The Chinese-language website bbs.eduu.com is a popular platform for Beijing’s middle-class parents to discuss their one obsession: the education success of their only child. Most threads focus on securing a spot at a reputable junior high, a rite of passage of hosting guanxi (networking) dinners and customizing bribes so stressful that Chinese parents have likened it to their D-Day – the one battle that wins a war and defines a generation. Make no doubt about it: These Chinese parents, whose child is their full-time pre-occupation, are proud of their battle scars.
It’s common among Beijing’s middle-class for the mother to quit her job to focus on child-rearing full-time. These mothers rally around the flag not of Amy Chua, but of Lin Weihua who published the original battle hymn of the tiger mother, Harvard Girl. Harvard Girl revolutionized parenting in China by bringing scientific management to child abuse: According to Lin Weihua, to increase your child’s patience and endurance, you should make her stand on one leg for half an hour, and clasp ice until her hand turns purple.
And now this scientific management of child abuse has reached another milestone with “Wolf Father,” a rationally-minded businessman named Xiao Baiyou who maximized the use of something akin to abuse to push three of his four children into Peking University.
Like any proud Chinese parent, he’s written a book about his success, and started a school that arguably teaches parents the judicious use of physical abuse. Here’s some of Xiao Baiyou’s sage advice, as relayed by NBC News’s Bo Gu:
“Before the kids go to junior high school, spank them every time they make mistakes, but greatly reduce the frequency after junior high since the children form their own personalities by that age; The spanking tool is confined to the rattan cane only, which causes minor bruises; Only hands and calves are spanked, other body parts are spared; Mistakes are pointed out every time before the whack so children know why they are punished; Sisters and brothers must watch when one of them is smacked so they learn; The punished one has to count the number of spankings during each admonishment; The punished one cannot try to avoid the punishment, otherwise he/she gets more.”
While “Wolf Father” is generating a lot of media interest both inside and outside China, on the Chinese-language parenting website, the hottest topic of discussion remains the original Harvard Girl, Liu Yiting, who is now 30 years-old. Spawning multiple threads and intense interest, the big discussion is on whether Liu Yiting is just a housewife. (Her own LinkedIn account “cn.linkedin.com/in/liuyiting” says she works for a hedge fund).
Because there are so many housewives on the website, many have posted a defense of Liu Yiting (“There’s nothing wrong with being a housewife!”) – but many a Chinese “tiger mother” and “wolf father” must be wondering if staying at home full-time to torture your child is a noble sacrifice if all that happens is that one day your child will stay at home full-time to torture her child.
It could be worse for China’s tiger mothers and wolf fathers though. Imagine that you are a Chinese father who, in compensation for your own limitations, focuses on raising a son for greatness. Your son achieves all your wildest dreams, and is about to become the youngest Chinese ever to obtain a doctorate.
You’re so proud you write a book. But then one day your son decides to hold your dreams hostage against you.
Here’s the amazing story from Shanghaiist:
“Zhang Xinyang, a 16-year-old getting his PhD in pure mathematics at Beihang University, earlier this year refused to defend his master’s thesis until his parents agreed to buy him his own apartment. Finally out of options, Zhang’s parents rented an apartment in Beijing, and lied to their son about buying it. He’s found out about the ruse, but his demands for an apartment haven’t wavered.
‘When I graduate with a PhD, I won’t even have my own place to live in,’ Zhang says. ‘Is there any use to graduating with a PhD? Is there any use?’
Zhang doesn’t consider his request to be extreme. Since it’s his parents who constantly want him to stay in Beijing long-term, Zhang argues, it’s actually his parents putting the pressure on themselves to buy him a house.”
And the lesson here for Chinese parents is obvious: You can get away with abusing your child – just don’t write a book about it.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Bridging the Sino-US Divide (The Diplomat)
I want to thank Kevin Slaten for taking the time to respond to an article I had written discussing how Chinese undergraduates are failing to fit in on American campuses, and the possible consequences of this growing mismatch. I also applaud his efforts at Ohio State University to address this issue by creating and running a program to bring Chinese and American students together for their mutual benefit.
Kevin felt that he was arguing with certain sentiments expressed in my article, and I’m sorry he felt that way because I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that he conveyed in his article: that we could and should do more to ensure cross-cultural understanding on U.S. campuses, and doing so would have many positive effects for Sino-American relations. I wrote my article in response to the New York Times article “The China Conundrum,” which suggested that Chinese don’t fit in because they don’t speak English.
