An American in China

I am thrilled to have been placed in China for my term abroad. I have been to Hong Kong once before, but this will be my first time in mainland China. I have some knowledge about Chinese culture, but it is limited and lacking personal experience. I look forward to the opportunity to be immersed in a new culture, and I hope to prepare myself well for this experience.

As I discovered through the Cultural-Context Inventory, I personally score fairly high in the high context category. As it turns out, America is a largely low context culture. I had never been exposed to these context categories before, but they make a lot of sense to me in light of my score and how I feel that I fit into my own culture. Especially in the areas of learning style and perception of time, I have at times felt constrained by my culture because I do not hold the same views of these topics that the larger society does. However, I was excited to find that China is a predominantly a high context culture. I look forward to experiencing a culture that I may already share some similar views with. Of course I realize that cultural barriers will certainly still exist in abundance, however I hope that it may be a smoother transition because of the shared views. 

One of my characteristics that is also reflected in high context cultures is the preference of identifying with a group. Although I may have this ideal in common with my Chinese peers, I fear that I may struggle at first because I will be on my own in China. I look forward to making friends and forming a community with individuals at the university, but I realize that this may happen slowly due to language barriers, cultural differences and simply being new to the school. I hope that I am not in a situation that give me too much time on my own. I have found that I do not naturally  thrive in situations where I feel alone for extended periods of time. However, I do enjoy independence and the satisfaction of accomplishing tasks on my own. Ideally, I will be able to reconcile these two tendencies within myself so that I can simultaneously embrace being on my own at times, while also being motivated to pursue relationships and engage with the community.

Hopes and Dreams for Study Abroad

When I started this journey toward study abroad I could scarcely comprehend choosing just one place of interest as my first preference. Many emails, conversations, self-reflections, website visits and research sessions later, after weighing every bit if information that I had gathered, I made my decision. In truth, even upon submission of my application I wasn't quite sure that I had made the right choice. Maybe I should've switched my first and second... nevertheless, it was done. However, through a series of events, my perspective has changed. Now I find myself daily eager and hopeful that I will be placed at my first choice school. 

If I get accepted to China, I have many hopes and dreams for the experience. First and foremost, I aspire to learn Mandarin. Although I am well aware of the challenge that learning this intricate language will certainly prove to be, I see it as a tremendous opportunity. Being immersed in the Chinese language and culture daily will surely strengthen my motivation to learn it myself. In addition, I want to travel. I could spend my entire semester traveling within China and never experience anywhere close to all that there is to see. Thankfully, the University makes it very possible for international students to take numerous trips throughout the semester, even taking precedence over classes at times. Finally, I hope to make friends from all kinds of backgrounds and ethnicities. Fortunately, this will certainly be possible since this University has not only close to 50,000 Chinese students, but also many international students from all over the world. 

I look forward to this impending adventure with great anticipation. I hope to learn a great deal about adaption and acquisition to living in a new culture. My fear is that I may make significant cultural mistakes, or find it difficult to adjust to a new set of societal expectations. However, I plan to approach the situation with a sense of adventure and confidence, as well as humility and a desire to learn. Ideally, these attributes will serve me well on this journey.

I have made a list of 3 things that I plan to do before I go that I hope will maximize my experience abroad. I'm sure that there will be many more as time goes on.

1. Educate myself on the country and culture that I will be living in. Ideally, I can meet individuals from China (or wherever I go) who can share with me firsthand what it is like.

2. Learn a little bit of Mandarin (or whatever language I will be learning) before I go. Even if it is just a concept of the language and a few key phrases. 

3. Make a friend who has previously been to China (or wherever...) and get their advice on what to bring/expect.