Challenges That Chinese International Students Face When Accepting and Choosing Identities

Project four felt like adapting an original screenplay, something our group members had previously never done before. What was most special about this process was the individual journey we all took to create the final product we were all proud of. We all brought unique backgrounds to the table that enabled us to add effective writing strategies and implement them into a video format. Our individual growth and experiences in the class meshed together to create a project that utilized rhetorical devices, they say/I say, and “good writing” to effectively reach out to our audience with a direct purpose in mind.

(Cooper) This class has shown me time and time again that I am an imperfect individual on a journey to learn and grow. It is evident I will never be perfect, but the growth demonstrated from writing journal 1 to 15 showed a developing process. I exploited my curiosity in new ways and tried to connect the most abstract ideas to make sense of who I am for an audience. I began to care about the writing I submitted which made it infinitely better.

(Cooper) Project 4 really brought it all together for me. Every key element that was used in 1-3 which took hours upon hours to make was condensed and submitted in a 6 minute video. It’s hard to believe the hours put in for every minute detail that makes the work so effective and moving for the audience. Many challenges were faced with busy schedules, conflicting ideas, and adapting a story and to give it the justice it deserves. Yihan’s story developed into one we didn’t want people to watch, we wanted them to feel it and hear it. I personally may not have been the best to connect to an audience in my writing, but with the help of Paige and Yihan, for the first time I felt like a project was made that an audience will be impacted by, leaving them with an urge to make a difference and aid in the identity crisis international students face when joining an American university.

(Cooper) This project blessed me with the opportunity to meet Yihan and tear down the cultural barriers that this project talked about. He is now someone I regularly say hello to on campus. I myself am an audience member who has been a positive product of our project. I got to learn so much about Yihan and the struggles he faced that I was never aware of. I became more socially aware and got to learn so much about another culture. Who knew Yihan was an incredible opera singer?! And for what’s next, this project has left me wanting to continue to tear down barriers with students who I normally wouldn’t associate with. This project has encouraged me to mesh ingroups and truly form the group we all are apart of- Demon Deacons. International students are a large majority of the compromisation of this University, and I want to get to know them. Yihan and this project have taught me a lot about myself and I’m grateful to have been a part of this group project.

(Yihan) As I went through this semester, I learned a lot in terms of how to present a good thesis and how to use some strong evidence to back it up. In this last project, I tried to integrate all that I learned into it. Given the limited ability and time we had, this video is definitely not perfect, but I along with my group tried our best to make it as rhetorically effective as possible.

(Yihan) The process of making this project is very fulfilling and rewarding: I did not only learn more about myself as a writer, but I also got better at teamworking. Doing my own project gave me a chance to reflect deeper about my identity. Cooper and Paige decided to do my autoethnography because my story touched them and took them on a impressive journey. To turn my story into a video, I looked back at my story again. I took myself on this journey that I have been through again and again in my head to get ideas for the video. In this process, Paige and Cooper demonstrated their strong abilities to stimulate my thoughts. Through talking to me, I got all the ideas for my narration.

(Yihan) We wanted our video to be touching and catchy, so we started the video with my personal evidence only because they are what really stands out about my autobiography. Though we never actually got enough of “they say” in the end, we managed to use some quotes in the beginning as Kairos.

(Yihan) When it comes to editing, none of us were familiar with it. It was a tough and long process to fill up all the audio with appropriate pictures. In trying to tell my background and show my personality fully, I literally gathered all the resources that I could get. I asked my parents to shoot scenes in China, and I went to find some old recordings of myself that can be used for the video. It was really hard for me; I recorded my voice over and over again to get good audios. I played and recorded some Chinese music myself, and I even self-recorded some of the actings I came up with myself.

(Yihan) I think that we are really aware of the problem that we do not have enough “they say” to back up my thesis, and the kairos we used was not strong enough. If we had more time and energy, we would have filled every single part of the video with scholarly sources. Also, on “so what” and “who cares,” I myself am not even sure why people should care about us. As a consequence, I think we could have done more on that part too.

