A Study On Asymmetry Of Cross-cultural Adaptation

The communications and exchanges between Chinese and American overseasstudents have become increasingly frequent since the implementation of the Opening upand Reform policy. From2009to2012, the total number of American students whocame to China was around139100, which is9times the total number who came in1995.At the same time, large numbers of Chinese overseas students went to America as well toseek further study. As a unique group of sojourners, overseas students face manychallenges such as language barriers, academic pressure and accommodation problems,which have greatly aroused the interest of scholars at home and abroad. Though manystudies have been made regarding the problems of overseas students’ cross-culturaladaptations, seldom have researchers symmetrically probed into making comparisonsbetween the adaptive levels of Chinese and American overseas students. In this paper,the author will look into the characteristics of Chinese and American overseas students’adaptive levels, making analysis of the factors that influence their adaptations andproposing solutions to help them cope with the challenges. This paper will also helpunderstand further factors that influence cross-cultural adaptation and help overseasstudents adapt to new culture in a quicker and better way.Ward’s cross-cultural adaptation theory will be applied as the theory foundation inthis paper in purpose of figuring out the adaptation levels of90overseas students fromchina and America with the help of questionnaire and interview. Later, a furtherinterview about adaptation levels will be carried out on10American students selectedfrom the90ones. This paper will adopt the perspective of social-cultural andpsychological adaptation to acquire concrete information of the students’ adaptationlevels so as to accordingly propose reference standard using Berry’s cross-culturalcommunication theory. This study aims at finding out answers to three questions, namely,what are the major adaptive features of Chinese and American overseas students, whatfactors will influence their adaptive process and results, and what methods can universities as well as the society adopt to make it less difficult for overseas students torealize cross-cultural adaptation.Through the analysis, three findings are discovered. For the first thing, the adaptivelevel between Chinese and American overseas students shows an asymmetric feature. Forthe second thing, many factors will influence their adaptive level, such as social supports,bias, discrimination, language proficiency and the personalities of students. For the lastthing, in order to relieve such asymmetric situation, Chinese universities as well as thesociety can begin to develop orientation program for overseas students to help Americanoverseas students better adjust to the life in china.