WP3 Revised: Identity in Translation: Communication between Chinese International Students and the American University System
In his article Theater at the Crossroads of Culture, French cultural theorist Patrice Pavis introduces the hourglass idea of cultural translation: when a work of art is to be perceived by a culture different than the culture that produced it, it must trickle down, like grains of sand through an hourglass, through many filters (15). When an artist embarks on the difficult task of translating a work of theater for one culture to another, they must journey down the hourglass and take each of these factors into consideration. On the source culture’s end of the spectrum, the artist must analyze the original’s cultural modeling, artistic modeling, perspective of the adapters, and work of adaptation (Pavis 15). On the target culture’s end, the artist has to examine determine the preparatory work by actors, choice of theatrical form, theatrical representation of culture, reception-adapters, readability, artistic modeling, social and anthropological modeling, cultural modeling, and given and anticipated consequences (Pavis 15). The process of constructing personal identity across cultures, similarly, feels like a work of creative adaptation, a journey from East to West.
As a Chinese international student in America, my academic and social identities frequently feel like theatrical performances: exaggerated displays to solicit the target culture’s understanding, respect, or validation, which nonetheless contain a beating heart of truth, pain, and vulnerability. The intercultural self is always a self in translation, a balancing act between the source and target cultures. The difficulty of existing within the hourglass of culture in the American University setting is that the hourglass runs only in one direction; students who come from a different source culture need to attend to all factors of translation during every interaction, engaging in an enormous amount of cultural labor. However, true cultural exchange can never take place in an environment that presents such unequal power distribution between cultures. Therefore, creating a genuine and balanced communication for exchanging different cultural insights and values with international students at American universities can helpfully enrich the diversity of America’s intellectual community.
When Chinese students enter American universities, they develop a new and shocking understanding of the cultural modeling that has produced their values and attitudes. It is much easier to become aware of the ways, in which cultural identity is determined, by leaving the source culture to see its political and social systems in perspective. Physical distance translates into psychological distance, an experience of “fragmenting self” that sociologists Dongxiao Qin and M. Brinton Lykes describe in their paper “Reweaving a Fragmented Self: a Grounded Theory of Self-Understanding among Chinese Women Students in the United States of America” (186). According to these researchers, fragmentation expresses itself as “self-questioning as well as […] interrogation of traditional cultural ways of being and doing in China” (Qin & Lykes 186). I never questioned the social and political expectations placed on me before leaving my country because everyone and everything around me were reinforcing me for my submission to Chinese ideals. Because of my powerful drive to succeed and fulfill social and academic expectations at home, I had little time to gain deeper perspective on what I was doing it all for until living in the United States put my upbringing into a stark perspective.
Growing up in China, I was indoctrinated into three primary cultural ideals: a community-oriented outlook, a pursuit of excellence, and a strong feeling of national pride. These norms were passed down through many generations before they reached me. My grandparents used to tell stories that illustrated Confucian values, where the biggest mark of distinction for a scholar was to give back to their family and community. School affirmed these values by making us study the 24 Filial Exemplars from an early age; our teachers made us recite the definition of Ren (benevolence), Yi (righteousness), Li (courteousness), Xiao (filial piety), and Zhi (wisdom) by heart every week. To be a good member of Chinese society in China meant to better one’s self in service of the Chinese nationalist agenda. My understanding of my position in society was created in a relentless sprint towards achieving my goal of studying abroad in order to ultimately benefit my country and its culture with imported insights.
Even though I was raised to believe that studying abroad in America was a mark of superior achievement, I was surprised to discover that my desire to study in America was actually viewed as a mark of artistic rebellion. As I was preparing for my American exams, I was unconsciously engaging in an act of artistic modeling and self-definition. I was shocked to discover that American education was a reason for suspicion in China. Even though only the most talented students make it to American universities, those students are internally interpreted as flight risks. They are viewed as adventurers who might get seduced by the glamour and liberties of the West and forget their true selves and cultural roots.