(Yihan) Finally, I have to say that it has really been a wonderful experience working with Paige and Cooper. They are all incredibly intelligent in terms of coming up with ideas. They were patient and reliable. As someone who is easily stressed, I really got a lot of relief by talking with them about our current progress. What’s more, their response and acknowledgement to my autoethnography encouraged me a lot. By exchanging ideas and thoughts with them, I felt like I did use writing to make things happen. At least these writings got me two more American friends.

(Paige) Before coming to this class, I thought the first thing I wrote I had to keep, and my revision process would be fixing sentence structures if they were awkward or grammar mistakes. However, one of the main messages I took from this class was a shitty first draft was acceptable. I did not have to keep what I wrote, and most of the time I did not. Instead I revised in pieces focusing on one high order concern at a time; I noticed when I tried revising my paper for Project 1, I was overwhelmed and scatterbrained. I had way too much going on at one time, so I tried this new technique of breaking up tasks for the revision process for Projects 2-4. I realized splitting things up to smaller tasks during the revision process is more efficient and easier to get stuff down.

(Paige) Working on Project 4 with Yihan and Cooper was an amazing experience. We decided, more like me and Cooper decided, to adapt Yihan’s autoethnography into a video. Curiously Yihan asked us why we chose his autoethnography to make into a video, and our answer was simple. Cooper and I both thought Yihan’s autoethnography was powerful when reading it; it made us feel something and we thought Yihan’s identity as an international student needed to be brought forth. In addition, we thought it would be an interesting video to watch because most of us will never experience being an international student. I learned many lessons from Yihan’s autoethnography. I had no idea about the struggles international students go through and how difficult it is to assimilate into another culture. I thought his paper was going to be about how homesick he was, but instead he described how tough it was to communicate with Americans, specifically on popular topics such as celebrities and T.V. shows, as well as the decision to change his name to an American name or keep his Chinese name to remind him of his heritage. I knew Yihan before this class, but I never knew him. I just saw him as one of my peers in my calculus class, but now I feel I know him a lot better now because of the journey he took me on when reading his autoethnography.

(Paige) Even though I think my team and I agree our video will be successful, we did have some challenges regarding busy schedules especially during final exam week, using iMovie and understanding how it works, and different visions we all had when trying to picture how to convert an autoethnography into a video. I know sometimes one of us we get stuck with no ideas, but the other two members would try to help the other out by asking questions or presenting our ideas and have that person comment on them to help spark their own ideas. Overall, I think we overcame these challenges with ease and compromise making our video thrive.

(Paige) After adapting Yihan’s autoethnography into a video, I want to help this in-group by including them in my own in-group. I want international students to feel welcomed and that they belong to our community. After all, we are part of the same in-group, Wake Forest undergraduates, but as a community we need to work harder to make them feel they belong. It is already tough for them to come to a new country far away from their families, but we do not need to add to their struggles of not belonging to a culture that is already foreign to them.

This project opened all of our eyes and allowed us to incorporate many of the lessons we learned in class such as learning to grow as a writer, writing a strong thesis with evidence to back it up, and writing a shitty first draft. Not only did this project teach all of us to grow as a writer and learning to adapt to a different audience and purpose, it also taught us how to be better humans. Our generation can bring about change especially in a time where there is lots of diversity. Moving forward I think we can all do our part in creating a safe space by recognizing international students as part of the American community, and help assimilate them into our culture. For instance, some students at American colleges and universities can hold a week long program in which international students can sign up for learning the ins and outs of American culture. I think it would be beneficial if the panel included both Americans and current international students at the school that way incoming international students can hear stories from other international students and their experiences in assimilating to another culture, as well as learn about the American culture from Americans themselves.

Yihan Zheng

Paige Flederbach

Cooper Blaze