. It would have been highly interesting to see how their self-positioning shifts and transforms as they adapt to life in the United States and would have opened up valuable comprehension of integration processes. Most social scientists would probably agree that longitudinal studies are highly useful and provide rich insights but are also, in most cases, costly, laborious, and demanding to organize. As longitudinal studies typically run over the course of several years, it would have clearly gone beyond the scope of this doctoral dissertation. However, a longer time period of fieldwork and more exposure to the study participants would still have been desirable for this study. If I had been able to stay longer, I might have succeeded in recruiting a more diverse sample. While I am content with having found sufficient participants for my study during my short time in the United States, I am nonetheless aware of the slant of my sample towards female undergrads majoring in social sciences and humanities. In order to offer a more well-rounded representation of this student group, I should have offset this imbalance by recruiting more male or STEM students, as well as more students from advanced phases of study. Lastly, another potential limitation is linked to the difficult research conditions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. While I had originally planned to conduct fieldwork both in the United States and China to gain a detailed understanding of the students’ situation and to interview several other involved parties such as educators and family members, the Covid-19 pandemic made this impossible. Although I began my fieldwork in China in January 2020, the lockdowns and other related restrictions forced me to return prematurely and without having completed the interviews as planned. I have not been able to return since China’s borders remain closed at the time of writing and will probably not open again for scholars in the foreseeable future. Additionally, the pandemic has triggered anti-Asian hate crimes and increased anti-Chinese racism and thus crucially altered the environment that Chinese international students enter when they come to the United States. Political relations between the two countries have also grown tenser, manifested, for

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instance, in restrictive visa policies and even in some cases, the revocation of visas for Chinese students and scholars. Future research might investigate the experience of other student groups with an ethnographic perspective as opposed to viewing international students as working towards a certain extraneous goal such as completion of a degree or successful integration into the labor market. It might also be interesting to examine Chinese students’ plans, and expectations for their future careers, including aspects such as interculturally variant work ethics and opinions on ideal working conditions. Foreign-educated Chinese are highly sought after employees in both the United States and China. Thus, gaining a better understanding of what makes this often profoundly qualified and driven group tick is relevant and helpful not only for researchers but also for employers. There are several topics that I would have liked to look into but proved to be too extensive for the scope of this dissertation. I observed an interesting pattern of digital communication and non-disclosure between students and their family members in China. Although they were digitally connected on a daily or weekly basis, and many scholars thus argue that technological advancements have made transnational families closer, culturally taboo topics such as academic failure, death, or illness were still avoided in the same way as in non-transnational families. It would be interesting to examine the question of how technology and social media impact culturally formed patterns of communication in more detail. Another topic that was at the forefront of students’ consciousness and clearly challenging to them was the lack of adequate Chinese food options during their stay abroad. While this may seem mundane at first, the students’ insistence and detailed reports on the topic led me to believe that food holds more significance in the acculturation process than previously thought. Additionally, food and foodrelated activities provide meaningful opportunities for cultural learning for all parties involved, Chinese students themselves but also host country nationals and other international students. The present study explores a topic that has been neglected by the scholarly community so far: the identity negotiation of Chinese international students in the United States, specifically in California. As mentioned in the literature review section of this thesis in the introductory chapter, most of the research on this group of students has focused on their difficulties in the adaptation to a new environment. Their social and academic acculturation processes have been investigated in numerous studies. Culturally distinct notions of academic ownership, citation, and writing, as well as differing cultural patterns regarding interactions with the teaching staff, have been the topic of a multitude of studies seeking to assimilate Chinese students into the conventions of Western academia. Chinese

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students were often essentialized and stereotyped, for instance, when discussing their allegedly distinct learning styles. Their social behavior was frequently problematized, and they were described as self-segregating with nationalist tendencies, lacking critical thinking skills and intercultural competence. In contrast, my study offers a more nuanced portrait of Chinese students’ lived experiences, exploring in-depth their perceptions and perspectives by foregrounding their individual narratives. I hope to contribute to a more balanced view of this group of students by moving away from problematic overgeneralizations. As social scientists, we continuously attempt a balance between addressing certain cultural tendencies in our work and still representing the heterogeneity of the social groups we investigate. It is my sincere intention that this study could paint a more colorful picture of the specific group of my interviewees and of Chinese international students in general. This is all the more meaningful in a COVID19-stricken world where racism against the Chinese has reportedly increased.10 As I finish writing this dissertation, Chinese in America are faced with an unprecedented number of racist attacks and micro-aggressions that have increased through the Kung-Flu rhetoric and biased news coverage of the “Chinese virus” as being connected to unhygienic dietary habits. In providing alternative perspectives on Chinese international students, I wish to counter stereotypes and build a bridge for intercultural understanding. In my opinion, it would be highly beneficial to all individuals involved if communities receiving large numbers of Chinese or other international students developed a more nuanced understanding of them. After all, intercultural connections such as the ones created during an educational sojourn entail not only confusion and conflict but can inspire us with fresh ideas and prompt us to question our worldviews and thus crucially enrich our lives. In fact, the receiving communities and sojourning international students can equally benefit from each other and provide valuable learning opportunities. International exchange in the formative years of youth can contribute to genuine intercultural competence and open-mindedness on the side of the students. The students gain an invaluable chance to broaden their horizons, interact with people from different backgrounds, and experience a different lifestyle. It is my personal conviction that every student and, in fact, every person should have the opportunity to do so if they are willing and able. Universities and teaching staff can build up their international networks for future research collaborations through encounters with international students who may later become leading in their fields. The learning opportunities for teaching and administrative staff who are in 10

Liu, “Covid-19 Has Inflamed Racism against Asian-Americans. Here’s How to Fight Back.” Accessed 17.6.2021.

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contact with international students on a daily basis are often overlooked. While systemic issues such as time constraints and a multitude of tasks may contribute to an inclination or desire to assimilate international students into the domestic culture, the opportunities for cultural dialogue and exchange are ignored. It is my hope that university staff in charge of international students come to view these students as more than representatives of their countries and find a way to communicate with them openly and individually rather than relying on stereotypes. It is my experience—through this study and also through my occupation as a social worker in China and Hong Kong—that Chinese youngsters are much more than the common stereotypes held by Westerners. I have not found them to be shy, uncritical, or oblivious to name just a few commonly held stereotypes.11 In contrast, I have encountered many bright, hard-working, and engaging young people who are ready and willing to make their mark in this world. In the context of conducting interviews for this study especially, I have often been pleasantly surprised at their maturity, high degrees of self-reflection and self-actualization, and critical thinking. After all, intercultural adaptation is a challenging and often frustrating process no matter what age we are or what background we come from. Re-forming one’s own identity and finding one’s own place after migration is onerous and intricate for everyone who has to do so. But it is also enriching and offers so many new opportunities for growth and self-development. In other words, I hope that my study can contribute to a better understanding of these processes and provide more nuance to people who encounter Chinese international students. The students in my study were not the first to wander between the United States and China, and they may not be the last. I wish them and all other travelers, migrants, and sojourners the very best on their journey.

11

Ruble and Zhang, “Stereotypes of Chinese International Students Held by Americans.”

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