Are students from China afraid of being alone?

Question

Why they always bring their whole family from China with them? Can they function on their own?

Answer 1

Many students, either genuine or bogus, who study overseas may end up staying there for good since they can use their visa as a stepping stone to immigration status. Some of them don't even have the intention of going home. Bring their families overseas is one of their ultimate goals.

Answer 2

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I know plenty of Chinese students that are studying in America without their families. I don't think either the Chinese or US gov't would like it if the entire families went to the US because then there would be no incentive for the student to return to China. The Chinese gov't fears a brain drain (all their smart, overseas-educated citizens don't stay in China) and the US doesn't want anymore immigrants.

Anyway, your question is somewhat insulting. Of course Chinese students can function on their own. They are human beings and are just as capable as you are. I think Chinese families might be a bit closer than American families so they like to be together more, but it certainly is not requisite to their survival.

Answer 3

Not true. in the first place you are making some kind of generalization maybe based on seeing Chinese Americans or Chinese Canadians with their families.

Thousands of Chinese students go to university overseas, they are more courageous than NA students, work harder, and are more mature. NA students could NEVER handle the schedules Chinese students have or the amount of work and dedication they put into their studies, in China and overseas. Nor could they handle traveling overseas by themselves to live and study alone for a year.

The biggest compliment to pay a Chinese student is "your parents must be very proud to have such a good daughter" (or son) Family values in China are something most westerners would never understand. They care very much about family. Their family often comes to visit them when they study overseas if they can afford it. Chinese place much value on education as well.

This really is a dumb question IMO

Answer 4

If that was the case, then it would be very easy for the average Chinese to come over here. That is simply not the case.

Example, a student wanting to study in America.
They must pass a rigorous reading, comprehension, listening and speaking test. I'd say, half of of the people in America wouldn't pass. Then in order to bring their families they would have to show a need.

Further, while family is everything in China, it doesn't mean that people don't go away from families for economic reasons. I have met a lot of people here in China who's spouse lives in a different city. Plus students who can qualify go to universities far from their homes. I have one student that has to travel 72 hours on trains and buses to get to the college I teach at.

I am not sure why you came to the conclusion you have. Have you ever spoke to someone from China about this?

Signed, an ex pat from the USA living in the heart of China.

Peace

Jim

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Answer 5

Chinese people, as most Asian people, have a much closer relationship to their parents and their family. You have to understand that in Chinese culture it is absolutely expected from a child to take care of the parents when the child is grown up, has a job, makes money and the parents are old and retired. It's absolutely normal that the parents will move in with their child without even asking the child, they will just say that they will move in, no chance for the child to say no. This all comes from Confucian teachings and tradition so when they go abroad and they bring their family this is the same thing, but it also means that they want to provide their family with a better life abroad.

Answer 6

Think about it, a student from China enters a new environment in the west, with the difference in culture and misunderstandings that westerners tend to hold towards Chinese people, it's better off if they come with their family until they get settled in.

Same goes if it was a westerner student going to China, they would have their older family members to come along to make sure everything works out.

I dont think there's anything wrong with that really...

Answer 7

No mal-functioned Chinese student would get the chance to leave China and study aboard.. I can assure you this!

They bring along their whole family from China with them is because of the strong family bonding and the way they show their returns to their parents, as mentioned by other answerers here.

We won't dump our parents in the elderly centers or live thousand kms away even they're in hospital with no one next to their beds!

I quitted my job and nursed my grandpa for 3 months before he passed away. All his 6 daughters lived nearby / took care of him in the past 50 years since my grandma died young. He stayed widow for his whole life.

Perhaps, you would never understand Chinese cultures nor you would believe in what I am telling you.

Answer 8

Simply put, even in the environment of globalization, Chinese ppl still hold their strong family values. They always value the importance of the family and try to keep their family together.
There are lots of Chinese students studying in American universities. They come and live here all by themselves. And several years later, after graduation, the first thing they do is to bring their parents over.....They can take care of themselves very well. And 'always keep your family together, always take good care of your parents' is just a culture thing, which is, unfortunately, very rare in American society.

Answer 9

Family is the most important thing to many Chinese people. Many of 'em (esp. the poor ones) tend to be high-achievers because they need to have a high-paid job to take care of their parents. You know how Chinese parents work their asses off to satisfy everything that their children need and so they don't have much savings themselves. Children r their utimate investment. Chinese students aren't afraid of being alone...they're afraid that their parents will be too worried abt 'em. Family members are always precious to Chinese ppl. Chinese parents just wanna be around their children to make sure they're happy & fine.

Answer 10

You have an idea of personal freedom and independence which is very foreign to Chinese people. It may be the student's idea, but probably the student and his family both feel very strongly about it (I refer to the student as male, since about 20% more male births than female births are reported in China). Family bonds and obligations are much stronger in China that they are in western countries.

Also, China's One-Child Policy has meant that many parents of children in university right now have only been able to legally have one child. In some cases, the parents may have been forcibly sterilized because they already had one child, and the law did not allow them to have another. That child is now everything to them.

The child also has the heavy weight on his shoulders of knowing that he has to provide for his parents in old age. He will be taking on a financial burden that may have been shouldered by three sons and their wives in ages past.

Families in China will traditionally pay for graduate school for their children if they can afford it and the kids are accepted, with the whole extended family pitching in. American graduate students are normally on their own. Chinese families do not normally give children chores because the children's only responsibility is to study, get good grades, and pass the exams to get into the next kind of school.

If both the parents have jobs--if the mom is a teacher for instance--they may send their children to live with the husband's parents, since growing up in a house without someone at home all day is not considered to be good for children in China.

On the other hand, if there is no high school in their town, high school students may live by themselves in a boarding house near the school. They don't have time to get in trouble. With such a big sacrifice on the part of their parents, the pressure is on to get good grades and high scores on their exams.

Although the cultures are similar, educational opportunites are very different between most provinces of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and other places where Chinese people live, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. I haven't researched it lately, but in the 1980s only about 12 or 13 percent of people in the PRC had been able to attend high school for any length of time.

I lived in Taiwan for a couple of years, where you had to take an entrance exam to get into junior high. English was a required exam to get into high school, so I taught English classes to students after they were dismissed from their regular school on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Many families started these private English lessons and classes for their kids in 6th grade, but some started in kindergarten.

Because kids had no chores and no time when school was in session, they never knew what to do for fun between terms. But they knew their obligations: to study hard, get into good schools, and have plenty of children.

And the whole family is standing by to make sure all of that happens.

Answer 11

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