Life in Studying Abroad: On the Homesickness of Overseas Students and Studying Abroad

As we all know, among the four groups of overseas Chinese immigrants, in addition to normal and legal immigrants, some are public figures and Chinese-funded institutions; The other part is either illegal residents with legal status, or China people of all colors with illegal status, and the rest are international students.

Yellow skin and black eyes, we go to the east and the west. We have a soft spot for studying abroad, but we often feel the bitterness of travel-stained when we walk in a foreign land. From the Tang Priest in those days to the students from five continents surging in Wan Li today, contemporary China students and ancient monks are as pious as ever, not only learning technology, management, theory and technology, but also experiencing the fruits of foreign civilization. For example, if you are in a foreign country and a stranger, you are constantly facing the impact of identity, language and money. In fact, psychological barriers are a problem for a considerable number of international students.

Studying abroad is an important educational investment for foreigners, and the general direction is always shifting from underdeveloped countries to developed countries. What to learn and how to learn are always two important topics. However, because young people are always eager to be recognized by the outside world and come to a foreign country with all kinds of complicated mentality, they find that their dream of studying abroad for a long time is far from what they expected. Unfamiliar language, heavy schoolwork, monotonous life and unforgettable homesickness, only men and women who break into studying abroad alone can taste all kinds of tastes of studying abroad.

Chatting with foreign students and friends, they all have an experience: homesickness is always far away, far from home, far from the depths of memory; Homesickness is always very close, and any little thing in real life will touch memories of hometown.

Overseas, homesickness seems to arise not only because of lack of communication with hometown. An international student told the author: "In fact, it is very convenient to make a phone call now, especially since parents have learned to chat online. We can communicate every day and see each other through online video. We can say that we know everything at home and at home, but we still often miss home. "

Yes, especially for overseas Chinese, homesickness is like a transparent net, invisible and intangible, but everywhere.

I remember some scholars said that homesickness is not only a concept of time and space, but also a cultural concept. From the psychological point of view, homesickness is a common psychological state of human beings traveling in foreign countries. So homesickness is first of all a concept of distance, and the farther away from home, the stronger it is. In addition, the content and object of homesickness are often the people and events of yesterday in memory, which is a concept of time. Meanwhile, homesickness is a cultural concept. Because for overseas Chinese, "hometown" is not only a narrow sense of birthplace or native place, but also a broad sense of spiritual home.

Homesickness is a kind of missing emotion hidden in people's hearts. Once you are far away from home, you will run or rush out. Homesickness can generally be divided into three levels. The first level is the yearning for relatives, friends, fellow villagers and compatriots. The second layer is the nostalgia for the hometown scene, the mountains and rivers of the old country and the scenery of the old country; The third and deepest layer is the spiritual attachment to history and culture.

To put it bluntly, it is because international students are "far away from an emotionally recognized home" and have moved from a familiar environment to a strange one. In this way, on the one hand, they lost contact with their hometown and their original cultural foundation and social status; On the other hand, I feel helpless and hopeless in the new environment. If the original self-awareness is not recognized and praised in the new environment, I will feel alienated and wandering in language, culture, race, living habits and spatial distance. In addition, especially when the original mother culture conflicts with the object culture of the country where they live, they often feel that they are on the edge of society and are "others" with vague cultural identity.

Therefore, in this state of mind, even successful people are always homesick. When China, a spoiled only child, went through most of the psychological tests at this moment, which exceeded their psychological endurance, so that some foreign students completely fell into psychological panic, gave up their studies halfway, and others were still there. With lingering worries, people begin to know what homesickness is. Many foreign students will go to Chinatown to eat Chinese food, buy newspapers and magazines from China or watch domestic movies in their spare time. It is not only a gathering place for China people, but also a place to satisfy their "China stomach", "China eyes" and "China ears". Even the bargaining is the same. It feels as if they have gone home, and their homesickness has eased a little.

Interestingly, in recent years, due to the rapid development of China society, the mentality of many foreign students began to become unbalanced. I remember that in the 1980s and 1990s, most returned international students didn't get along well abroad, but now it's very different. Most of them are excellent successful people or elites in their own industries. As a best-selling book written by foreign students said, why many people don't return to China is just because for the vast majority of people, the road to return home can't be full of flowers and applause.

