Yu, J. (2023a). Understanding Chinese International Students in the U.S. in Times of the COVID-19 Crisis: From a Chinese Discourse Studies Perspective. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 18(1), 45-61. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2023.2214538
Against the background of the harsh realities of a deeply unequal global landscape, international student mobility is highly asymmetrical and unidirectional from developing countries to Western universities, primarily to English-speaking destinations (Beech 2019; Marginson 2006). However, the flow of global knowledge is opposite from the American-Western metropolitan centers to the rest of the world, which has been reproduced by accredited higher education institutions and solidified in mass media, press, and publications (Shi-xu 2014). Such one-way academic student mobility not only satisfies host countries’ immediate demands of economic gains, but also naturalizes Western ways of knowing through language, pedagogy, and academic research.
When it comes to the research of international education, particularly among Chinese international students in European and North American universities, the given divergent conceptualizations of thinking between the East and West can be traced back to Hofstede’s cultural studies. In his cultural dimensions, the Eastern and Western people have simply been categorized into the seemingly ‘scientific’ categorizations of collectivism vs. individualism, indirectness vs. directness, egalitarianism vs. hierarchy, masculinity vs. femininity, etc. (Hofstede 2001). Building on the ‘Hofstedian legacy’ (Holliday 2013, 6), theories of cultures of learning in education (Jin and Cortazzi 2011) and cultural foundations of learning in psychology (Li 2012) are successively developed to account for Chinese students’ various shocks and examine students’ difficulties in a new sociocultural context. Traditional cultural attributes seem to serve as the trouble-free, innocent, and normative explanations for human behaviors, but, in effect, they are manipulated to produce and reproduce a systematic discourse of scholarly hegemony. This false cultural profiling not only provides a mechanism for freezing the traits of the cultural group but also strengthens particular knowledge about Eastern images of the inferior Other based on the West-controlled hierarchies of cultures.
In addition, Western colonial/imperial politics of knowledge production is still prevalent and persistent in education research. Through knowledge production and reproduction, the West has intellectual authority over the Orient at the expense of silencing other forms of knowledge. Thus, the differentialist discourses on ‘culture’ play a decisive role in constructing the non-Western as culturally and morally deficient. By the same token, they offer contrasted images of the idealization of the Western Self (Bhabha 1994; Said 2003; Spivak 1988). Epistemic dominance compels researchers of color to believe that Western scholarship of valid knowledge development is the universal standard and norm. Western-centric thinking and long-standing patterns of symbolic violence are not disrupted but reproduced and reinforced through academic practices. To be specific, when doing research on international students from Confucian cultures in Western universities, educational researchers tend to focus on students’ barriers, difficulties, problems, and struggles in a new learning environment (e.g. Ching et al. 2017).
In this article, I draw on Chinese Discourse Studies (Shi-xu, 2014) as a theoretical framework to explore how Chinese international students as cultural agents respond to the global pandemic and pandemic-related stereotypes. To begin with, the primary theoretical mechanism underpinning Chinese Discourse Studies is to seek, create, and maintain societal harmony through a dialectic lens (Shi-xu 2014). There is no denying that after the century-old humiliation of foreign aggression in modern history, the top priority for contemporary China and Chinese people is economic development and social stability. To pursue this goal, Chinese people are accustomed to employing cognitive and discursive strategies to rejuvenate ancient civilization and reclaim their voice on the world stage. Another essential principle underlying Chinese Discourse Studies is to express agreement and avoid extreme binary statements, which is premised on Confucian classics of the Golden Mean, zhongyong (中庸), and harmony, he (和). This salient feature is also reappropriated by the central government to strive to build a harmonious society in hopes of coping with social inequalities emerging in Chinese society (Han 2008). The third theoretical principle of Chinese Discourse Studies is ‘self-criticism first’ (Shi-xu 2014, 160). Chinese discourse culture operates under the rule of meaning production through self-retrospection and self-critique (自我批评 ziwo piping). Nevertheless, many symbolic characteristics, such as indirectness, vagueness, silence, complexity, and even contradiction, are often seen and heard in Chinese public discourse. They are often mistakenly interpreted as lacking in analytical or critical thinking and short of ‘I’ voice (Ramanathan and Kaplan 1996) from white Eurocentric perspectives in discourse studies.
Through a critical analysis of 21 Chinese international students’ narratives, this article identifies three culturally specific characteristics that pervade Chinese normative dialogues: (1) Chinese dialectics, (2) Chinese harmony, and (3) Chinese self-criticism. They are often employed to emphasize Chinese optimistic attitudes in times of crisis, avoidance of confrontation for harmonious communication, and moral character of self-introspection to conform to the social norm. These three culturally specific characteristics are interrelated and interconnected, and pervade Chinese normative discourses, which have long-time been mistakenly interpreted from Western-centric perspectives, theories, and approaches. This article offers new empirical evidence for the reconstruction of the Chinese paradigm of discourse studies and reveals the inappropriateness of Western scholarship for understanding non-Western linguistic and communicative events and practices.
In sum, this article demonstrates that Chinese discourse studies can be a potential decolonial option to depart from deep-seated scholarship in Western intellectual supremacy and a visionary framework to advance multicultural discourses about international education against the backdrop of geopolitical tensions and anti-Asian racism.
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Authors’ Bio
Jing Yu PhD, is an Assistant Professor of International Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and a Faculty Affiliate in Asian American Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include international student mobility, intersections of race, class, and nationality, and international dimensions of equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging. Her recent project on Chinese international students’ everyday racism and mental health issues has been successfully funded by the Spencer Foundation’s small research grants. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Diversity of Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development (Research in Briefs), and Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice.
Managing Editor: Xin Fan
Network for Research into Chinese Education Mobilities (NRCEM) 