The Chinese are Coming! The Koreans are Already Here , So What

1. The Chinese are Coming! The Koreans are Already Here, So What The Fraught Exchange between Chinese International Undergraduate Students and the American University Jiyeon Kang and Nancy Abelmann

3. The Number of Chinese Students in the United States

4. Questions • How to understand the American media’s quite particular attention to Chinese students? • How is the Chinese Student in America viewed by the media – and by American university administrators, Chinese students, American students and their parents, and Chinese parents?

5. American Media Discourse onChinese Undergraduate Students • American Imagination of China: A Fabled Market and “Yellow Peril” • South Korea, an Unthreatening Mini-Me • Three Imaginations of Chinese Undergraduate Students • an ever-expanding market • a fair exchange between excellent American higher education and exemplary Chinese youth • a fraught exchange with questions about the real value of both

6. November 2010 November 2011

8. Historical Imaginations of China Fascination with the Chinese Market “Fabled market” “The El Dorado of commerce” “Abillion bellies out there” Inassimilable Other and the “Yellow Peril” “The Chinese Invasion” “Last Days of the Republic” Red Menace and the Lost Market During the Cold War “Dangerous foe, a brutal master, and an efficient tyranny” anxiety over a lost market

9. Imaginations of Chinese Students:Inevitable Client of and a Threat to American Liberal Education “Native would be missionaries” and “directing elites” who would reform the primitive consciousness of China (1870-80) “I’m not sure that it is good policy to educate representatives of the warlike Chinese people, whose number is four hundred or five hundred million” (Senator Gallinger, 1912) “Future democratic forces” that would “exert a profound influence on the future course of their country” (1950s)

10. South Korea, an Unthreatening Mini-Me I was having lunch with the President of South Korea.I was interested in education policy -- they've grown enormously over the last 40 years. And I asked him, what are the biggest challenges in your education policy?  He said, the biggest challenge that I have is that my parents are too demanding.  He said, even if somebody is dirt poor, they are insisting that their kids are getting the best education….That was the biggest education challenge that he had, was an insistence, a demand from parents for excellence in the schools. - Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on the ’Education To Innovate’ Campaign” 2009

11. How do they do it? Their formula is relatively simple. They take South Korea's top-scoring middle school students, put those who aspire to an American university in English-language classes, taught by Korean and highly paid American and other foreign teachers, emphasize composition and other skills crucial to success on the SATs and college admissions essays, and urge them on to unceasing study. • NYT 2008 But it tailors its academic courses to American expectations, said Executive Director Don Shim, with creative teaching techniques and different types of classes. This summer, the academy is offering a debate class to bolster students' communication skills. "Many students know the answer, but they don't know how to explain it," Shim said. • Washington Post 2009

12. Imagination of China 1: The Ever Expanding Market The growth of the nation’s economy – and the surge in Shanghai real-estate prices – has helped create 700,000 new millionaires and a middle class of more than 300 million. • San Jose Mercury News 2011 The great number of Chinese families with disposable income, two working parents, and only one child, and a determination to invest their money to make sure that child receives the best education possible • New York Times 2010 Ninety percent of Chinese High school students want to study overseas…. About 10 million young people take China’s college entrance exam each year and only 1 million pass it. • Portland Press Herald 2011 If we build it, they will come. - The Clover Herald 2007

13. Imagination 2: A Fair Exchange • The Liberal American University’s Gift to the Chinese Antipodal Other I heard that America was a more-free country…I didn’t want to study for a number on a test. I wanted to study for the fun of learning. • San Jose Mercury News 2011 The University of Virginia really encouraged me to think as an independent person and not be afraid to speak my mind. • Washington Post 2009 In the U.S. they focus on creative-thinking skills, while in China they only focus on theory… so what university students learn here [in China] doesn’t prepare them for the real world. The experience has given her a deep appreciation for the West’s values of transparency and access to information…. In China, I’m used to secrecy, so being 18 and able to touch history with my bare fingers really impressed me. • New York Times 2010

14. The Exemplary Chinese Student Enlightening and Internationalizing the American Classmate Well, youth of America, you better look back because they are gaining on you. Here come the Chinese and Indian youths who are serious about making their country No. 1 in this new global economy… If our schools continue on the present course of not challenging students and continue to move them along [regardless], then our students will become the customer service telephone answering people in the future, replacing those now operating in foreign countries. • San Antonio Express2006 It’s ‘the next best thing’ for their children, after studying abroad. - USA Today 2009 What a wonderful resource for Clinton County students to be able to mingle with people of a different culture and a different perspective on global markets • The Press-Republican (NY) 2009

15. Imagination 3: A Faltering Exchange • American Educational Exceptionalism? • Chinese Students as Cash Cows American universities are also shopping for partners that will polish their reputations…. Some schools want to cash in on an enormous market for education in the most populous nation on the planet. • The News & Observer (NC) 2006 • Isomorphic Global universities But over the next decade, the number of Chinese students applying to UVA may drop off as more Chinese students decide to attend college within their own country’s borders. In 1999, China launched a multi-billion dollar, 20-year effort to increase the quality of its higher education system. • - The Clover Herald 2007

16. The Exemplary Chinese Student? [Admission officers] spend their time on Chinese applications trying to parse the essays – paying particular attention, as they might with an American candidate, to whether they detect the authentic voice and sensibility • New York Times 2011 Within a couple of weeks, all but three of the non-Chinese students had dropped the course. Why did the American students flee? ''They said the class was very quiet,'' recalls Dr. St. Pierre…. During quizzes, Dr. St. Pierre now requires everyone to leave their books at the front of the classroom to prevent cheating. • New York Times 2011 Chinese graduates go to American universities to attain respected degrees, but retain the expectation that their nation will soon retake its rightful place as a great power. • Washington Times 2010

17. Conclusion • The quality of both American higher education and the Chinese student are called into question • Idealistic notions of internationalization or international exchange are called into question • The exchange between American higher education and the Chinese student is risky, uncertain at best and deceptive at worst.