I strongly believe that the issue isn’t language, but the mode of thinking. To understand the differences in perspective between Chinese and Americans, read this passage from Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon:
“There are only two conceptions of human ethics, and they are at opposite poles. One of them is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct, and asserts that the rules of arithmetic are not to be applied to human units. The other starts from the basic principle that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be subordinated and sacrificed to the community – which may dispose of it as an experimentation rabbit or a sacrificial lamb. The first conception could be called anti-vivisection morality, the second, vivisection morality. Humbugs and dilettantes have always tried to mix the two conceptions; in practice, it is impossible.”
To see how this difference manifests itself, consider the issue of how Chinese agents fake essays, recommendation letters, and transcripts for Chinese students who apply to the United States. Americans think it’s wrong because they practice anti-vivisection morality, and focus on the immorality of dishonesty, cheating, and fraud. But Chinese don’t think it’s wrong because they practice vivisection morality, and focus on the utility: everyone benefits, after all.
We at Peking University High School International Division teach our Chinese students dishonesty, cheating, and fraud are wrong. They believe it, but if forced to explain why, they’ll explain that cheating may help in the short-term, but will hurt in the long-term: they have problems understanding that there’s something inherently wrong with lying.
To overcome this and to help our students better adapt to the United States and to new cultures, we focus on teaching them empathy, the importance of which both Kevin and I can agree with. Teaching empathy (which is essentially to teach the validity of different modes of thinking) is the cornerstone of our program, and to that end we teach Western literature (traditionally the best way to teach empathy) as well as theater and writing, have organized a one-week canoeing trip in the U.S., and are in the process of planning a two-week service learning project to Botswana.
Of course, even American students could benefit from learning empathy. Instead of viewing Chinese students as a particular problem on the American campus, we can imagine them into a powerful teaching resource to build cross-cultural understanding. Both Chinese and American students need to learn to reach out to each other.
To start this process, I suggest U.S. colleges and universities organize mandatory week-long camping trips that pair Chinese with American students. In the wilderness, they would learn to focus on their similarities, and this bonding would be a great way for Chinese students to start their American adventure.
Kevin felt that he was arguing with certain sentiments expressed in my article, and I’m sorry he felt that way because I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that he conveyed in his article: that we could and should do more to ensure cross-cultural understanding on U.S. campuses, and doing so would have many positive effects for Sino-American relations. I wrote my article in response to the New York Times article “The China Conundrum,” which suggested that Chinese don’t fit in because they don’t speak English.
I strongly believe that the issue isn’t language, but the mode of thinking. To understand the differences in perspective between Chinese and Americans, read this passage from Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon:
“There are only two conceptions of human ethics, and they are at opposite poles. One of them is Christian and humane, declares the individual to be sacrosanct, and asserts that the rules of arithmetic are not to be applied to human units. The other starts from the basic principle that a collective aim justifies all means, and not only allows, but demands, that the individual should in every way be subordinated and sacrificed to the community – which may dispose of it as an experimentation rabbit or a sacrificial lamb. The first conception could be called anti-vivisection morality, the second, vivisection morality. Humbugs and dilettantes have always tried to mix the two conceptions; in practice, it is impossible.”
To see how this difference manifests itself, consider the issue of how Chinese agents fake essays, recommendation letters, and transcripts for Chinese students who apply to the United States. Americans think it’s wrong because they practice anti-vivisection morality, and focus on the immorality of dishonesty, cheating, and fraud. But Chinese don’t think it’s wrong because they practice vivisection morality, and focus on the utility: everyone benefits, after all.
We at Peking University High School International Division teach our Chinese students dishonesty, cheating, and fraud are wrong. They believe it, but if forced to explain why, they’ll explain that cheating may help in the short-term, but will hurt in the long-term: they have problems understanding that there’s something inherently wrong with lying.
To overcome this and to help our students better adapt to the United States and to new cultures, we focus on teaching them empathy, the importance of which both Kevin and I can agree with. Teaching empathy (which is essentially to teach the validity of different modes of thinking) is the cornerstone of our program, and to that end we teach Western literature (traditionally the best way to teach empathy) as well as theater and writing, have organized a one-week canoeing trip in the U.S., and are in the process of planning a two-week service learning project to Botswana.
