We are stuck in the middle: intercultural adjustments and adaptations of Western-educated mainland PhD students at one Hong Kong university

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the academic and sociocultural adjustment processes, challenges, and coping strategies of Chinese students who studied at top Western universities prior to relocating to Hong Kong for PhD study. Through purposeful sampling, 30 individuals from one elite university in Hong Kong, the majority of whom won prestigious scholarships, were invited to semi-structured interviews. Our findings suggest that Hong Kong’s geopolitical proximity to mainland China and generous scholarship packages, in addition to compatibility with supervisors and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the West, were major factors that motivated students to select Hong Kong. Academic challenges participants reportedly encounter include interpersonal hierarchies, output-oriented academic culture, and unsatisfactory teaching. The sociocultural challenges are predominantly the difficulty of learning and speaking Cantonese, Mandarin discrimination, and a divided campus. Three forms of response were identified: expectation management, need-based adjustments, and struggle and resistance. This study reveals that students set their Western experience as a benchmark against which they judge their education in Hong Kong. We confirm the role of supervisors as the gatekeepers of students’ intercultural adaptations and highlight the importance of an inclusive campus environment, which is focused on academic excellence alongside student wellbeing rather than prioritizing publications.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese mainland students
• sociocultural adaptation
• academic adaptation
• PhD education
• Hong Kong

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Professor Yang Rui for encouraging us to work on this topic and for his insightful comments on this study. We are grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback and to all interview participants for generously sharing their insights.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).