Talking at Cross Purposes

1
Talking at Cross Purposes

• Intercultural friendship on the international
  campus

Joy van Helvert jvanhe_at_essex.ac.uk
2
The international campus Intercultural dialogue?

• Is social interaction between host students and
  other ethnic groups really taking place at more
  than a cursory level?
• Is prejudice challenged or reinforced?
• Overall insularity, despite a desireto connect
  which suggests theclaims for the international
  campusmay be overstated.
• Prejudice can be both reinforcedand challenged

3
The real question

• What can we do to reduce prejudice promote
  friendship and dialogue..?

• Aims
• Shed light on three potential barriers
  encountered by Chinese students in their
  relationships with their British hosts.
• Consider the implications of these barriers and
  finally, what might be done to help students
  overcome them.

4
The research.

• In-depth interviews with 20 Chinese students
  (single campus)
• Focus on micro-experiences of adjustment
• Voice of the student
• Situated in appropriate social, cultural
  historical context
• 3 focus groups involving total of 13 teaching
  staff
• Use of Sense-Making gap metaphor

5
The gap metaphor

• CONTEXT
• Power structures dynamics
• Domain knowledge and systems
• Cultures and communities

BRIDGE/ WAY FORWARD

• Ideas, cognitions, thoughts
• Attitudes, beliefs, values
• Feelings, emotions, intuitions
• Memories, stories, narratives

• SITUATION
• Histories
• Experiences
• Identities
• Past horizons
• Present horizons
• Barriers constraints

• GAP
• Questions, confusions
• Muddles, riddles
• Angst

SPACE-TIME
Adapted from Dervin (2003)
6
Three barriers to friendship

• Ethnic group strengthThe difficulty of going
  beyond the co-ethnic friendship group
• Expectations of guest-host etiquetteHolding back
  for others to break the ice
• Contrasting patterns of friendship makingThe
  difficulty of developing trust

7
Chinese interpersonal connections

• Chinese society is based on networks of
  reciprocal personal relationships (guanxi)Each
  person is the centre of a unique web or
  relationships. Skilful handling of these
  relationships, including face maintenance, is
  regarded as an art or science extensive
  vocabulary of terms every day use.
• Inside/Outside dichotomy (nei, wai)Strangers or
  those you have no connection with are outside
  cannot be trusted. At times it depends on the
  situation - behaviour between individuals
  depends on this classificationIn virtually
  every case a boundary between what is inside
  (nei) and outside (wai) is significant. (Scollon
  and Scollon 1994)
• Instrumentality and affective feelings co-exist
  Connections are about sentiment but also about
  achieving things mutual usefulness framed by
  etiquette that demonstrates for each others
  dignity (Gates 198715)

8
Hwangs framework

• Sliding scale from stable expressive tie
  (family friends sentiment overrides
  instrumentality) through mixed tie (sentiment
  and instrumentality) to instrumental tie
  (functions to achieve the goals of each party
  affective component minimal) (Hwang 1987)

9
Mixed Tie Relations (Hwang 1987)

• Bonds formed on the basis of a common attribute
  (tong qualities)Classmates (tongxue), members of
  the same village (tongxiang), colleagues
  (tongshi)
• Sentiment (renqing)
• Empathy emotional response
• Gift or favour with reciprocal connotations
• Maintaining contacts with reticulum exchanging
  gifts, greetings, visits do a renqing for
  someone.
• Established slowly distinction between inside
  and outside

10
Three barriers to friendship

• Ethnic group strengthThe difficulty of going
  beyond the co-ethnic friendship group
• Expectations of guest-host etiquetteHolding back
  for others to break the ice
• Contrasting patterns of friendship makingThe
  difficulty of developing trust

11
Expectations of guest/host etiquette You speak
first

• Those who expressed a desire to make a connection
  with host students cited shyness and lack of
  common ground (tong qualities) as
  obstacles.KTL I just feel strange because I
  dont know how to talk with the foreigners
  because we dont know each other and I dont know
  how to start the topicIf somebody would have
  talked to me I would have talked to them! Yeah,
  its quite hard for me to talk to somebody
  firstIf somebody talk to me and then I will
  think OK, quite easy.
• Understandable for any stranger coming to terms
  with a new environment KRL reveals and
  additional more subtle expectationKRL I think
  Chinese students sometimes are really shy. So
  you know a Chinese student in England and in
  China is very different. In China they are very
  openbut here they think OK its up to
  youGuest always very shy and is very
  carefulbut host is very open and look after
  everything is very good.

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Barrier to host friendship.

• Western notions of shyness tend to be attributed
  to the nature of the person as a whole S/hes
  a shy person.
• Historically in Chinese society the self was
  realised in accordance with a particular (dyadic)
  role (husband/wife, father/songuest/host) with
  its associated etiquetteThe host demonstrates
  ke qi (politeness) by doing everything to make
  the guest feel at home, and the guest returns ke
  qi by not imposing on the host (Gao and Ting
  Toomey 199846)
• Successful guesting and hosting can be part of a
  process of moving from being an outsider to being
  an insider from being a stranger to being a
  trusted friend. (Yang 1994)

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Implications

• If British students are framed in the role of
  host, Chinese students may expect them, for
  example, to break the ice at gatherings and take
  the initiative in friendship overtures.
• Shyness, at times could non verbal
  communication to elicit corresponding host
  behaviour
• Failure to respond could damage face and
  reinforce Chinese students outsider status and
  therefore their preferences for co-ethnic
  friendships.

