A Study On The Cognition Of Chinese National Elephant Image By Korean Students In Beijing

Since 1992,China and South Korean have made progress in enhancing political,economic,cultural and educational exchanges.South Korean students have become the largest source of foreign students,and they have always been the focus of Chinese teaching.Young South Korean students,as the most active China’s national image followers and opinion expressers in Korean society,their views can often represent the general direction of public opinion.Learning more about South Korean students’ perception is necessary to build a good and positive China’s national image in South Korean.Given this situation,this paper takes Beijing as the research scope and explores the perception of China’s national image among Korean students.Ultimately,it can propose some targeted suggestions.Through a questionnaire survey of many South Korean students in universities of Beijing,combined with narrative research,public perception of China’s national image has been thoroughly investigated.The research shows that South Korean students in Beijing generally perceive China as a great country,while the higher the Chinese language level,the better the cognitive status of China.For the South Korean students,their perception of China’s national image can be divided into three levels:they think more highly of Chinese culture and Chinses economics than Chinese people,and they think little of Chinese products and Chinese government.From South Korean students’ point of view,China is a country with the blooming of cultures and economy.Chinese people are gradually free from the prejudice,but South Korean students still think Chinese people are bad-manned and lack of civic consciousness.Meanwhile,they do not recognize China’s political system,and believe that China always produce bogus products.The perception of the other two reference images,the Chinese image and the impression of Beijing,is good.South Korean students are more concerned with the developments of economy and technology.The research also founds that improving their impression of Beijing will have a positive impact on their perception of China’s national image.This paper also conducts narrative research on South Korean students who have a better perception of China’s national image and divided them into two types:interest-oriented and economic-oriented,which is according to different learning motivations.The research shows that the South Korean students’ perception of China’s national image has the strongest correlation with their Chinese learning experience.Besides,China’s national image will also be influenced by the students’ learning motivation,the teaching methods of Chinese teachers,the emotional connection of Chinese people,and the channels to get information about China,etc.In a word,making South Korean students feel good about studying in China can contribute to the needs of China’s national image construction.The outbreak of COVID-19 and the deployment of the terminal high-altitude area defense(THAAD)have also had a great impact on the perception of China’s national image.Finally,this paper puts specific and targeted suggestions on how to build a good and positive China’s national image in South Korean and how to teach Chinese to South Korean students.