"American Honeymoon":an Ethnographic Study Of Sino-US Cross-cultural Encounter On A Chinese Teenagers’global Study Tour

In the recent decade, a fever over global study-tour is sweeping through all major metropolis in China and deserves our new academic attention. Each year, tens of thousands of Chinese middle school and high school students are participating in global study-tour programs that take them to various foreign countries, among which the United States is the most popular destination. Works on mid-to long-term study abroad programs are numerous both in and outside China, providing valuable insights for this research project. For research on short-term study-tour abroad, although foreign scholars began decades ago, they were mainly focused on developed-to-developing countries study. Researches on the opposite direction are extremely limited. In comparison, related studies by Chinese researchers are quite rare and the few available studies are mostly for marketing and business purposes. Against such academic background, this research is conducted from the perspectives of culture shock, cross-cultural adaptation and culture learning for the examination of Chinese teenager students’experience in a China-U.S. cross-culture encounter.This thesis was based on the real experience of a three-week study tour to the United States that was made up of31Chinese middle school students from4different provinces (Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Anhui). I, as one of the two leaders of the tour, observed students’reactions and behavior patterns, interacted and talked with them, read their posts on social media (WeChat and online blogs) and conducted interviews with them after our return to China. Through field observation and interview analysis, I found that although the teenagers encountered some cultural shocks, they generally demonstrated excellent adaptability to the new culture. The reasons for their confidence and competence in cross-cultural bridging and adaptation are five fold. First, the program itself served as a buffer to ease culture shocks. Second, the cross-cultural encounter in China had prepared the students to better integrate in and adapt to the American culture. Third, the students’ psychological resilience and openness are greater than expected. Fourth, their rich family background and previous travel experiences have equipped them with the ability to face new cultural environment. But above all the reasons, as defined in many cultural shock theories, their short visit placed them in the first phase of cultural shock trajectory, which is characterized by "honeymoon," excitement, and goodwill. Hence the title of the thesis is "American Honeymoon." Moreover, during the short duration of the journey that limited their deep immersion in American culture, the teenagers still gained new knowledge of American society and American people through interaction and communication with local people, especially their host families. The major contribution of this thesis is that through a case study, abundant first-hand stories and information are collected, which is helpful to future studies on this topic.