My decision to leave the country, to cross the border, felt like a moment of identity rupture, an act of departure from my culture and its traditions. As Andrea Louie describes in her book Chineseness Across Borders, “it is often when discrepant ideas or competing claims about Chinese identity are brought together that the meaning of being Chinese (or not Chinese) is questioned or becomes problematic” (21). I experienced this for the first time upon dealing with the consulate that issued my travel documents. I felt unsettled and disoriented by the questions asked by Chinese passport officials because, for the first time, I felt like I had to prove my Chineseness: “What did you have to do to get to study in America?”; “Do you love China?”; “Who will care for your poor parents while you are gone?”; “How will you bring pride and recognition to your nation with your studies?” Their determination of my Chineseness was wielded as a form of cultural capital to be granted or refused me as a student studying abroad based on how successfully I proved my commitment to Chinese ideals.
This subtle questioning of my Chineseness is not limited to legal authorities, but also has permeated my social circles in China. For example, my peers have engaged in subtle acts of cultural identity policing with me. As an international student in California with strong ties to my family and community back home, I still have to use every conversation with my parents as an opportunity to prove that I haven’t forgotten myself, that my identity has not been erased by the target culture. Once a week, my mother would ask if I still intend to return back home; my father, scowling, would remind me of my filial duty, emphasizing that I should not form deep attachments to my American peers. Despite my Chinese citizenship and upbringing, my travels home, rife with incidents of questioning the authenticity of my Chineseness, have widened the gap between my peers and me. My childhood friends would joke about how “American” I’ve become and speak to me in English, or sometimes even accuse me of looking down on them because they have remained in our homeland. It is as if, to my community, obtaining a foreign education had placed me in the position of a work of art in translation. By crossing the border, it seems that I have lost my claim to the fullness of my Chinese identity.
Because of the frequent questioning of Chinese international students’ Chineseness from both the Chinese and the American side, as the authors of our self-adaptations, we need to determine clearly our perspective as adapters to survive these interrogations. Chinese students are put in a position of constantly having to defend their Chineseness not just with other Chinese, but also to their American peers. In an American educational context, Chineseness is also a contested concept since American social sciences and cultural biases offer a drastically different perspectives on China than what I had learned as a Chinese citizen. As a Chinese international student, I could never be neutral; I had to always take a strong stance on my decisions and my relationship to my identity because my Chineseness was always under scrutiny.
In order to do the work of successfully adapting to my new surroundings, I had to understand the perspective of my target audience to inform myself about Americans’ impressions of China. According to Wu Xiao An’s book “In Search of Chineseness: Conceptualization and Paradigms,” Chineseness in the West has been traditionally based on exoticizing “the idea of a static and exotic culture, […] while now the rise of China in the global arena threatens the West’s belief in its natural dominance,” along with assumptions of political totalitarianism and stringent limitations to personal freedoms (1). Similarly, my Chinese identity in the United States was viewed by many of my peers with a mixture of fascination and pity. My classmates would express their sympathy for all the freedoms they believed Chinese citizens could not practice (sometimes based on incorrect information) or ask me questions as if I were an expert in traditional Chinese medicine, even though the medical system is as advanced as the United States’. Being on the receiving end of such exoticizing assumptions and being looked down upon for my country’s political situation made me feel that I had to correct many misunderstandings and confront stereotypes before I could form authentic connections.
Confronting these misconceptions constituted my preparatory work as an actor in the play that was my cross-cultural education. Even though some of the criticisms of China’s system in the West are based on incorrect premises, encountering a Western sociological analysis inevitably inspires soul-searching about China’s nationalistic narrative. The information I encountered in my comparative politics class at the university unsettled my certainty in my objective understanding of my homeland, pushing me to question the absolute tenants of Chinese nationalism and politics.
Newly emerging into this expanded awareness made me think deeply on many questions. Were people back home were truly getting economically exploited under the guise of national pride? Were the freedoms they had exchanged for prosperity were too valuable to give up? Was the limited representation of women in position of power based on patriarchal discrimination rather than healthy family values? Similarly to the findings of Qin and Lykes’ study of female Chinese graduate students, I experienced, in retrospect, “initial psychological displacement […] provoked by an experience of gender discrimination or by an experience of a corrupt or biased Chinese system” (Qin & Lykes 186). However, the social questioning of my Chineseness from American peers made me reluctant to openly share these revelations since I felt that my identity was under threat and needed to be protected. This experience of uncertainty was similar to shaking an hourglass in the middle of its operations, the blurring of boundaries between source and target culture and between the Chinese concept of Chineseness and the American concept of Chineseness.
