Editor’s Note: During this year’s Spring Festival, a group of Chinese primary and secondary school students flew across the Pacific Ocean to the United States, with curiosity and expectation of foreign cultures, embarked on a remarkable journey. Chinese children soon discover that despite the wave of globalization sweeping the world, the cultural perception gap between China and the United States persists. American peers marveled at the Chinese students’ fluency in English and even marveled at the skyscrapers of Shenzhen, a modern metropolis. These seemingly minor cognitive differences reflect the reality of a long-term lack of in-depth communication between young people in the two countries. But that’s why the mission of the u.s.-china cultural exchange student ambassadors is so important — to bridge prejudice and understanding through face-to-face interaction.
“He thinks we don’t speak English.”
American students’ understanding of China needs to be refreshed
Different from the Chinese primary and middle school students who go abroad to study during the winter and summer holidays, “The event is actively promoted by the Nanshan District Education Bureau of Shenzhen with the aim of ‘telling Chinese stories well and deepening mutual understanding’ . It aims to make young people in Nanshan District become ambassadors for spreading Chinese culture, as well as experiencing the fun of cross-cultural exchanges and broadening their international horizons,” Zhang Ju, director of the Shenzhen Education International Exchange Center, told the Global Times.
“In order to better promote Chinese culture and Nanshan culture, we also set up a selection session, where each shortlisted student is required to submit a one-minute video explaining the theme of ‘The Story of me and Nanshan’ in English,” Zhang told the reporter, many of the students, such as 13-year-old Liu Ruiqin, are not going abroad for the first time, or even to the United States. “There wasn’t much difference in the level of life,” he said of his spring festival trip to the United States. “In fact, our life in Nanshan was more high-tech.” He said it was possible to“Communicate without barriers”.
At the same time, American kids and even their teachers clearly know much less about China. Zheng Jiang, one of the few pupils in the delegation, was placed in a seventh-grade transfer class at Oakes Middle School. In order to let the children more quickly into the learning life, the American school specially arranged for each student a“Shadow partner”, responsible for its answer questions. One thing Chiang was“Shocked” by his“Shadowy partner” Raymond was that“He thought we didn’t speak English”. Likewise, at Liu’s De’an za middle school, teachers marvel at the Chinese children’s expressiveness in English. Teachers at the local school said they had not expected the children to be so fluent in English.
In fact, De Anza Middle School has also set up Chinese teaching courses. “They have Chinese classes, but also Chinese language. We had a Chinese class one day when we were at school. There were about 10 students,” said Liu Ruiqin, another junior high school student, he felt that the Chinese teaching content in the United States is very simple, and the learning content is similar to“Hello Everyone” and other fixed sentence patterns, unlike Chinese junior high school students whose English level can be directly used for communication.
Not only that, American students for the Chinese culture more lack of knowledge. “We thought Chinese calligraphy was Fame, but in fact, American kids don’t know much about it,” said Jiang Peng, the group’s teacher, who told another story, she said: “The school has a sociology course, mainly to introduce students to the history of countries around the world.”. One of the topics of the class was ‘Four Great Inventions’ , which the students discussed freely. I found myself surrounded by students who didn’t know anything about Four Great Inventions, so I scrambled to answer the teacher’s questions and introduced them to its origins, uses and historical significance.”
Through his own experience, Jiang Zheng was deeply touched by the non-governmental exchanges between China and the United States. She said that in this common home of the Earth, communication between people from different countries is of vital importance, “If there is not enough communication, there is no basic understanding. I think this is the significance of the visit of the ‘sino-us cultural exchange student ambassadors’ to the United States.”.
Jiang Zheng’s father, Jiang Wensheng, paid close attention to the development of sino-us relations. Jiang Wensheng also used his child’s visit to the United States as a window to observe the United States, “Our own experience is that primary and secondary schools in China, at least in big cities, are far more open than most schools in the United States, and this openness seems very natural and self-confident,” he told the global times. By contrast, a lot of schools in the US really need to ‘look at the world’ and especially ‘look at China’ in order to eliminate a lot of prejudice in the next generation.”
From“Nezha” to“Taylor Swift”
The difference in temperature does not keep off the heat of a common subject
Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told the global times that the biggest advantages of young people are a spirit of exploration, a longing for the future and an unformed world view. “Therefore, when American teenagers approach and enter China, they can form their own views of China through witnessing and experiencing it first-hand, rather than just being passively shaped by the ‘China’ image created by the American media or politicians’ rhetoric.”
Chinese and American teenagers have a lot in common. Zheng said she and her American friends can discuss the music of American pop star Taylor Swift and clips from the movie Kung Fu Panda. “My American classmates also asked me for some words in Chinese, and we laughed all the time.” She prepared a hardcover edition of the Chinese picture book, the English abbreviation of the“Journey to the west”, “Kung fu panda” dolls and“Swift” peripherals, by teachers, students and landlord welcome.
