International students' culture learning and cultural adaptation in China

Abstract

This article examines international students' cultural adaptation at a major national university in China. A survey was designed to measure international students' adaptation to the Chinese sociocultural and educational environments in terms of five dimensions: (1) cultural empathy, (2) open-mindedness, (3) emotional stability, (4) social flexibility and (5) language proficiency. International students (n = 330) from 57 countries participated in the survey. The findings here support the existing proposition that the first year is the critical period for cultural adaptation as there are significant changes in some adaptation indicators (especially emotional stability) over the first year and thereafter changes in these indicators became less and less significant. The present study discusses the adequacy of existing theories in explaining these results and their implications for international students' adaptation as a culture-specific experience in China.

Keywords:

• international students
• intercultural communication competence
• intercultural adaptation and transformation
• U-curve model
• critical period for adaptation

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the partial support of Guangdong Provincial Research Foundation for Public Diplomacy and Intercultural Communication.

Notes

1. Language proficiency is measured by four idiomatic expressions as a full Chinese proficiency test is clearly unrealistic for this study. These four idiomatic expressions are most commonly used in the social interaction and they should reflect some knowledge of the Chinese language and the Chinese ways of life.