The Role Of Social Ties In Social Adaptation Process Among Russian Immigrants: Case Study Of The Russians Living In Guangzhou.

Nowadays, in the era of rapid globalization, much concern has been given to the social adaptation of emigrants. Recently many sociologists and ethnologists put their potential together to study this process. However the case of Russian emigrants has not fully obtained scholars'attention. In our work we study the Russian emigrants'adaptation to the Guangzhou's local society. From the view of social relations we analyze the Russians'social activity tendencies and the role of"ties"in their minority development. Our attempt is to see the influence of local society's culture, language, religion and the other factors on the traditional Russian interpretation of interpersonal relationship. The rhythm of life in Guangzhou plays a leading role in the development of ties, while social network development with the local society became one of minority's life's most important aspects。Firstly, we examine the meaning of"social ties"in Russian culture. As the initial point, we start from two important historical times of Russian culture's and nation's development process. Firstly we discuss the influence of nation's main characteristics like devotion, freedom and benevolence to the interpersonal relationships, and then we examine"ties"concept trough the historical perspective of the 20th century. We use the case research method, provide interview with 6 company executives, 16 company employees, 6 free businessmen and 4 teachers, in order to study Russian emigrants local relationships network of these 32 cases. In first chapter its homogeneity is been investigated, we attempt to compare the social position difference pattern between the Russians and their friends. In the second chapter, the networks non-uniformity is been studied in order to determine ratio of Chinese, Russian and foreign friends in personal networks. Through the investigation of network social support in the third chapter we aim to study the difference of Russian personal network from those of locals. Finally, we summarize the information obtained through the survey and explain recent tendencies of Russians network formation, using opinion of local consulate's vice-consul. Then we link"ties"concept in Russian culture with the network formation behavior of Russians of Guangzhou. In the end we provide information about recent situation of Russian social networks, saying that those are very dispersible, weak and don't have strong connection to the main society. In the conclusion part we discuss the opinions of modern sociologists and provide our own vision of possible reasons about this issue.