Of course, even American students could benefit from learning empathy. Instead of viewing Chinese students as a particular problem on the American campus, we can imagine them into a powerful teaching resource to build cross-cultural understanding. Both Chinese and American students need to learn to reach out to each other.
To start this process, I suggest U.S. colleges and universities organize mandatory week-long camping trips that pair Chinese with American students. In the wilderness, they would learn to focus on their similarities, and this bonding would be a great way for Chinese students to start their American adventure.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
The Clash of Civilizations (The Diplomat)
In conjunction with the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New York Times has just published a feature article on the 130,000 or so Chinese studying on American campuses. Ever since 2004, when the U.S. government relaxed visa requirements for Chinese students and American universities began recruiting Chinese undergraduates, Chinese not adapting well to American academic life has been a growing problem. And now, because the New York Times has pronounced it so, it’s officially a problem.
But what exactly is the problem?
The obvious answer is the language barrier, which results in Chinese students keeping silent in the classroom, and ostracizing themselves from campus life. Then, of course, there’s the cheating and plagiarizing, as well as the psychological and behavioral issues that arise from the culture shock.
The good news is that Chinese parents are themselves concerned, and Chinese students who are planning to study abroad are, as early as elementary school, taking weekend English classes, watching “Gossip Girl,” and attending summer camps in the United States. Chinese applicants to U.S. colleges and universities are increasing in terms of both quantity and quality.
But here’s the bad news: Cross-cultural tensions on the American campus may still increase because the problem isn’t Chinese students who can’t speak English – it’s fundamentally a clash of civilizations. Chinese and Americans have fundamentally different values, norms, and worldviews, and Chinese students on U.S. campuses is merely the first front of the inevitable struggle between the hegemon and its challenger.
Chinese students studying in America isn’t historically new – this is in fact the third wave. The first wave occurred around the turn of the 20th century, when a humbled China’s best and brightest, either on Christian missionary or government scholarships, went to a rising America to learn “science and democracy” to save the motherland. The second wave occurred after Deng Xiaoping’s opening up when China’s best and brightest went to U.S. graduate schools just to get the hell out of China. What distinguishes this third wave of Chinese study abroad students is that they are the children of a confident and assertive Chinese elite, and they have no intention of kowtowing to Americans; in fact, they think the world revolves around them, just like it did back in China.
In this way, many of these 130,000 or so Chinese students studying in the United States are no worse and no better than the scions of the South American, African, European, Asian and American elite currently studying in America. But what makes these Chinese students – many of whom while speaking terrible English are still much more polite and considerate than their American peers – stand out is that they’re Chinese in a time when a declining United States is more and more anxious about a rising China.
That’s why those Chinese students who are most frustrated with their experience in the United States are sometimes those who try hardest to surmount the cultural barrier. Read this paragraph from the New York Times / Chronicle of Higher Education story:
“[A Chinese marketing major] recalls one class in which, she says, the professor ignored her questions and only listened to American students. Also, while working on a group project in a sociology class, she says she was given the cold shoulder: ‘They pretend to welcome you but they do not.’ The encounters left a deep impression. ‘I will remember that all of my life,’ she says.”
Now read this comment posted online in response to the article:
“As a Chinese who studied in the U.S. with full scholarship, I appreciated the opportunity and the professors who helped me very much. However, I remember vividly how I was not so warmly welcomed by my fellow American students in group assignment…[M]ost Chinese like the U.S. That is why millions are learning English, watching American movies, and sending their children to the U.S. for their education are pro U.S…As a matter of fact, I got most of the negative image of the U.S. after I lived here for years.”
And these two Chinese students are hardly alone in their sentiments: For his college paper, Zhou Yeran, a former student of mine, wrote how many of his Chinese classmates at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, home to thousands of Chinese students, have negative impressions of America.
We can argue endlessly who’s at fault here, but the fact that China’s future elite will return to China one day and assume the mantles of power with such negative memories of their time in the United States isn’t a good thing. In fact, I know many overseas returned Chinese who have become wealthy thanks in part to their American graduate degree, but who nevertheless are far more nationalistic and xenophobic than the Chinese I know who’ve never been abroad.