The pressure of being caught between two different cultural narratives forces many Chinese international students to make, as Pavis’s hourglass suggests, a “choice of theatrical form”: a decision about how they will behave and express themselves in their university setting (15). Many try to rebuild their fragmented identity in the image of American universities’ educational and social expectations. Upon my arrival at University of Southern California, I had to face and struggle in a new educational framework driven by the target culture’s distinctly different values. In their study “Why Don’t They Participate? A Self-Study of Chinese Graduate Students’ Classroom Involvement in North America,” Chunlei Lu and Wenchun Han used Hofstede’s five-element framework to analyze cultures: “power distance (from small to large); collectivism versus individualism; femininity versus masculinity; avoidance of uncertainty (from mild to strong), and taking a long-term view of life versus a short-term view” (82). Analyzing my source and target culture on the basis of this framework revealed that the choices I faced were impossible: American and Chinese culture held diametrically opposed values in all dimensions
The behaviors that demonstrated these norms align with Pavis’s idea of the “theatrical representation of culture” (15). Close scrutiny reveals of American and Chinese culture show the differences in values and the ways values are socially and academically expressed. For example, Chinese culture favors large power distance, while American culture favors small power distance; Chinese society is collectivist, while American society is individualist; Chinese society favors femininity, while American society favors masculinity, Chinese virtues caution to avoid uncertainty, while Americans like adventurers encourage people to seek it (Lu & Han 82). While any international student may encounter cultural challenges along some of those cultural dimensions, Chinese international students in the United States face particular obstacles because they are required to mediate between two diametrically opposed sets of values.
Although these sociological generalizations cannot properly describe an individual within these two cultures, they accurately represent the values, to which an individual in these societies is raised to pay deference. As an international student trying to translate not just my academic work, but also my sense of self across cultures, I had to analyze the two different cultural factors that determined how I might be received, and then become the author of my own self-adaptation. The balance of values an individual subscribes to inevitably shifts based on exposure and motivation: according to Lu and Han, “the longer they [Chinese international students] stay in North America, the more these contrasts evolve, as inevitably their Western values increase while their Eastern values diminish” (Lu & Han 83). As I remained in constant communication with my family during my time in the States, I found myself pulled in two directions, both yearning to accelerate my adaptation to American education and terrified of losing my culture of origin. The shifts I was experiencing were sources of pride as well as anxiety, which are the signs of successful acculturation and cultural dilution at the same time.
Even as the abstract fear of losing one’s Chineseness through Western education may produce trepidation about trying to fit in, I had to ultimately focus on satisfying the expectations of the “reception-adapters” — — the teachers who graded me and the peers who collaborated with me. American academic pressures require turning one’s focus to the concrete goals of succeeding in one’s studies. My desire to make my parents proud overtook the anxiety of cultural shock, motivating me to adapt to the new environment as quickly as possible. In order to fulfill my family’s expectations, I believed that I had to transform myself into the model American student. I subconsciously perceived my source culture as a weakness and an obstacle to this journey that needed to be eradicated. This is a paradoxical position to hold: I now realize that I thought I needed to subordinate my Chinese identity to my American aspirations in order to fulfill my filial duty, the most Chinese of cultural values. This paradox made me feel torn most of the time, as if I was living a double life. As Qin and Lyke suggested, such circumstances create a dynamic breakup in a Chinese student’s self-concept, in which the student needs to constantly negotiate with new circumstances.
To determine the best possible outcome of this internal negotiation and succeed academically, a Chinese international student needs to develop a quick understanding of social and anthropological modeling: the circumstances of intellectual production and valuation in American universities. The differences in culture also translate into a lot of differences in academic expectations, which are very disorienting to a newly arrived Chinese student. When I started my coursework at USC, I had significant issues translating my teachers’ expectations into practical action. For example, I was not sure what material to prioritize studying, how to engage with the written assignment that required making a strong, arguable case, or how to fully participate in class discussions. Due to the speed of speaking, the use of American idioms and references, and the pressure to engage before processing fully, I was finding myself unable to jump into discussions in a timely manner. Despite my previous academic successes, I felt that I was missing the essential tools to do well in this new environment.
