In Japan, if you speak Japanese well, eventually they stop forgiving you as "oh, he's just a foreigner", and they hold you to similar standards. I.e. You should be careful how you express your opinion/thoughts to an elder.
Similarly, in China, it took me a bit to adjust to how direct Chinese people were about certain topics. For example, they will call you "fat" or call out many personal flaws that we would not do in America. (I know this is counter to the traditional thinking that Chinese are very withdrawn).
Similarly, with language, Japanese people will rarely call out any grammar/pronunciation error. Instead, they will ask a question, or give a gesture that you have to read into and infer from. Chinese people will call you out very directly, maybe even embarrass you in front of people to the point where you are too shy to speak. They don't mean it personal, they are just more open to this sort of direct personal criticism.
The author also mentioned jokes. I can relate to this, learning the language, let alone the culture is hard enough. Often times, humor is even harder as it requires a deep understanding of both language and culture.
Like the other said, the list goes on and on, but these things take so many years to adapt to and overcome. They are huge barriers to cultural integration.
I have a lot of respect for foreigners who even attempt to integrate with our culture (and vice versa).
p.s. I admit, I have gained some weight, so the criticism is deserved :)
There is also something else I notice: some people will decide they will not understand you because you look/are foreign no matter how hard you try or even if you don't make not many mistakes. There is a famous video about that[1] but this is not limited to Japan, I also saw it in France too with foreigners trying to speak French.
Also even in a cultural area there can be wide differences. Almost all Mandarin speakers I interact with (be they Taiwanese, mainlanders or huaqiao) seemed quite happy to talk their language with me. The Japanese not so much. I even sometimes hide my Japanese language ability and play it dumb to fit more in a group. And I plan not to expose a too great ability the day I got it unless necessary precisely too avoid being judged to harsh by the local standards.
That was my impression when I'd studied in Japan decades ago (but TBH it was so long ago I can't really recall if it had happened to me personally), however it seems that it is getting better. I actually saw your linked video by way of another [0], and the people he'd interviews generally finds the scenario ridiculous, too. Moreover, there's a follow-up video [1] where he put the premise* to the test, and majority of people replied in Japanese back.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLBShiGoJFo
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TofNjIjt0TQ
(*) TBF, the various sampling / editorial biases aside, his setup was not quite right in the follow-up video. He should have had a pair, one Japanese and one foreigner, had the foreigner ask for directions, and see if the test subjects a) replied back in Japanese, and b) repeatedly directed their replies to the Japanese of the pair.
I have encountered this as well. It also happens more frequently from foreigners who have learned English (perhaps even better than your studying of language X) and they just don't want to talk to you in their language.
Fortunately, most people are not like this, and from my experience of both Japanese/Chinese people, they are very open to communicate with you in their language.
With the only exception being that you have to speak a bit more Chinese before English speaking Chinese people will agree to speak Chinese regularly with you, versus Japanese where they will speak Japanese to you from almost day one if you want. (which is a blessing and problem since you won't understand much) haha
Sort of like the famous Yahoo Answers query: "Has anyone ever been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?"
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100225111311A...
To me Americans are focused on being PC while not dealing with the root cause. In the case of "fat" the root problems is that Americans tend to shame & hate those who are fat. It has become a negative stigma, but instead of attacking the root cause we have removed fat as an adjective and think that by removing the hateful term (hateful by usage not by definition) we have solved the problem.
I wonder if this is an inherent Chinese thing or a Maoist thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session
I remember everyone who shat on me. Swimming against a culture is different from being a contrarian. One is challenging the fundamental premises of a people; the other is innovating within them. The former is biologically designed to hurt.
Corollary: call your friends when they are fired. I remember everyone who called me when I quit my first job.The congratulations? Can't remember one.
TL;DR Engage where others aren't engaging. At a minimum, you will reap rare cognitive primitives.
During undergraduate, I participated in international competitions twice, both times with a Chinese girl on the team I led and who both times tried to collude with competing teams in China (who were colluding with each other) until I yelled at her to either stop or get out of the room and let the rest of the team finish without her.
I've seen this in two out of two institutions, and have had this confirmed by friends at other schools.
In the first big boy job I got, we hired a Chinese guy who ended up having lied on his resume about being able to code. At my last position, I've admonished the Chinese guy on my team at least once for copy pasting others' code into PRs without understanding it (which would never even occur to me to do because it is so obviously wrong), and have once caught flat out lying about having done something, apparently because he thought I wouldn't check his work.
All of these cases have been with people who went to high school or undergrad in China. The ones I've met who grew up here seem to be better about it.
So, personally, I look down on what I've seen of Chinese culture for this reason. Not people - culture; when I work with someone that grew up in China, I check for cheating and lies, because of what I've seen of the culture. With people that grew up outside China, I don't worry as much.
I expect I'll get a negative response to this, and I don't care. I'm criticizing a culture, not a race, and these are my life experiences with that culture. It's possible I've just had an extremely unlikely series of uncounters, but, tautologically, that is extremely unlikely.
I use the Stylish Chrome extension with this override for Quora to achieve this:
html,body,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,.box_feed,.box_feed div,p,.link.selected,blockquote {
font-family:"Tahoma", Sans-serif;
}
As an immigrant, I have also chosen to try to join my adopted culture. I spend a great deal of time studying cultural practices. I wear traditional Japanese clothing most of the time in the summer (western clothes are better suited for winter, I have to say). I make traditional Japanese preserves, and live a traditional Japanese lifestyle (as much as my Japanese wife will let me, anyway...).
