<story><title>When a Chinese PhD Student Meets a German Supervisor [pdf]</title><url>https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/bitstream/handle/123456789/35697/Zhang_0-349300.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>drieddust</author><text>I am an Indian in UK. Culture of heavy drinking and partying even in age group well past 30 is a real hindrance for me. If you don&amp;#x27;t drink or want to stop at a few, you are not really a sport.&lt;p&gt;Many Indian face similar predicament.</text></item><item><author>paradite</author><text>While I agree with your advice, there is one important point that you missed.&lt;p&gt;The fact that Chinese and Indian students tend to form cliques or enclaves, is a perfectly normal and natural behavior, because of the sheer large number of students in the same community.&lt;p&gt;Do not mistake this as &amp;quot;Chinese and Indians are not good at mingling with the locals because of their mindset and culture.&amp;quot; It is mostly just because their social circle is large enough to sustain itself in a typical overseas community. In fact, it requires much more effort for them to get out of the comfort zone than students from countries that do not have so many students studying overseas. Another easy way to see it is that, they literally have a &amp;quot;larger comfort zone&amp;quot; to jump out of.&lt;p&gt;To put it into perspective, consider a US college where there is only a few Chinese or Indian students, chances are they will naturally interact more with locals.&lt;p&gt;Then consider a group of exchange students in an Asia university, chances are they are going to be mingling around within themselves all day with minimal interactions with locals.&lt;p&gt;So my point is, do not judge them negatively because of this, and do put in some extra effort in reaching out to them if you are kind enough and want to change the status quo.</text></item><item><author>denzil_correa</author><text>One of my most important suggestions to Asian (Indian and Chinese in particular) students is to expand your horizons both professionally and personally. You are going to a new country - don&amp;#x27;t ONLY mingle around with your kind. There is a far broader experience to gain that will only help you professionally and personally in the future. There are many ways you can do it&lt;p&gt;* Share an apartment with someone from a different country&lt;p&gt;* Make acquaintances and talk to people &lt;i&gt;outside work&lt;/i&gt; with diverse professions - don&amp;#x27;t stick to scientists ONLY&lt;p&gt;* Try to understand difference between cultures&lt;p&gt;Especially once you move to a new country, you have a great opportunity to understand difference between cultures. Don&amp;#x27;t miss it!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>noir_lord</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m white British, born here and I don&amp;#x27;t drink - definitely get the stranger in a strange land feeling sometimes.</text></comment>
<story><title>When a Chinese PhD Student Meets a German Supervisor [pdf]</title><url>https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/bitstream/handle/123456789/35697/Zhang_0-349300.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>drieddust</author><text>I am an Indian in UK. Culture of heavy drinking and partying even in age group well past 30 is a real hindrance for me. If you don&amp;#x27;t drink or want to stop at a few, you are not really a sport.&lt;p&gt;Many Indian face similar predicament.</text></item><item><author>paradite</author><text>While I agree with your advice, there is one important point that you missed.&lt;p&gt;The fact that Chinese and Indian students tend to form cliques or enclaves, is a perfectly normal and natural behavior, because of the sheer large number of students in the same community.&lt;p&gt;Do not mistake this as &amp;quot;Chinese and Indians are not good at mingling with the locals because of their mindset and culture.&amp;quot; It is mostly just because their social circle is large enough to sustain itself in a typical overseas community. In fact, it requires much more effort for them to get out of the comfort zone than students from countries that do not have so many students studying overseas. Another easy way to see it is that, they literally have a &amp;quot;larger comfort zone&amp;quot; to jump out of.&lt;p&gt;To put it into perspective, consider a US college where there is only a few Chinese or Indian students, chances are they will naturally interact more with locals.&lt;p&gt;Then consider a group of exchange students in an Asia university, chances are they are going to be mingling around within themselves all day with minimal interactions with locals.&lt;p&gt;So my point is, do not judge them negatively because of this, and do put in some extra effort in reaching out to them if you are kind enough and want to change the status quo.</text></item><item><author>denzil_correa</author><text>One of my most important suggestions to Asian (Indian and Chinese in particular) students is to expand your horizons both professionally and personally. You are going to a new country - don&amp;#x27;t ONLY mingle around with your kind. There is a far broader experience to gain that will only help you professionally and personally in the future. There are many ways you can do it&lt;p&gt;* Share an apartment with someone from a different country&lt;p&gt;* Make acquaintances and talk to people &lt;i&gt;outside work&lt;/i&gt; with diverse professions - don&amp;#x27;t stick to scientists ONLY&lt;p&gt;* Try to understand difference between cultures&lt;p&gt;Especially once you move to a new country, you have a great opportunity to understand difference between cultures. Don&amp;#x27;t miss it!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>minipci1321</author><text>A close family member faced the same issue when moved to UK for work. Being an athlete since the childhood (== not having a strong skill to handle alcohol + saving all time for training), he tried to avoid as much as he could - to the point where his manager made a &amp;quot;friendly remark&amp;quot; about how he should participate.&lt;p&gt;I think he now more or less secretly switches to juice after first couple of glasses (and I guess counts minutes till the end).</text></comment>