The irony is that U.S. colleges and universities justify matriculating so many Chinese students as a way of bridging the vast Sino-American cultural divide. But some U.S. colleges and universities will say just about anything in order to justify using Chinese students to plug growing budget holes, even if doing so may have serious long-term geo-political consequences.
My fear is that trend of Chinese students studying in America is a ticking time bomb that will create an international crisis when it goes off: there are just too many there at a time when Sino-American relations are becoming more tense, and U.S. leaders are desperately looking for a scapegoat to explain away the problems they’ve created in the first place.
It’s good that the world’s most powerful newspaper has finally declared Chinese students studying in the United States to be a problem. It’s just that it’s a much bigger problem than we’re willing to admit.
But what exactly is the problem?
The obvious answer is the language barrier, which results in Chinese students keeping silent in the classroom, and ostracizing themselves from campus life. Then, of course, there’s the cheating and plagiarizing, as well as the psychological and behavioral issues that arise from the culture shock.
The good news is that Chinese parents are themselves concerned, and Chinese students who are planning to study abroad are, as early as elementary school, taking weekend English classes, watching “Gossip Girl,” and attending summer camps in the United States. Chinese applicants to U.S. colleges and universities are increasing in terms of both quantity and quality.
But here’s the bad news: Cross-cultural tensions on the American campus may still increase because the problem isn’t Chinese students who can’t speak English – it’s fundamentally a clash of civilizations. Chinese and Americans have fundamentally different values, norms, and worldviews, and Chinese students on U.S. campuses is merely the first front of the inevitable struggle between the hegemon and its challenger.
Chinese students studying in America isn’t historically new – this is in fact the third wave. The first wave occurred around the turn of the 20th century, when a humbled China’s best and brightest, either on Christian missionary or government scholarships, went to a rising America to learn “science and democracy” to save the motherland. The second wave occurred after Deng Xiaoping’s opening up when China’s best and brightest went to U.S. graduate schools just to get the hell out of China. What distinguishes this third wave of Chinese study abroad students is that they are the children of a confident and assertive Chinese elite, and they have no intention of kowtowing to Americans; in fact, they think the world revolves around them, just like it did back in China.
In this way, many of these 130,000 or so Chinese students studying in the United States are no worse and no better than the scions of the South American, African, European, Asian and American elite currently studying in America. But what makes these Chinese students – many of whom while speaking terrible English are still much more polite and considerate than their American peers – stand out is that they’re Chinese in a time when a declining United States is more and more anxious about a rising China.
That’s why those Chinese students who are most frustrated with their experience in the United States are sometimes those who try hardest to surmount the cultural barrier. Read this paragraph from the New York Times / Chronicle of Higher Education story:
“[A Chinese marketing major] recalls one class in which, she says, the professor ignored her questions and only listened to American students. Also, while working on a group project in a sociology class, she says she was given the cold shoulder: ‘They pretend to welcome you but they do not.’ The encounters left a deep impression. ‘I will remember that all of my life,’ she says.”
Now read this comment posted online in response to the article:
“As a Chinese who studied in the U.S. with full scholarship, I appreciated the opportunity and the professors who helped me very much. However, I remember vividly how I was not so warmly welcomed by my fellow American students in group assignment…[M]ost Chinese like the U.S. That is why millions are learning English, watching American movies, and sending their children to the U.S. for their education are pro U.S…As a matter of fact, I got most of the negative image of the U.S. after I lived here for years.”
And these two Chinese students are hardly alone in their sentiments: For his college paper, Zhou Yeran, a former student of mine, wrote how many of his Chinese classmates at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, home to thousands of Chinese students, have negative impressions of America.
We can argue endlessly who’s at fault here, but the fact that China’s future elite will return to China one day and assume the mantles of power with such negative memories of their time in the United States isn’t a good thing. In fact, I know many overseas returned Chinese who have become wealthy thanks in part to their American graduate degree, but who nevertheless are far more nationalistic and xenophobic than the Chinese I know who’ve never been abroad.
The irony is that U.S. colleges and universities justify matriculating so many Chinese students as a way of bridging the vast Sino-American cultural divide. But some U.S. colleges and universities will say just about anything in order to justify using Chinese students to plug growing budget holes, even if doing so may have serious long-term geo-political consequences.
