Helping Chinese Student Understand American Culture - Report Example

[12/03 Introduction The increasing influence of globalisation which has brought about the practice of migration from one country to the other in search of better opportunities and for professional requirements people from different parts of the world have migrated to the other regions. Similar situations led a large number of Chinese people to have settled down in the United States of America in 1849 and have continued in phases. According to Wu (1993) with the settling down of the Chinese people in the United States of America it brought with it the varied elements and features of the Chinese civilisation – their language, culture, and everything which marks the Chinese civilisation. As the Chinese settled in this part of the world, their lifestyle and the regular lives interacted with that of the natives of the United States of America. This interface of two of the distinct cultures brought about the need to reach a common ground or to a common point where one can understand and appreciate the distinctive features of the other. This brings us to the need and requirement of formulating this project which would enable Chinese student understand America and its varied features and vice-versa. The need of the project intensifies in the wake of several reports of racism, discrimination against immigrated people, and even reports of hate wars and violent attitudes which is very much unsuitable for the easy and peaceful existence of the people of different origin in a particular society. So, in order to bring the element of harmony and restore peace in the flow of the society it is very much important to enable the Chinese students know and learn American culture. With the help of the designed Cultural Intelligence in Action (CIA) assignment the Chinese students would be assisted to know and understand the American way of life, their language, culture and other aspects of lives. The project is entailed to bring together the Chinese and American students to work together for a particular task. THE PROJECT The project which would be undertaken to enable the Chinese students learns about America, its way of life and culture. The project involves the school students to organise the annual day function of the school. The school has considerable number of Chinese students along with a number of American students. The project decided was of organising the Annual Day function for the school. It was the responsibility of the students themselves to organise the function for the school where they would be provided the necessary helps for furthering their work but the primary and the most of the responsibility for the organisation of the function lies with the students and their combined effort as a team in achieving the aims and objectives of the project. For the purpose of organising a project, one of the most important requirements is that of the teamwork, cooperation between the team mates and coordination in the team activities. The project is designed to bring about a number of changes in the present system and dynamics of the relationship between the different students. The project has a few distinctive goals which can be stated as firstly; bring together the students of different origin, caste, race and religion under a common system. For the greater purpose of the project the students are needed to come to the closer proximity to know each other, to come into regular contact so that they are accustomed to the regular lives of the people, get to know their traditions and emotional value related to the community. It is this very knowledge that helps one to develop cordial relationship with the individual students. In such a situation the students reach a point where one is receptive enough to the different types of cultures that exists in the world, they become more open and this sets the grounds where the students can be taught to or trained to or even get under the influence of a mixed culture to be in. Secondly, by putting the students into one common working arena and entrusting them with the responsibilities for the entire function it would be highly encouraging for the students to work on their own. This adds the amount of interest which makes them work with undivided attention. They tend to perceive it as one of the most important tasks and make every effort to get the work done with cent percent success. In this very effort of completing the tasks in time and with ultimate accuracy the students tend to forget their individual differences and work for the common goal. Thus they develop a friendly attitude and respect for each other which is very important in a society like this which is inhibited by a number of people from different communities and background. When involved in an activity the students tend to forget the differences amongst them and work for the common goal. This not only brings the different individuals together but also ensures that they work like a team and in a more cooperative manner. It is one of the most important goals for the project to achieve. Thirdly, this project also aims at making the Chinese students familiar with the language that the people from the United State of America use to communicate at the same time this project also aims at familiarizing the American students with the Chinese language so that students from both the nations does not have any problem in communicating. Moreover, once the authority is successful in making students from both the countries familiar with the language of the each other’s countries it would become easier for the students to communicate and work with each other. Finally, the object of organising this entire project is to make the Chinese students aware if the culture which is prevalent in America and conversely make the American aware of and at same time acknowledge the culture of the Chinese population living in the United States of America. According to 2005-2007 report of the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census, there are more than 3 million Chinese people living in the United States of America. When the project aims to dissolves the difference among the people due to the presence of different cultures and sub-cultures living in the same society. Understanding the