These feelings of lack arise from a person’s inability to interrogate their coping strategies’ relationship to culture while they are immersed in a culturally homogenous group. In her article “The Relationship Between Culture and Language,” author Wenying Jiang states that culture is like the water a person swims in: they don’t notice their culture’s peculiarities until they are taken out of it (329). Because my American classmates had been immersed in their mode of discourse since birth, they considered it natural; I, on the other hand, felt like a fish out of water, gasping for air (329). In his self-study of his experiences as a visiting scholar in the United States, Han aptly describes this feeling: “as though I were a person with a learning disability, even though I clearly was not, which was very disorienting. Furthermore, I felt like a fully able person living in a very dark, disabling environment” (Lu & Han 87). My early experiences, similarly, made me feel like there was something wrong with me, but I could not quite identify what it was. This feeling of linguistic disorientation and, even more importantly, blurring of priorities, frequently leaves high-achieving Chinese students like aliens on an unfamiliar planet who don’t speak the native language.
Even in the presence of cultural differences, the hourglass process of cultural translation would work smoothly if the source and target cultures share power equally. However, the power difference between American and Chinese cultures creates an inequitable relationship between Chinese students and their American teachers and peers. As an international student, I was by default put in a position to be graded on my ability to smoothly and quickly integrate myself into the American university mode of discourse. My personal preferences or tendencies were irrelevant because certain traits were rewarded over others.
Among many of my professors, there was a presumption of universality in American academic standards; an unspoken understanding that meritocracy would naturally separate good students and bad students. According to Lu and Han, in North American educational settings, where “individualism and independence are encouraged, an extrovert tends to be more active in learning settings and is more successful at building social networks than an introvert”; Chinese international students, on the other hand, “appear more alienated, anxious, conforming, dependent, introverted, passive, and restrained than Chinese Americans or Caucasian Americans” (89). Until I recognized the impact of culture on my classroom performance and grades, I frequently blamed myself for my failings, which lead to guilt and loneliness. These negative feelings further negatively impacted my academic collaborations and social interactions. The unequal power dynamics within the classroom, grounded in culture, can further isolate Chinese students from the only people who have the power to help them: their classmates and teachers.
Facing the reality of American cultural modeling causes additional stresses for Chinese students. The uneven power dynamics that Chinese students confront in their process of adjustment can hurt not only their academic achievements, but also their mental health. Chinese students are at greater risk for psychological maladjustment than their Caucasian counterparts (Lu & Han 89). The culture shock and adjustment I experienced harmed my energy levels, making me tired and irritable, jealous of my American peers who seemed to have an easier time achieving expectations in the class. I went through a period of feeling like there was nothing I can do to improve my situation. Because mental health is a stigmatized topic in most social circles in China, I found myself without the language to talk about my struggles with depression and anxiety. It was only when a professor I trusted personally approached me to check in that I felt comfortable enough to share my experience and seek out counseling. The absence of culturally aware counseling practices at the university further challenged me to grow in my ability to translate complex emotions not simply in another language, but mentally and psychologically in another new perspective.
In order to recognize the factors beyond me that defined my position within my university community and successfully communicate them across cultures, I had to acknowledge the existence of systems of power put in place before my arrival in the United States and that would surely outlive me. For Chinese students in America, uneven power distribution is grounded in three core aspects of identity: culture, gender, and race. The graduate students interviewed for Qin and Lykes’ research, “As female students of color, […] experience marginalization due to their culture of origin, ethnicity, language, race, social class and gender” (178). Each of these elements has influenced my social and academic interactions, with race being a primary source of internal and external tension. According to Qin and Lykes, “for many [Chinese international students] it is a first experience as a ‘minority’” (178). The experience of moving from a racially homogenous culture to a setting, in which very few students looked like me made me aware of my race as a standing out characteristic for the first time. This unsettling realization of their racial identity as a source of potential marginalization can further isolate Chinese students from the majority of their peers, but also is the first step to awakening to the realities of their condition.