14
Expectations of friendship

• Cultural stereotype of Western friendship
  neither deep nor enduring (Yang 1994121)
• Difficulty establishing trustJHN Sometimes
  British people I think they dont know, they just
  talk to people they want to find something from
  that person. Like they want you to help them to
  do their work so they come and talk to you very
  nicely. After you help them yeah, they say OK,
  thanks, bye and they never talk to you again.
• Not remembering namesYWHIts because of the
  social skill of China, which means you don't know
  where your business will come from. So, it
  should be better for you to remember everybody's
  name. Chinese people are very good at
  remembering peoples names. Which means we met
  once, we introduce each other and I will remember
  your name next time I will call a name, maybe you
  have forgot it but I will remember it, OK so if
  I call name again and again and again, which will
  make us closer Its associated around guanxi.

15
Contrasting friendship patterns

• Tendencies in British friendship patterns
• Disconnection of sentiment and instrumentality
  Western Enlightenment ideas rise of market
  rationalism (Silver 1990)
• Range of friendship types (Spencer and Phal 2006
  65)
• From simplicity of an associate to the complexity
  of a soul mate. Intermediate type Fun friends
• Some of these friendships may be quite casual,
  but they can also be very warm and affectionate
  relationshipsSome friends are more fun than
  others, and friends who are especially good fun
  are often forgiven for lacking other friend like
  qualities, for example, they may be fun but
  flighty or irresponsible and feckless but
  their good company more than compensates for
  other short comingsThe key point about fun
  friends is the lack of excessive obligations on
  either side
• University setting Fun friendships - students
  left behind long established home based ties
  new milieu first taste of independent living.

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Implications

• Overall value of British-style casual friendship
  as seen through Chinese eyes appears minimal.
• Lack of understanding of the cultural contrasts
  in friend-making behaviour makes it difficult to
  establish trust and therefore meaningful ties.
• Rejection can reinforce preferences for co-ethnic
  group friendship.

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Conclusions

• Be mindful of ethnocentrism in developing
  strategies to encourage engagement between
  different ethnic groups on campus. Notions of
  friendship are culturally constructed
• Encourage British students to take on the host
  role?
• Raise awareness of different perspectives by
  creating opportunities for intercultural dialogue
  - spaces, places, events, forums ad-hoc,
  formal, face to face, on-line wherever! For
  example World Café style discussions What is the
  nature of friendship? How do you become someones
  friend? http//www.theworldcafe.com/

18
Overcoming barriers

• When I first arrived in the UK I felt very scared
  - maybe because Im a very shy person, but also
  back in China we were told in Western countries
  we should expect to experience discrimination. I
  never talked with any other British students and
  I only had a few very close friends but this year
  they all left, and I was on my own. So I stayed
  in my room all day.
•  
• In my flat there was one Japanese girl and all
  the other students were British or European. I
  was in my room and my flatmates knocked on my
  door and invited me to the bar. I was so
  surprised you cant believe. I was like oh my
  god, you invite me to the bar! You know when
  you are lonely and people knock on your door its
  special - its so exciting. I thought oh my god
  they like me maybe they wont discriminate!
•  The first time was more exciting than I expected
  I behaved like a kid! So I went to the bar and
  they asked me where I came from and whether I was
  a Communist. My British friends all study
  politics so they were interested in Communism.
  When they said they hated Communism I felt
  surprised because most of the time Chinese people
  would show their friends a positive face even if
  they didnt like something. But I began to
  understand about the British students that is
  how they are, if they dont like something they
  just express it.
•  
• I think for British students it is quite normal
  to challenge the opinions of others - but I
  surprised myself when I asked Japanese students
  about Japanese government policy towards China.
  Most Chinese students get misunderstood by
  Westerners just because they hesitate to ask
  these question - they never get to know the other
  persons opinion.
• Now I get on well with Japanese students whereas
  before I hated them. I was always thinking you
  Japanese people, you did lots of nasty things in
  WW2 and you never said sorry! It began to change
  when I was with some Japanese students watching a
  television documentary on the WW2. I was
  surprised when they cried because they felt
  ashamed of what their ancestors did to the
  Chinese people. After that I started to get
  along with them and we talked about the issue
  more and more. I understand now that as a small
  island country they felt they needed to protect
  them selves. So now I try hard to understand the
  perspectives of people from other countries.
•  
•  

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Thank you Joy van Helvertjvanhe_at_essex.ac.uk

• References
• Gao, G. and Ting-Toomey, S (1998) Communicating
  Effectively with the Chinese. Thousand Oaks Sage
• Gates, H (1987) Chinese Working-Class Lives.
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• Hwang, K (1987) Face and Favour The Chinese
  Power Game In The American Journal of Sociology
  Vol 92 Issue 4
• Kim, Y. Y. (2001) Becoming Intercultural An
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  Cross-Cultural Adaptation Thousand Oaks Sage
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• Spencer, L. and Phal, R. (2006) Rethinking
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