My fear is that trend of Chinese students studying in America is a ticking time bomb that will create an international crisis when it goes off: there are just too many there at a time when Sino-American relations are becoming more tense, and U.S. leaders are desperately looking for a scapegoat to explain away the problems they’ve created in the first place.
It’s good that the world’s most powerful newspaper has finally declared Chinese students studying in the United States to be a problem. It’s just that it’s a much bigger problem than we’re willing to admit.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Selecting the Right Chinese Students (Chronicle of Higher Education)
You may have seen him on campus. He's a Chinese student who aced his SAT's, but once enrolled as a freshman he sits quietly by himself either in the library cubicle or at the back of the class. He has only Chinese friends, and thinks sports and parties are beneath him. Day by day, he misses China, and is uninterested in America. And year by year he multiplies on American campuses.
He's in America because he wants a college degree, and because his American college wants his money. But in this marriage of convenience, both parties suffer.
Much of the problem lies in how American admissions officers use hard numbers (standardized test scores) to evaluate Chinese students, and discount soft skills. The hard numbers may determine if a Chinese will excel as a student, but it's the soft skills that will determine if he or she thrives as a member of your campus community.
I have been working in and studying Chinese education since 1999 when I graduated from Yale, and for the past three years I have been working as a curriculum director in two prestigious public high schools in China preparing Chinese students for study in America. Even though our students are some of the brightest in the country, they have struggled to adapt to the Western classroom as much as their peers from less elite schools. Initially, I thought the American college-admissions process could evaluate the Chinese students best suited for study in America, but I've slowly become disillusioned with how American admissions officers select students based almost exclusively on hard numbers. This practice, I believe, benefits mainly the rote learners who thrive in China's schools, and hurts the thoughtful students who have the potential to be transformed by a rigorous American liberal-arts education and who, in turn, may transform the lives of their fellow students and professors.
To be fair, American college recruiters in China feel overwhelmed by the proliferation of cheating, lying, and fraud: Study abroad is big business in China, and young Ivy League graduates write essays for Chinese applicants while many a Chinese public school fakes transcripts and recommendation letters. Amid such chaos, it's understandable why American colleges fall back on standardized tests. But these tests tell only half the story. To really judge a Chinese student's potential to thrive on campus, American colleges and universities could add depth to the admissions process by including an oral interview, one designed to challenge Chinese students with focused questions that test their empathy, imagination, and resilience. Those American colleges that choose to do so will discover that their new Chinese recruits, even though their test scores may suggest limited English, will quickly adapt to a culture of critical thinking and intellectual inquiry in a way they failed to adapt to the Chinese education system of obedience and conformity.
To better understand how this oral interview would work in the admissions process, let's look at David and Michael, two Chinese applicants who are composites of students I've taught and who are now studying in America. David has an average GPA, a B, scored about 2000 out of 2400 on his SAT Reasoning Test, and was editor of his school's newspaper for two years. Michael has the highest GPA in his ultracompetitive high school, scored around 2300 on the SAT, got a 5 on the English Advanced Placement examination, and started his own business.
Michael is a student many American campuses would love to have, and he's set on the Ivy League (Duke is his safety school). But ultimately it doesn't matter where he goes, because he'll take courses that will ensure him a 4.0 GPA and get into a good business school. He'll be shocked that not everyone shares his passion for grades, and he'll attribute that to American shallowness. He'll drop history class because he got an A- on his first paper, and after a month on campus he'll shelter himself in his small circle of Chinese friends. After four years, he'll leave the campus very much the way he arrived.
Unlike Michael, David won't be a straight-A student. He plans to be an architect because he loves drawing, but he'll also try history and literature classes. He'll struggle to keep pace in seminar discussions, but he'll replay class discussions in his head, and one or two comments may linger with him for days. And one day he'll surprise his classmates and professors with a comment that will linger with them for days. Over the dinner-table he'll pepper his classmates with questions, and he won't graduate from college with his life all planned out like Michael. What he will graduate with is a lot of questions about himself and life, and his four years on campus he'll remember forever as a time of his intellectual blossoming.
If Michael happens to be the ideal, then American colleges and universities are in luck because Michaels abound in China. But David is much less common because the three traits he possesses empathy, imagination, and resilience are strangled at a young age in China.
