studying in the uk makes chinese reflect on china

It's not so much whether they are a-political. A lot of them are impressed by simple things like they don't have to worry about air pollution when they go out. That can still change someone's perceptions. But, sure, a lot find it incredible we can lampoon our leaders.

As to the bit in the article about girls and marriage, I can speak from personal experience how being in the UK changed people's attitude. One of my ex-s was all "I can't have sex before I'm married" and "I need to get married soon" when I first met her. Then after a bit she relaxed and realised she could live her life as she saw fit, rather than what society expected from her. Of course that doesn't happen to everyone, but it still does affect a lot of them.

Also it's the guys that tend to huddle in clusters - the girls seem to be more interested in making non-Chinese friends.

Also it's the guys that tend to huddle in clusters - the girls seem to be more interested in making non-Chinese friends.

hey raj you sly dog you! i am glad to see you are welcoming the ladies to britain ;p i'd also agree that it does tend to be men that hang around in groups and not integrate so much, but could that be because they're not getting the smooth moves and charm from people like yourself?

Well, I've always said I'm a good host. 8)

In all seriousness she was a very special, intelligent and thoughtful (not forgetting highly sexy) lassie who made me very happy for a whole year - she was even such a darling that she asked if I could come back with her to China at one point, though of course that wasn't possible for me. We remain good friends.

I think it's partly because they lack the confidence to ask them out, though some also just aren't interested. It's a bit of a stereotype, but my old missus said one reason she was still available when she met me was that the Chinese guys that she knew liked her never asked her out - and she wasn't going to see people like that. She found the same thing when she went back to China - her current man had the same luck as I did!

Back to the original topic, some Americans have the naive and culturally superior notion that foreign students who come to the US to study are going to get religion and become believers in democracy and social liberalism. To the contrary, some become anti-American. On my bookshelf are two polemic tomes by a Korean medical doctor and Chinese graduate of a US university, both of whom weaved together their own and others' personal experiences and observations together with statistics and historical facts to communicate to Korean and Chinese readers that America is a despicable nation and Americans a despicable people. The Korean hatefest is modestly titled, I Dislike America.

I can say that most of the exchange students I met at the University of Chicago were rather apolitical, although that may be because they were all econ majors :P.

As for how other Chinese people changed, I do remember two fellow students that changed in very different ways as a result of the United States. One, a girl, was basically date-raped by a white guy during her freshman year and never really fit into American culture; consequently hated the United States for the rest of her life; she now teaches English at a high school in China (passing on her experiences I suppose). The other was my best friend in college; he really partied it up at my school, made a lot of friends from many different cultures, and ended up marrying a white girl who now writes for a leading foreign policy magazine.

I think a significant portio of a person's views of the country they are staying at depend on the culture of the college they attend. Most students I know tend not to identify themselves as students in America, but rather students at Chicago, Yale, Harv, Princeton, Wharton, Oxford, Cambridge, etc.

That is a significant difference from many Western students in China, who seem to think that all Chinese colleges are similiar and the country is monolithic. But that topic is for another thread and another day.

T_co wrote:

Oh, c'mon! A spin on the ol' whitey can't tell us apart. I was a working gal not a student and I know that Qinghua and Beida are the top two universities in the country. Renda is ranked highly, too, I believe, and Shanghai's Jiaotong gets a lot of press. I know that universities in Beijing are held in higher esteem than universities elsewhere and universities in the the big cities rank higher than provincial universities. In my former city of residence, Ocean University of China is more prestigious than Qingdao University. Qingdao #59 Middle School is number one and #2 Middle School is appropriately #2.

Korea and China work on the same ranking principles: capital location beats other large cities, and large cities beat provinces.

Right, but do you know which school in China is the "rich slacker school" or the "hardcore academic school"?

fair point, but even within chinese unis there are slacker departments....

@T_co,

Neither Qinghua nor Beida is a "rich slacker school." There may be a few kids whose parents paid bribes to slip them, but most of the kids on campus passed the exams with high scores, and given China's high unemployment rate for college grads, I can't imagine them goofing off too much.

actually, Renda is the school of choice for the well-connected. There are others. On the other hand, Zhengzhou is the equivalent of UIUC.

Ironic, considering the meaning of the name.