| The middle and late 1980s witnessed the rapid increase of foreign students who came to China to study Chinese language and culture and vigorous communication of cross-cultures. On this basis I started my exploration in the educational internationalization from a perspective of open-pattern education. A better understanding of other societies and cultures will be built up in the development of education for foreign students, which benefits the peoples of different nations for a friendly relationship.In this dissertation a comparative study is taken on the cultural discontinuity of a group of Japanese students who study in China. Through the analysis and comparison the dissertation tends to explore the form, the features, and origin of cultural discontinuity with a proposition of the strategies of cultural adaptation and evaluation of the cultural demonstration.The process of participant observation and the field notes being taken into the frame of academic thinking, the dissertation will analyze the lingual and non-lingual communication, cultural conception and cultural identification, as well as the features of human nature when civilized, in the clues of language, culture and education. It also compares the changeable and unchangeable modalities, surface discontinuity and deep discontinuity.Surface discontinuity refers to the cultural discontinuity exterior, which is caused by superficial customs. A gradual understanding will, without external force, lead to the natural adaptation, which does not challenge the cultural identity that a specific clansman should have and in turn will not shake the cultural identity. It is the implication of the surface cultural discontinuity.Deep discontinuity presents itself mostly in cultural structure, concepts of value, religion, consciousness and unconsciousness, as a result of long process of enculturation and acculturation of ethnic identity in particular kind of social context. A symbol of cultural identity can be discovered in the context in which cultural discontinuity takes place. Deep discontinuity cannot be healed as soon as it occurs.The daily communication of people works as different culture-carriers. As a result, cultural discontinuity occurs when the culture-carriers meet. Surface discontinuity presents mostly formal and exterior features. It has effect on, but does not hinder cross-cultural communication. Deep discontinuity presents mostly essential and intrinsic traits, which will become the obstacles and even hinder the communication between different ethnic groups. However, it is very clear that the boundary between surface discontinuity and deep discontinuity is not very unambiguous. The reason is that numerous examples of cultural discontinuity mix with the interior or the exterior customs traits and thatthe people's language, thinking and behavior are very complicated.Cultural-discontinuity-oriented research involves the improvement on Chinese teaching for Japanese students. In the cross-cultural teaching activities, we should attach our importance on negotiation of the differences. To strengthen the cross-cultural sensitiveness and the ability of cultural adaptation is of great necessity for both the teachers and students. We advocate bi-directional adaptation in the cross-cultural teaching field. Under the principle of cultural relativity and the direction of mutual respect, equal benefit and understanding, an open-style international education is to be undertaken. In the mutual influence of teaching and learning, learners should adjust to the educators' style and vice versa. As for the surface cultural discontinuity, the teachers should actively help the students to adjust to the new environment. Encountered with deep cultural discontinuity, the teachers should work as the cultural "intermediator", trying to avoid cultural conflicts in advance, and meanwhile leading the students to the experiences of different cultures, so as to foster the students' ability of cross-cultural understanding and intuition.
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