Of course, the difference of cultural background also can cause the difference to pop culture concern. After watching“Nezha”, Liu Ruiqin couldn’t wait to share his feelings with his American friends and introduce the most popular mythological figure in China. However, Liu’s American friends did not respond positively, and none of the four went offline to watch the film. When the film was released in the US, Liu and one of his classmates mentioned the incident, which resulted in“Her sharing a superhero TV show she likes to watch”.
However, the love and friendship between people is like a river across languages and cultures, flowing in each other’s hearts. Liu Ruiqin remembers the care he received from his American classmates and teachers, “On the last day of class, there was an event where the teacher spun a wheel and the selected students got a snack,” he recalled. What moved me was that some of the selected American students asked me what I liked and then gave me snacks.”
Another thing that kept the boy in mind was that on New Year’s Eve, he and several other classmates had planned to make dumplings for the landlord, but failed. “If I go to the United States again, I will make dumplings for them again,” he told the global times. “This time it will be a success.”
Not only that, Liu Ruiqin has stayed in touch with his American friends since returning home, even though Shenzhen and California have a 16-hour time difference. On the day of the lantern festival, Liu Ruiqin and one of his American friends called each other online, realizing“Tianya total at this time”. “I thought he hadn’t seen the lantern festival, so I took a picture of it for him and explained how it is made and how it tastes,” he said. “No Wonder I saw the lantern decorations when I went to the supermarket yesterday,” the friend replied. “It is this cultural difference that makes us suddenly become interested when we come into contact with each other, thus promoting mutual understanding,” said Liu, a junior high school student
During his stay in the United States, members of the“Ambassadors” set up calligraphy societies and innovation societies based on their own expertise, among which the calligraphy society was warmly welcomed. Jiang Peng said: “When the children took out a brush dipped in ink brush, a stroke najian, a beautiful Chinese characters on paper.”. American students were amazed and intrigued.” Zheng remembers one detail, “American students of all colors and backgrounds were competing to copy the Chinese character ‘Fu, ‘” she said. “Although all zero of them started off awkwardly, one of them was an American girl who was so talented that the first time she wrote it, she was so fluent and well-behaved that she won a lot of admiration.” Dr. . González, the principal of De Anza High School, visited the calligraphy class twice, later, when she took a walk on campus, some American students ran to her with the word“Fu” in their hands, asking expectantly, “Will you still write calligraphy today?”
Enhance communication and reduce misunderstanding
“I’d love to go to China too.”
“This collision of ideas and cultures is a wonderful experience for both Chinese and American students,” said Tony, the principal of Oakes High School, most of the students in this school will only live in the community, so communication is also important for them, i would like to go to China if I could, and I could even work as a teacher in China if I could.
In order to enable these American partners, who are still relatively unfamiliar with China, to have a deeper understanding of China, the students of the“Embassy” issued a sincere invitation to the American teachers and students on the occasion of their departure. “Raymond is looking forward to the Shanghai Disneyland Park and wants to see it for himself,” Jiang said. I recommended the terracotta warriors as a unique and unmissable cultural heritage in China, and I like them very much.” Liu ruiqin enthusiastically invited his“Shadowy companions” and others to visit his school, it says it wants them to“Make a name for themselves” at school. He added: “My American friends are also looking forward to coming to China, especially to see the modern streetscape of Shenzhen and the easy way to pay by scanning codes.”
“The two sides have tentatively agreed to welcome American students to China in June next year,” Zhang said, the Nanshan District Education Bureau and the Center for cultural and people-to-people exchanges of the Ministry of Education have officially launched the Nanshan District Youth Cultural and people-to-people exchange education characteristic zone, which is dedicated to promoting sino-us educational exchange programs. Zhang told the global times: “We have found school districts in the United States that share the same understanding with the Chinese and are willing to conduct two-way exchanges. The Nanshan District Department of Education has held a number of online meetings with leaders from the Montclair School District in Ontario, California, to reach a consensus on deepening collaboration in areas such as student exchanges, teacher exchanges and academic advancement.”
Jiang Wensheng told the global times that such activities are very good for Chinese and American teenagers to enhance mutual understanding and respect, and can also reach educators and parents through teenagers. “I also believe that young Chinese students should visit the United States more, not just as tourists, not just to study, but as ‘Cultural Envoys’ to show China and understand the United States. This has far-reaching significance for the Chinese and American people to strengthen communication and reduce misunderstanding and misjudgment.”
Li Haidong believes that in 10,20 or 30 years, these American teenagers may become the backbone of American political, economic and cultural exchanges with China, “When they understand China through their own experience or experience in their youth or youth, they will understand China without political, ideological and other prejudices, which will make them more pragmatic, rational and objective in viewing and handling relations with China.”. Li added: “The exchanges and interactions between Chinese and American teenagers are not only aimed at the steady progress of the current china-u.s. relationship, but also at building a more solid public base for the future china-u.s. relationship.”