Coping with culture shock: a study of stressors, adjustments and stereotypes among chinese students at bangkok university

Food

Thai food caused several stress to respondents. Thai food is mainly contained of sour, spicy and sweet tastes. Many respondents do not like those kinds of tastes; thus, they are hard to adjust to local Thai food. Also, those tastes of sour and spicy are different from Chinese style. In contract, Thai sour taste is mainly made by lemon juice; but Chinese sour taste is mainly made by Chinese mature vinegar. Thai spicy taste is mainly made by raw chili; Chinese spicy taste is mainly made by Chinese chili sauce.
Therefore, some of interviewees could not adjust to Thai food; even few students lose weight in the beginning period in Thailand.

For those Chinese students who could not adjust to Thai food, normally, they choose to cook by themselves and they bring Chinese ingredients to Thailand for cooking. Also, they often choose to have meals in Chinese restaurants. A respondent stated his experience as below:

I am learning how to cook with my Chinese friends because Thai food is really not my favorite. Chinese food is much better than Thai food. I like
Chinese ingredients; thus, I bought them in China and bring them to Thailand. For example, Chinese chili sauce, Chinese mature vinegar, Chinese soya sauce, cumin, and Chinese hot pot ingredients and so on, they are main things that I brought to Thailand from China. Also, they are popular gifts for
Chinese friends (Yantong Li).

Living condition

Living condition is closely relative to personal spending. Regardless of consideration of personal spending, many rumors and stories are spread among new Chinese students. Those rumors and stories are about some strange events or stories in certain apartment. For example, an apartment, which is close to university campus, is a well-known place among Chinese new students since many strange things happened there. Those strange things are related to ghost or bad luck things.

For coping with this stressor, some Chinese new students choose to move out from their apartment; for the rest, to reduce fear, many of them do not turn off lights when they were sleeping; or, they stick amulets on door. However, many Chinese new students, especially female students, choose to live with roommates since they afraid with those kinds of strange things and they can share room rental fee.

This is the first time that I leave my parents and live in another country. Actually, I am scared when I stay in my apartment alone. It is not only because I am alone in my room, it also because my Chinese friends used to tell me that there are many strange things in Thailand. I don’t want to live alone; thus, I am looking for a roommate (Xiaojing Xuan).