Chinese Students Study Abroad Case Study

As the number of Chinese students studying abroad increases, researchers pay attention to how Chinese students respond to their life in foreign countries, mainly in US, UK and Australia. Although the situations in different countries vary a numbr of accounts indicate Chinese students face common problems which make them feel stressed.

Lin (2007) made an investigation of a Chinese student organisation on the US campus of Midwest University, adopting participant observation, individual and focus group interviews to collect qualitative data. New students have both pre-arrival stress and post-arrival stress from culture shock, including language barriers, isolation, food and political discrimination. The study demonstrates that a student organisation

(2001) claim that how Chinese people behave for leisure is not well known, although the number of Chinese immigrants in America is increasing. Yu and Berry man (1996) points that Chinese newcomers consider the language and cultural barriers as big problems that affect their leisure activity. The Chinese teenagers, compared with mainstream Americans, prefer cheap, easy and less physically active leisure. Participants in the study were willing to speak Chinese more when gathering together and maintain a network of friends from the same country. Wang and Stringer (2000) have similar findings that Chinese immigrants would like to choose watching television, chatting with friends rather than the activities involving teamwork. Li and Stodolska (2006) used the theory of transnationalism as theoretical framework to design 16 semi-structured interview questions. They interviewed eight males and eight females about their everyday leisure experiences. The participants report that they identify the importance of relaxation and enjoy the leisure activity. However, because of the heavy workload from study and part-time job and the limitation of social network, their leisure time and activity are largely reduced in the reality. Some of the participants show the dissatisfaction about their leisure lives and miss the leisure time of