I often see some people who like to belittle China and despise mainlanders on the Internet. As a matter of fact, we are all from China, and we did a poor job ourselves. It's nobody else's fault. In the final analysis, it's all your choice.

It should be said that most people who study abroad benefit from China's exam-oriented education system. In fact, for most people, the original intention of going abroad is to take shortcuts to success, and of course to satisfy the vanity of individuals and families. In fact, compared with not studying abroad, studying abroad is nothing more than a little more foreign languages, more knowledge and more skills. If you want to be opportunistic or show off, it's very shallow. Studying abroad is more important to learn cross-cultural communication and turn over a new leaf. Judging from the practical challenges, it is not enough for people to have academic qualifications, and comprehensive living ability is far more important than academic qualifications. Poor popularity, poor interpersonal relationship, no matter how big the ability is, it is not good.

It takes about ten years to learn all kinds of knowledge and skills in a person's life, which is a long process. It takes time to spend money, but it is not suitable for majors. What to learn and how much to master are directly related to the success or failure of finding a job and an object. Diploma is important for foreign students to spend a lot of time studying abroad, but it is more important to focus on their own interests and future social needs so as not to regret it.

When an international student was asked about his experience in studying abroad, he told the author, "People will become particularly talkative in a foreign country, and many things can't be told to people around them, or they can't understand them. Posting on the internet is a kind of talk, a summary and review of one's life, hoping to get praise from others. After all, we are creatures that need a sense of identity. "

Fortunately, with the development of science and technology and the popularity of the Internet, the online world has become an indispensable part of the life of international students. For international students, it is human nature to feel lonely in a foreign country. The Internet has given them a virtual home: you can watch the news online to understand the changes in China; Chatting online can keep in touch with relatives and friends in China. Online forums make their life abroad less difficult and boring.

The rough life of studying abroad makes many people choose to tell their stories online. In some posts in overseas forums, the author described his experience from setting foot in a foreign country in great detail, or selected a special experience to describe it in detail and share it with netizens. An author of the White Paper on Studying Abroad also mentioned in the post that after writing these contents, "I felt relieved, as if I had spit out what I had been holding in my heart for a long time. I must have a rest so that my soul can keep up with my footsteps. "

More international students choose to splash water on the forum and share their scattered feelings. The words they left behind are not as detailed as the above article, but they can also vent. A student studying in western countries said that through the exchange in the forum, the loneliness when he first arrived in western countries has been reduced a lot. "After making many friends who have studied in the West, I found that I am not alone many times."

Many people complain that life in China is suppressed. In fact, to tell the truth, many international students who go abroad have no work experience at all, and most of them leave directly after graduation. How do you know what changes have taken place in China society? The author communicated with an international student about his plans after graduation, and he said frankly that he would go on a journey first and accumulate some experience. In this society, it is foolish to talk about incompetence. In today's world, only truly capable people can float at the top of the social pyramid. If you don't stand up, it can only show that your ability is not as strong as you think, or that you are self-righteous. Therefore, the rational idea is to improve yourself, not to blame the society. People who are disloyal to the enterprise will not be reused by the enterprise. Similarly, if they are not loyal to the country, the country will abandon them.

Really, studying abroad is neither a superficial capital to show off to others, nor a fashionable way of eating, drinking and having fun in other countries, but mainly for one's own knowledge and skills. In the process of learning, there are bound to be great and small difficulties. Therefore, in addition to the absorption of different cultural knowledge, it is very important to reshape your mentality in a strange foreign land.

Yes, whether wandering, depression, impetuousness or sadness, are not all emotional accumulations of life experiences?

Living alone, friends are emotional sustenance. With more friends, life is much easier.

In addition, it is definitely a good choice to travel back to China and visit relatives and friends during the holidays.

Life can't stop because of various disappointments. What you can do when studying abroad can only be to force yourself to adapt and adjust one by one according to your own needs, from study, life to mentality. Whether you go back to China to seek development or continue to study abroad, your study abroad career will surely become a memory of your youth.

Really, you should be safe when you come, because "all good things must come to an end." ...