That's why the toughest question you can ask a Chinese student is also the easiest you can ask an American: "What do you think?" Many Chinese students don't know what they think because their parents and teachers just order them about. Their education alienates them from one another, from the world in which they live, and ultimately from themselves. Unable to construct a self-narrative, they may live comfortably in their bubble but have problems overcoming new challenges. In short, a Chinese education does not prepare most students to study abroad.
And it's easy to figure this out in a 30-minute interview, which must become a mandatory part of the application process if American colleges and universities are to recruit Chinese students who will thrive on campus.
Here's how to conduct the interview. First, it ought to be focused, detailed, and deliberate. Here are some examples of good interview questions that look for empathy, imagination, and resilience:
Pick a novel or a movie, and discuss the characters. Which character did you identify with? Why? Which part of the book or movie made you sad? Made you angry? Why? What experiences have you had that remind you of events in the book or movie?
Pick a memorable experience, and explain why it was so memorable. Tell the story. Explain your feelings during the experience. Why did you have these feelings? Do you know anyone either real or fictional who has had a similar experience? Did they behave the same as you did? Do you think their feelings were the same as yours?
When was the last time you were angry or sad? What made you angry or sad? How did you get over your anger or sadness? What do you think will happen the next time you encounter the same situation?
Persist in asking "why?" Look for sincerity, for logic, and for clarity of thought.
In English class, my Chinese students and I read English novels together, and I use these lines of questioning in class. What's frustrating is that while I'm trying to get them to look into themselves, they're always trying to "read" me for the "right" answer. I persist because teaching these students to relate themselves to the text is crucial in the reconstruction of their lost selves, as well as a fundamental skill they'll need to thrive on the American campus.
As you may suspect, David is far more comfortable in my class than Michael.
In a 30-minute interview, David would talk about his experience editing the school's newspaper, how he was the last one out of the newsroom to make sure the papers got printed, how he had to prod his reporters to take on assignments, and how he had to think of ways to build team spirit among a group of high-achieving individuals.
Michael might talk fast and fluently about his business venture, but he wouldn't be clear and direct. Ask him which college he'd like to attend, and he couldn't give you a straight answer either. It'd be an uncomfortable interview because what he wants to say he can't: that he started his business to pad his résumé but that his real passions are increasing his GPA and SAT score; that he hasn't really thought about which college he'd like to attend because he plans to attend the most highly-ranked; that he's the one talking but it's really his parents who are pulling the strings.
An interview may not capture everything you want to know about these students. But it would be a start in the right direction, and that's exactly what American recruiting efforts in China need right now.
He's in America because he wants a college degree, and because his American college wants his money. But in this marriage of convenience, both parties suffer.
Much of the problem lies in how American admissions officers use hard numbers (standardized test scores) to evaluate Chinese students, and discount soft skills. The hard numbers may determine if a Chinese will excel as a student, but it's the soft skills that will determine if he or she thrives as a member of your campus community.
I have been working in and studying Chinese education since 1999 when I graduated from Yale, and for the past three years I have been working as a curriculum director in two prestigious public high schools in China preparing Chinese students for study in America. Even though our students are some of the brightest in the country, they have struggled to adapt to the Western classroom as much as their peers from less elite schools. Initially, I thought the American college-admissions process could evaluate the Chinese students best suited for study in America, but I've slowly become disillusioned with how American admissions officers select students based almost exclusively on hard numbers. This practice, I believe, benefits mainly the rote learners who thrive in China's schools, and hurts the thoughtful students who have the potential to be transformed by a rigorous American liberal-arts education and who, in turn, may transform the lives of their fellow students and professors.
To be fair, American college recruiters in China feel overwhelmed by the proliferation of cheating, lying, and fraud: Study abroad is big business in China, and young Ivy League graduates write essays for Chinese applicants while many a Chinese public school fakes transcripts and recommendation letters. Amid such chaos, it's understandable why American colleges fall back on standardized tests. But these tests tell only half the story. To really judge a Chinese student's potential to thrive on campus, American colleges and universities could add depth to the admissions process by including an oral interview, one designed to challenge Chinese students with focused questions that test their empathy, imagination, and resilience. Those American colleges that choose to do so will discover that their new Chinese recruits, even though their test scores may suggest limited English, will quickly adapt to a culture of critical thinking and intellectual inquiry in a way they failed to adapt to the Chinese education system of obedience and conformity.