Despite my efforts to belong, painful differences of discrimination made my doubt my “readability” that is the success, with which my intentions translated to my peers. The realization of my racial and cultural status and the barriers to being perceived on my own terms were based in ignorance and prejudice that American students held against Asian people. My experience resonated with a situation described in David Paulk’s news article “Columbia’s Chinese Students Targeted by Racist Vandalism,” a racist prank, in which Chinese students’ nameplates were torn down from their dorm rooms. This event demonstrated that even in elite universities, American students may refuse to engage in culturally aware communication and would instead prefer to “translate” Chinese students’ identities by removing the main marker of their cultural standing: their names (Paulk). Microaggressions, such as staring, ignorant comments, or sexual objectification have been constant companions on my American educational journey, reminding me that my identity as a student is always mediated by my identity as a Chinese woman who is always a foreigner. Understanding racism in America through interactions with other students of color helped me frame these instances as Americans’ tendency to want to translate my humanity into their own limited understanding of Chinese cultural and racial perspectives.
In my process of adjustment, I failed to make accurate predictions for the last rung of Pavis’ hourglass — given and anticipated consequences — because I was ignorant of America’s problematic distant and recent history with Chinese immigrants. This history that includes notable legislative examples of discrimination such as the Chinese exclusion act of 1882 has evolved into yet another issue during the COVID-19 pandemic. From being told to go back to my country in violent language, to hearing a Chinese friend’s story of being accused of bringing the virus to America and being punched in the face in a grocery store, I need to struggle with these daily reminders of my foreignness. According to a news report by Masood Farivar titled “US Watchdog Tracks Over 2,100 Anti-Asian Incidents,” there were 2100 reported anti-Asian hate instances since the beginning of the pandemic. This report presents overwhelming evidence that Chinese students have been socially retranslated: no longer the “model minority”, they are instead now perceived as dangerous carriers of contagion.
Although these experiences may appear confined to rural areas or racially homogenous populations not used to outsides, they actually permeate the fabric of America’s most liberal institutions: its universities. Numerous instances of discrimination have been reported in college communities. According to Julian Shen-Berro’s article “Some Students Say Colleges Not Doing Enough to Combat Coronavirus-Fueled Racism.” peers have refused to sit next to or collaborate with Chinese students, blamed them for bringing the virus, or isolated them from university activities without statement from university leadership. Professor Janelle Wong suggests that these behaviors, expressed in “the proliferation of anti-Asian images and comments, in association with fears over coronavirus, show that while colleges and universities are sites of learning, they are also places where misinformation and racism can spread all too quickly”(Shen-Barro). These incidents match with the anti-Asian rhetoric with a long-standing tradition of anti-immigrant rhetoric that skillfully compares immigrants with pests and viruses. The current rise in harassment in university settings makes Chinese students targets of racial and cultural hatred.
In this time of political and social upheaval, small adjustments are not enough to root out century-long oppressive practices. The American university environment needs to be carefully examined for covert acts of violence such as identity suppression, cultural discrimination, and more obvious cases in racism or xenophobia against Chinese international students. In order to protect this vulnerable population from harm on school campus, administrators could consider bringing the cultural aspects in the classroom. Having frank conversations about race and culture with students from a variety of backgrounds, led by skilled facilitators, can banish ignorance and invite curiosity and empathy. By confronting the cultural challenges Chinese students face and validating and mediating their cultural struggles, educators can create a friendlier and more welcoming classroom setting for Chinese international students in the United States.
Simply providing additional support to Chinese students through academic coaching or counseling oftentimes is sufficient to create a feeling of belonging. In order to truly experience the walk of cultural exchange and inclusion, American educators need to turn the hourglass upside down. To pursue true equity, they need to begin by examining their source culture, American White supremacy, learning about international students’ source cultures, and committing to the cultural adaptations required to accommodate a truly multicultural community. To facilitate meaningful cultural exchange, it’s helpful for American universities to recognize the harm that results from the dominant culture’s hegemonic insistence that forces minority cultures to change themselves to fit in. Instead, American universities have the potential to become hubs for innovation and cultural dialogue by decentering Westernness and whiteness to create brave spaces that do not privilege one mode of self and cultural expression over another, but truly embrace all. Therefore, by hiring a multicultural faculty body and creating a more culturally friendly model for evaluation, universities could truly enrich the diversity of American universities.
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