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By Denise Winter
Have you ever had an Asian student as a roommate? If so, did you find that you were the one to commonly complain about the smoke detector going off and your apartment reeking to no end, or were you the one begging for one more bite of that sizzling hot stirfry? In pursuing higher learning in a foreign country, students from across Asia have come to USU to receive the continued education and cultural experience they are looking for. Many of these students soon realize after living here for a short period of time that American culture and way of life is largely different from their accustomed styles of living back home. They begin to face an identity question regarding assimilation vs. acculturation. Social scientists explain that assimilation is allowing one's original culture to be overidden by the dominant culture and acculturation is aquiring the capability to function within the dominant culture while retaining one's original culture. So what are the advantages and disadvantages for Asians retaining their identities in a white-majority society? Zhai Wei, a USU Chinese instructor from Beijing, China, states that she has very much enjoyed living in Utah for the past three years but feels it is vital for her to continue living out many of her Chinese traditions. She explains that although she has gained a particular liking for cream cheese, potato soup, pork and beans and cheesecake, she still must cook Chinese food at least once a day, usually consisting of stir-fried vegetables with pork or beef. She even goes to special Chinese grocery stores to buy specific seasonings and special soy sauces that cannot be found in a typical grocery store. Zhai Wei spends most of her time reading Chinese newspapers and periodicals at the Merrill Library, listening to traditional folk and popular Chinese music, watching Chinese movies on the Internet, and reading novels that her mom sends from China. Due to her ambitious study habits as a child and the prestigious education that she received in China, she has noticed that the average American student does not seem to study very hard and tends to focus more on social entertainment. She also feels that the American way of dating is in total contradiction of how she was raised and under no circumstance would she be willing to conform to the cultural norms in American dating by changing her standards. "I don't understand how boys can date so many girls at the same time, it shouldn't be like shopping. In my culture we date one and only one until it is over, and during that time of courtship you are totally faithful to that one person," Zhai says. Li Yi Lung is a 27-year-old graduate student from Taiwan who has now been living in Utah for almost four years. He feels that he has completely adopted the American lifestyle, unlike his brother who recently moved here and continues to remove his shoes when entering a bedroom and religiously showers at night just as most do in Taiwan. Yi Lung can be spotted driving around town in his Toyota RAV4 SUV, possibly on his way to grab a bite at Carls Jr. or Burger King, or maybe even headed toward the mall where he can be found shopping at classic American stores such as Banana Republic and the Gap. He also loves American entertainment as he often watches MTV or Comedy Central, and even has tickets to attend an Incubus concert in Salt Lake this July. Shingo Kodani, a 22-year-old exchange student from Japan, has been in Utah for eight months now and feels as though he has adapted fairly quickly to the lifestyle here. He likes to think of it as living like an American when he's in America and living like the Japanese when he is in Japan. His taste in food welcomes anything from hamburgers and pizza to several different Asian cuisines, which allows him to be flexible with his meals. As much as he has stayed faithful to Japanese music, he has also adopted a taste for hip-hop music and enjoys listening to Eminem by influence of his American roommate. He notes that he has incorporated American greetings into his social interaction such as the shaking of hands and asking "how are you" when walking by a familiar face. Many exchange students have commented they are comfortable sticking to familiar traditions as others have stated they want to experience the American way as they are fully immersed in our society. The overall consensus seems to be that most students have assimilated bits and pieces of the American culture into their lifestyle and have had an enjoyable experience gaining their education here at USU/ For more information about Asians living in American culture, please click on any of these websites: an american social commentary sites crossing cultures and campuses
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