To better understand how this oral interview would work in the admissions process, let's look at David and Michael, two Chinese applicants who are composites of students I've taught and who are now studying in America. David has an average GPA, a B, scored about 2000 out of 2400 on his SAT Reasoning Test, and was editor of his school's newspaper for two years. Michael has the highest GPA in his ultracompetitive high school, scored around 2300 on the SAT, got a 5 on the English Advanced Placement examination, and started his own business.
Michael is a student many American campuses would love to have, and he's set on the Ivy League (Duke is his safety school). But ultimately it doesn't matter where he goes, because he'll take courses that will ensure him a 4.0 GPA and get into a good business school. He'll be shocked that not everyone shares his passion for grades, and he'll attribute that to American shallowness. He'll drop history class because he got an A- on his first paper, and after a month on campus he'll shelter himself in his small circle of Chinese friends. After four years, he'll leave the campus very much the way he arrived.
Unlike Michael, David won't be a straight-A student. He plans to be an architect because he loves drawing, but he'll also try history and literature classes. He'll struggle to keep pace in seminar discussions, but he'll replay class discussions in his head, and one or two comments may linger with him for days. And one day he'll surprise his classmates and professors with a comment that will linger with them for days. Over the dinner-table he'll pepper his classmates with questions, and he won't graduate from college with his life all planned out like Michael. What he will graduate with is a lot of questions about himself and life, and his four years on campus he'll remember forever as a time of his intellectual blossoming.
If Michael happens to be the ideal, then American colleges and universities are in luck because Michaels abound in China. But David is much less common because the three traits he possesses empathy, imagination, and resilience are strangled at a young age in China.
That's why the toughest question you can ask a Chinese student is also the easiest you can ask an American: "What do you think?" Many Chinese students don't know what they think because their parents and teachers just order them about. Their education alienates them from one another, from the world in which they live, and ultimately from themselves. Unable to construct a self-narrative, they may live comfortably in their bubble but have problems overcoming new challenges. In short, a Chinese education does not prepare most students to study abroad.
And it's easy to figure this out in a 30-minute interview, which must become a mandatory part of the application process if American colleges and universities are to recruit Chinese students who will thrive on campus.
Here's how to conduct the interview. First, it ought to be focused, detailed, and deliberate. Here are some examples of good interview questions that look for empathy, imagination, and resilience:
Pick a novel or a movie, and discuss the characters. Which character did you identify with? Why? Which part of the book or movie made you sad? Made you angry? Why? What experiences have you had that remind you of events in the book or movie?
Pick a memorable experience, and explain why it was so memorable. Tell the story. Explain your feelings during the experience. Why did you have these feelings? Do you know anyone either real or fictional who has had a similar experience? Did they behave the same as you did? Do you think their feelings were the same as yours?
When was the last time you were angry or sad? What made you angry or sad? How did you get over your anger or sadness? What do you think will happen the next time you encounter the same situation?
Persist in asking "why?" Look for sincerity, for logic, and for clarity of thought.
In English class, my Chinese students and I read English novels together, and I use these lines of questioning in class. What's frustrating is that while I'm trying to get them to look into themselves, they're always trying to "read" me for the "right" answer. I persist because teaching these students to relate themselves to the text is crucial in the reconstruction of their lost selves, as well as a fundamental skill they'll need to thrive on the American campus.
As you may suspect, David is far more comfortable in my class than Michael.
In a 30-minute interview, David would talk about his experience editing the school's newspaper, how he was the last one out of the newsroom to make sure the papers got printed, how he had to prod his reporters to take on assignments, and how he had to think of ways to build team spirit among a group of high-achieving individuals.
Michael might talk fast and fluently about his business venture, but he wouldn't be clear and direct. Ask him which college he'd like to attend, and he couldn't give you a straight answer either. It'd be an uncomfortable interview because what he wants to say he can't: that he started his business to pad his résumé but that his real passions are increasing his GPA and SAT score; that he hasn't really thought about which college he'd like to attend because he plans to attend the most highly-ranked; that he's the one talking but it's really his parents who are pulling the strings.
An interview may not capture everything you want to know about these students. But it would be a start in the right direction, and that's exactly what American recruiting efforts in China need right now.
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