Another post on international students.

Normally I would ignore the kind of searches that lead people to my blogs.

But someone found my blog by searching "msu chinese go home." (Upon googling that myself, I found that I am on the second page of results.)

Okay, whoever found my blog using that site. I assume that it's also someone who either contributed or likes the racist twitter, MSU's Token Asian. (And you can link that yourself, there's no way that I'm giving that person hits from my blog).

First, go ahead and read my post on rooming with international students. You can replace "rooming" with "living," "going to class with" or "seeing on a daily basis." You don't have to be Chinese-American like me to make friends with international students (I'm going to go ahead and say Chinese students for the rest of the post, just because that's what led someone to my blog, and I have mostly made friends with international Chinese students). I promise. You just have to be a civil human being, willing to reach outside of your comfort zone and make friends of a different culture.

Let me first address a few stereotypes. This article addressed some of them, so I'll just use the ones that they said and put my own ideas on it.

"A Chinese student at Michigan State University finds his car spray-painted, the words reading "Go back home."

I learned about this in my anthropology class last semester. And it just made me so sad and so angry. In class, we assumed that the vandal chose the car because of the brand (it's really no secret that most of the Chinese students drive really nice cars: BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Lexus.) But really? Jealousy doesn't look good on anyone. I really cannot find any other reason for a person to want to ruin a perfectly good car with paint, than because he (or she) was jealous of the car. There's always a yellow Camaro sitting in front of Hubbard and I drool and admire it, but really? Spray-painting it? And honestly, if they spent the time they used concocting a plot to spray paint the foreign cars (in Chinese letters) on studying, they wouldn't need to be vandals. Or jealous.

the pseudonym “haha,” disputed that the Twitter feed (MSU's Token Asian) was hostile -- “you guys confused making fun of [A]sians as being racist when it is not” – and suggested that the reported problems stem from the Asian students’ own self-segregation.  “Asian International students are SO innocent,” haha wrote. “They stick together and are too full of themselves to bother connecting with the non-international students at MSU. When you purposefully, separate yourself from the other students at the University[,] [w]hat do you expect? How about you guys stop being so rude and arrogant to the rest of us and let us talk to you, maybe do some language exchange, go out for coffee... or something!”

 Let's see... how to address this. Okay. Let's say that you (you being used in general, not you the reader... although if you were one of the people who thinks this way, feel free to think of it as YOU) go to France or Spain for a college program because you studied the language in high school, and only one of your friends went with you. You're both about the same proficiency at the language (which, let's face it, can't possibly be that good if you only studied two or three times a week for six years without using it in your daily life). Everyone there, even if they haven't known each other for very long, are fluent, native speakers with different customs than you. Who are you going to talk to?

If you're one of the people who are trying to be friendly and welcoming and get the very most out of a different culture, you'll try to be friends with the native students. But if you're unsure of the language, nervous, shy, then you'll probably try to stick with your friend from home.

It's the same with them. As for the rude and arrogant and "let us talk to you" part of the comment, I semi-addressed this in my other post. I mentioned how I had smiled at an international student who immediately looked away. After being offended for all of two seconds, and then willingly LISTENING to what other international students said, I learned that it was a culture difference. Just go up and talk to them!

There are already so many racist people in the world. I was walking around Holmes Hall a few months ago with a group of my friends (all Asian-American, born and raised in America), and a boy with a group of his friends started doing the "Gangnam style" dance as he passed us. Was this necessary? Did this do anything, other than stroke his ego? We were all so surprised that we didn't say anything to him.

But a month ago or so, my friend and I were walking around Hubbard caf. My friend moved to America from South Korea in 6th grade, so he's fluent in English and everything. He was wearing a shirt with the Paul Frank monkey on it which is really popular with international students, and this American domestic white idiot jock guy started speaking fake "Asian" to him (ching-chong, nee how, konnichiwa. And yes, I know that konnichiwa and ni hao are REAL words in Asian languages, but it's the sentiment behind them that people use that makes the difference) and he turned around and, in pretty good English (he still has an accent) was like "Are you talking to me?!," getting pissed because he'd had a bad day and the guy immediately backed off. So just don't do it. You'll end up being the one who looks like an idiot.

Anyways, I just hope that if you're reading this, then you can think back about your encounters with international students and realize that they're just here for an education, like you. I will mention that of course, there are some people who give international students a bad name. Just as there are some people who give the domestic students a bad name. But is it really necessary to try and "fix" this by vandalizing or insulting? I'm really hoping to be an OCAT aide next year, to be a part of the solution. But there are other ways to fix it. Introduce yourself to an international student, strike up a conversation. Attend programs that the MSU Office of Culture and Academic Transitions puts on (like their brilliant "OUR MSU" signs program.) Go to the MSU International Center's Coffee Hour, or Bridges International, both of which offer language exchange and the chance to talk to international students.