| With the rapid development of globalization,a large number of higher-learning institutes have extended efforts to hire foreign teachers to improve the institutions’ teaching quality as well as promote cross-cultural communication.Therefore,the number of foreign teachers is increasing at expedient rates.This study focuses on foreign teachers at Shanghai International Studies University(SISU)to figure out the status of their intercultural friendships with Chinese colleagues and the possible influencing factors.Based on friendship and intercultural friendship theory,this study adopted both pilot study and interview research method and concluded that foreign teachers only maintained a friendly and professional relationship with their Chinese colleagues instead of a deeper intercultural friendship;characterized by low level of interaction and low frequency of interaction.As for factors that hindered intercultural friendship,the long distance between two campuses reduced the chances of interaction between foreign teachers and Chinese colleagues both at school and after school.The less supportive and productive working environment may lead to erosion of the motivation to develop friendship with Chinese colleagues.And the limited communication time due to different teaching schedules and office-sharing made it hard to establish intercultural friendships with each other.Foreign teachers’ low proficiency of Chinese made it hard to understand Chinese way of humor and the underlying meanings of relevant sentences.Apart from that,different personality,topics,interests resulted from cultural difference also had negative effect on their intercultural friendship development.People from European countries tended to communicate in a direct way while Chinese colleagues tended to communicate in an indirect way,which would also have bad effect on their fluent communication.Face concern was of Chinese origin,which added some difficulties for those foreign teachers to understand what that concept meant.Chinese colleagues’ way of treating in-group and out-group members also made foreign teachers feel confused and lack of sense of belonging.Asfor factors that enhanced intercultural friendship,people with previous cross-cultural experience either short or long had a positive effect on their intercultural friendships.Small and frequent renqing had positive effect on establishing long-lasting intercultural friendships.Based on the research results,the author put forward some potential solutions to promote intercultural friendships development between foreign teachers and Chinese colleagues.Although conclusions drawn from this research need to be tested,hopefully it will provide incoming foreign teachers with some beneficial references and promote the development of intercultural friendships between foreign teachers and Chinese colleagues to some extent. |
