Survey On The Recognition Of Chinese Cultural Symbols By University Students In Surabaya, Indonesia

Indonesia is the country with the largest number of Chinese ethnic in the world.It is also one of China’s important partner country.In recent years,the two countries have established a good cooperation in economy,politics,science,technology,education,and culture.Along with the development of these cooperation,Indonesian people’s interest in learning Chinese language has also been improving.Thus,the number of institutions that run the Chinese language teaching is increased exponentially.At the same time,the spread of Chinese culture in Indonesia has also seen a rapid growth.The number of Indonesians who know Chinese culture is increasing from year to year.However,the Indonesian people is a nation of various ethnic and religious backgrounds,these differences can affect Indonesian people’s perception,.understanding,and recognition of Chinese cultural symbols.In order to understand Indonesian people,especially the university student in Surabaya’ s recognition of Chinese cultural symbol,this thesis combines the results of related researches from various domestic researchers and the results of pre-investigation done in the early period of the research and select 10 categories of Chinese cultural symbol:Chinese language,traditional festivals,traditional instruments,Chinese products,representative figures,representative animals,traditional foods and beverages,historical sites,traditional arts,and Chinese medicine.In total,there are 43 cultural symbols which has a high representativeness of Chinese culture are selected.Through literature study,questionnaire survey,quantitative and comparative analysis method,200 university students in Surabaya,Indonesia are studied and analyzed.The result of this research show that among these 43 cultural symbols,the cultural symbols with the highest cognition rate are Chinese language,panda,fried rice,and the Great Wall,the cultural symbols with the lowest cognition rate is the Chongyang Festival.The cultural symbol with the highest recognition rate is panda,the cultural symbol with the highest non-recognition rate is acupuncture and white wine.The cultural symbol with the highest tendency of understanding is Beijing Roast Duck.The cultural symbol with the lowest tendency of understanding is Dragon.In addition,none of these selected cultural symbol have 0%of cognition rate and more than 30%of not-recognition rate.It shows that the university student in Surabaya,Indonesia have a medium-high recognition level of Chinese cultural symbols.Through the result of this research,we can also understand that different ethnicity,religious background,and Chinese language learning situation can affect their recognition to Chinese cultural symbols.Respondent who is a Chinese ethnic,a Confucians or Buddhist and a Chinese language learner have higher cognition and recognition rate of Chinese cultural symbols.But whether or not a person has visited China has no particular effect on their cognition and recognition of Chinese cultural symbols.Respondent who have been to China and have not been to China have the almost the same cognition and recognition rate to Chinese cultural symbols.