Thai And Indonesian International Students’ Stereotypes Towards Chinese People

Stereotype is a key concept in intercultural communication,and it can influence people’s attitudes and behaviors.With the continuous advancement of Belt and Road Initiative,China has become a major destination for ASEAN students to study abroad.In recent years,Guangxi has attracted a large number of ASEAN international students due to its geographical advantage to ASEAN countries.In 2017,there were about 9500 ASEAN international students in Guangxi,which accounted for nearly66% of all the international students in the province.It is certain that ASEAN international students’ impressions on Chinese people will directly affect their attitudes and behaviors towards Chinese people.The review of the literature related to ASEAN international students’ stereotypes towards Chinese people shows that these studies mainly mixed with China’s national image and compared different stereotypes the students held before and after coming to China.Participants in these studies were limited to only one ASEAN country or ASEAN countries as a whole.What’s more,only a few studies related to Indonesia.For the above reason,this thesis investigates Thailand and Indonesian international students’ stereotypes towards Chinese people and explains the causes of these stereotypes from cultural perspective,which has practical significance to the understanding of the regional cultures in ASEAN countries and to improve intercultural communication.By the approach of Kuhn and Mcpartland through a self-attitudes test,participants were guided to write as many as possible words or phrases to describe Chinese people from the perspectives of concepts of work and study,personalities,concepts of friendship,concepts of time,concepts of diet,traditional values and living habits.Through content analysis,the researcher sorted these words or phases according to their frequencies.In order to further confirm the obtained stereotypes from content analysis,the researcher selected the top 21 descriptors of impressions for further interviews and a second round questionnaire so as to measure how strongly Thai and Indonesian international students agreed with them.The results show that: Thai and Indonesian international students hold similar stereotypes towards Chinese people.They think Chinese people are diligent and hardworking,patriotic,punctual,having various kinds of food and drink and so on.Most of these stereotypes are positive,which account for nearly 76% of the total.The major differences in the findings are: Indonesian international students think that Chinese people are courteous,but Thai international students think that Chinese are patient and humorous.In addition,Thai and Indonesian international students hold different attitudes towards jumping the queue,Thai international students can not tolerate jumping the queue,while Indonesian international students think that it is understandable.This paper tries to explain the causes of these stereotypes from cultural perspective.Thailand is a prosperous Buddhist country,and competition is not encouraged in Buddhism.Besides,Thailand has rich natural resources,and Thai people believe that contentment brings happiness.Indonesia is a prevalent Islamic country,Indonesian people believe that the whole world is dominated by Allah,and what people need to do is to follow the orders of Allah,which is in Koran.Compared with Thailand and Indonesia,Chinese people are greatly influenced by Confucianism,they are hardworking and persistent in their work and study in order to get better rewards in the future.Moreover,the Chinese Family-State culture makes its people believe that loving their country is loving their family,which leaves hardworking and patriotic impressions to Thai and Indonesian international students.Buddhist culture believes in next life and Islamic culture believes in destiny,andthese two cultures are not sensitive to “efficiency”.However,nowadays in China,with the continuous advancement of industrialization and urbanization,the linear time concept of western culture gradually prevails.To Thai and Indonesian international students,Chinese people emphasize more on punctuality and efficiency.Buddhism and Islam have some food taboos that are related to their cultures,while China has varied dietary structures and habits due to its vast territory and complex climate.What’s more,China is influenced by Taoism,and Chinese people focus on health preservation and mixing of flavors,so China has various kinds of dishes.Therefore,Thai and Indonesian international students strongly agree that Chinese food is rich in variety and flavour.Because of the different cultural backgrounds,Thai and Indonesian international students have different understandings of being courteous,being patient and being humorous.Thai international students think “courteous” refers to “polite”,especially the polite language.Indonesian international students hold the view that “courteous”indicates “have good attitudes towards others”.Thai international students think“patient” means “make efforts,and never give up easily”.Indonesian international students think that “patient ” stands for “do not lose one’s temper”.In addition,Thailand is a country with strict hierarchical system,and Thai people concentrate more on the order.Thai international students are deeply impressed by Chinese people’ behavior of jumping the queue,and they are not bearable to Chinese people’s behavior of jumping the queue,while Indonesian international students think that it is understandable.