culture of one is one of the most important requirements for achieving this particular objective. The Chinese population is not the only populations which have migrated to this part of the world; there are a number of people from a number of other countries who have also migrated to United States of America in search of better opportunities and better living. This makes the entire population of the United States of America a mixed population represented by people from a number of countries of the world. While the objective of this project is to concentrate on the development of the Chinese population, assist them in learning about the cultural practice prevailing in America, apart from the Chinese population, the factor of other subcultures needs to be taken into account because they exist in considerable numbers and negating their presence would be ineffective in sketching down an effective plan. In a school children from every culture come under the same roof, which can be used to treat the difference and equalize them. When the students were given the task of organising the Annual Day function for the school along with the Chinese, Indians, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, and other from different parts of the world, all these students from different culture also comes under the purview of the project because even they face the same set of problems. There have been frequent reports on the racial attacks on the black people, could be considered as Indians who face the adversities for their skin color. From this project the Chinese would be overly benefited because it is the Chinese people keeping whom in mind this entire project is structured. When this project is placed to be implemented in the schools which needs the participation of all of the students owing to the magnitude of the tasks because it will require larger number of people for the task. This can face the resistance of a number of the students, specifically their guardians, due to reluctance of working with the children from other communities. The factors that the project initiative would be resisted with are secondarily with the difference in opinion in the working on the arrangement of the event. The Chinese students would have their own set of ideas and so is the American students, the issue over the use of a particular idea is subject to trifle between the people and thus it needs to be considered as one of the major challenges that needs to be overcome with proper understanding and tolerance of one toward the other in spite of the differences. Third of the challenges that the project would face is the language barrier to communicate that the students would face because of the involvement of a number of students from different parts of the world. It would be overcome by relentless and motivated efforts of understanding the language of the other students. Finally, there could be problems arising out of the ego struggles in agreeing to the Chinese point of view in genuine cases. This could be solved with careful and harmonious mitigation where the very inception of the ego centric problems could be solved before gaining much importance. According to Mong (2012) the Chinese population living in the United States of America feels the foreign land in spite of the policies of the government. The people who have migrated from the country of China to this place of the world find it difficult with adjusting to the set out standards and with the prevailing lifestyle of the people. There is also a huge difference between the lifestyle of the people in America with that of China. The proposed project would bring the students from different background together for a common objective, when they are bound by the common objective of equal interest they do not look for the differences instead they look for the ways to mitigate the differences in order to facilitate the easy and smooth working for the project. As the students get to interact with each other on a regular basis it forms a channel of exchange of information about each other with which they know each other. This enables them in knowing and appreciating the cultures of each other thus reducing the between themselves. Liang and Li (2009) state that another important factor for the migrated population, in this case the Chinese population, is gaining acceptance to the natives of the place and becoming one of them. In many of the instances it is notices that gaining acceptance is one of the major issues for the racial attacks and discrimination against the people. The opportunity to compulsorily work with the students from different background will make obliged to work with each other under a harmonious environment and thus provides them to accept each other without the influence of the prejudices. Such a situation is very important for the harmonious existence of the two entirely different groups of people with entirely different cultural set up. Hoobler (1994) says that as children are at the nascent stage of learning and imbibing the attitudes which will later shape the future of the society, it is very important to mitigate the differences among them so this project was designed to respond to the most sensitive group. Conclusion Implementing such projects which require the joint participation of all of the students, get them along, ensure mutual coordination, establishment of understanding and mutual respect for each other, is very essential and provides greater scope for the harmonious existence of people in that culture. Thus, the decided project would invariably enable the Chinese student understand the American culture. Works Cited Franklin, Ng (1998) “The Taiwanese Americans” Greenwood Publishing Group Hoobler, D (1994) "The Chinese American Family Album", Oxford University Press, New York Kirk, S (2008) "Among Chinese-Americans, a Split on Sports" Oxford Publishers Liang, Zai and Li, Jiejin (2009) "From Chinatown to Every Town: New Patterns of Employment and Settlement for Recent Chinese Immigrants in the United States", State University of New York, New York Mong, A (2012). "Chinese applications to U.S. schools skyrocket". Stoops, N (2003) "Educational Attainment in the United States" U.S. Census Bureau Wu, Dana Ying-Hui (1993) "Coming to America", Millbrook Press, Brookfield Read More