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

Cultural and religious knowledge

Difficulties, in lack of cultural and religious knowledge, are extended from Honeymoon stage. Those second 10 respondents shared a same kind of feeling that Thai

society is too close to Buddhism. There are many Buddhist festivals, activities, regulations in Thailand; and Buddhist regulations are very strict in implementation in Thai society. However, those detailed religious regulations caused stress to Chinese students since they are afraid to violate those regulations or make any mistake. Besides, their fear is generated by lack of cultural and religious knowledge about Thailand.

I am afraid to participate into some activities in Bangkok University. There are too many activities related to Buddhism and I am not a Buddhist. As an international student, I do not know that I have to perform as Thai or not. If I do not behave as same as Thai, a estrangement is established between Thai friends and I; and, I really do not know how to behave as Thai since I have no knowledge or experience in Buddhism. Somehow, religious matters make me boring and felt in uncertain (Jie Chen).

However, those 10 respondents’ Chinese and Thai friends help them to solve cultural and religious matters; and they get a lot of cultural and religious knowledge from Chinese and Thai friends. In addition, Those 10 respondents learn Thai cultural and religious knowledge from many related websites and books; also, in part, they get a lot of information and knowledge from local Thai via conversations.

Local information

From those 10 respondents (crisis stage), weak in local information is also found via interviews. They have few knowledge and information about local Thai and Thailand. They would like to know more about local Thai and Thailand such as travel information, Thai politics, Thai food and local products, restaurants and Local shipping place. But, their Thai and English language capacity and local friends are limited; thus, they felt hard to know more about those kinds of information.

For knowing more local information, they often ask to senior Chinese friends and Thai classmates or friends. However, they try to get certain local information from local Chinese and English newspaper, websites, local Thai and certain English materials such as English brochures and local English magazines. As a respondent stated below:

I have been in Bangkok over a year. During the year, I spend a lot of time to improve my language capacity and I know a lot of things about Bangkok University. Now, I know how to register courses in Bangkok University without anyone’s helping and I know the way to go some certain place such as MBK, Central World, Immigration office, some Chinese restaurants and so on. But, I would like to know more about local restaurants and shopping place. However, I used to search for those kinds of information on website and I got information from Chinese newspaper and brochures as well. And, some close Chinese friends used to bring me to some new places. But, I think it is not enough to me (Ying Qin).