There are people here who are similarly interested in American culture. They want to learn about it and practice it and live it. My Canadian background makes me feel embarrassed to say it, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. While being able to experience outside cultures inside your own country is wonderful, also make sure to experience what makes your country great. Keep your culture and traditions alive, because they are important. There will be people from other countries who want to participate in that experience. Be sure to welcome them as well.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive, IMO. Quite on the contrary, I think in order to successfully adapt, you have to know where you stand in the first place. What fits you, what does not. It is an ever-going process, long and sometimes painful. But in the end, it will force you to better understand your own background, its virtue and weakness alike, and what difference has America bringing to it.
And to what code do you switch when people of conflicting cultures are present in the same room with you?
> as being quiet and
> reserved in the public
In my opinion, people in the US are, without realizing it, very hypocritical and very stuck-up when it comes to racism. If your roommates joke that you will study all day, they are being really rude, but making fun at a cultural difference which is indeed very noticable (in general, Asian students study way more than American students). I don't think this is racism. The basic problem is that people think that being racist is a binary thing that can be triggered by saying something bad about groups of people (nowadays, it doesn't even have to be a racial group anymore). It is a very bad thing that such an undefined thing is taken so seriously (I think the usual definition of 'racism' is 'the idea that people of some racial groups are inferior to people of other racial groups', which would make the only racist thing to literally say that people of some racial groups are inferior to people of other racial groups.
I think similar behaviour against other ethnic groups should be treated the same way as this behaviour against Asians (as rude, but not racist). I think it is mainly due to Asian people who deal with mockery very well (as illustrated in this story). In the long run, I think it will only benefit Asians. For example when I am around black friends, I will subconsciensly watch my words and avoid touchy subjects or remarks.
One of the things I've always found shocking about America, as an Asian immigrant myself, is how black people are treated as more foreign, in their own country, than actual foreigners. There are small pockets of unintegrated Asians (mostly first generation immigrants) but cities all over the country are highly segregated along black/white lines. If you really want to understand what makes American culture tick, live somewhere like Philadelphia or Baltimore for awhile.
Baltimore here, almost two decades. If the point you're using my city to make were as obvious as you make it sound, I would not now need to ask that you make it explicit.
A lot of people on the left now describe the latter as discrimination, arguing that only institutional discrimination can be called racism, which can make some discussion confusing.
However black Americans have had the weird status of being majority in some states with a unique subculture and history while also being a tiny minority across the entire country. Now mix in relatively recent interstate migration and race mixing and their subculture has an interesting problem where if they integrate, its always better for every individual, but then their unique culture and history as a group will be annihilated. White people and "americans in general" have a variety of social signalling goals they share and the black folk in cultural self preservation mode will self police to maintain their unique non-white non-american-in-general accent, views about education, work, religion, food, criminality, even down to card games and sports. See also the culturally sensitive area of insults like "acting white" and the concept of being an uncle tom.
Meanwhile for the majority locals, all of us came from groups that immigrated and integrated and created our own shared mythologies about all kinds of ridiculous stuff. Someone who insists on being an unintegrated Polish patriot, for a random example, is seen as inadequate to integrate or too dumb to successfully socialize or at best misguided, but either way is going to get a really low social status from the integrated americans. There is some "slap in the face" animosity, what we're not good enough for you?
So you can see the source of the stress in this unique situation. If they integrate and become Americans, that's likely extremely good for them on an individual level, but then their culture would literally be annihilated from the planet because there is no reservoir of afro-american culture other than the state of Mississippi. If they don't integrate, intentionally or by failure, they'll be seen as extremely low social status by descendants of those who successfully integrated. So we end up with a crazy love hate relationship can't live together, can't live apart, tons of drama.
The final cultural lesson is everyone already involved kinda knows of this uncomfortable situation so its hopelessly socially inappropriate to discuss outside some hollywood comedy or drama movies. There's a lot of pressure from both sides and the pressure is worst on those least capable of handling pressure, that being young folks full of hormones and lacking in wisdom, patience, and logic. Meanwhile other folks think the problem exists solely so they can get into social media holiness signalling spirals which doesn't really help anyone on any side. And there's plenty of racists on both sides with varying ratios of liking their own folks and hating the other folks egging things on. So the map drawn for foreigners has "here be dragons" for good reason.
One of my white roommates who mocked me in the story was actually a hardcore Bernie supporter who stood up for black culture at the drop of a dime, so I found it curious that he viewed people of my culture so negatively.
I don't think you could say that there's a similar vein of humor with African-American culture that's developed, and that's principally historical: America's slave holding history is still an open-wound today, and its social concepts around African-Americans were widely based on making sure they were viewed as lesser.
EDIT: This isn't to say either is ultimately good. There's a pretty important difference between occasional good humor that transitions into something of more malevolent intent, but how people perceive them appropriateness very much matters.
Just curious, did you perceive a certain level of malice with their mocking, or was it more lighthearted? I can't speak for Americans, but here in Australia, mocking from your friends is a sign of acceptance and mateship. It's a way of indirectly indicating that you're comfortable enough with someone to knock them around a bit, it's a complimentary way of saying "I know you're strong enough to handle it".
I don't want to risk sidelining your experience, but is there a chance they may have seen you as one of the boys?
I wonder if his roommates were attempting to give him some social cues about what kind of behaviour they wanted and/or trying to ease their own discomfort about living with someone from a different culture.
"In the group text, they joked that I would go out and play basketball all day, only listen to rap and hip hop, coming back late at night, and even joked that they should all move out because of me..."
Would this be an okay use of humor to ease their discomfort?
Basically it seems worse if you reinforce stereotypes against a group that is already struggling.
Whether you're punching up or down, racism and sexism are ugly and disgusting, regardless of what Bidel-Pavda[0] and her ilk would claim.
[0] http://wetasphalt.com/content/why-racism-prejudice-power-wro...