Macleans suggests Canadian universities are " 'Too Asian'? "

Good for you for noticing that. I did too.

My point was that if there is a striking difference in the way things are done from one country to another it is often equvalent to a cultural difference.

Another example of it - a friend of mine over there who didn't want to go busking because he didn't feel qualified because he hadn't yet passed his music exam. I don't know too many people raised in Canada who would think that way. I can think of plenty of other ways that, generally speaking, some people think and see things from a different perspective than we do here.

But I should have known that even touching this subject was a kiss of death.

Sean, I was addressing CYS, not you. But my "proof" is the statistics which point out the percentage of students who identify as Asian--it is much higher than the percentage of exchange students, by a factor of 7 or 8. I'm not sure what "political point" you think is being made other than the article in Macleans is racist. I have been addressing other posters in this thread, not you. As for my own experience, I teach English literature at UBC, a school mentioned in the article as potentially "too Asian." In my experience, any of the generalizations the article attempts to make are laughably false.

Besides, even if we were talking about just students from mainland China, the cultural argument still doesn't hold water as it generalizes a conception of Chinese culture vis-a-vis education drawn from such a limited sample, most likely composed of students of relative class privilege (in that they can afford to study in Canada and pay exorbitant international student fees) or exceptionally talented (if they are receiving some form of scholarship funding to do international study). I can't see how we can draw any conclusions about the totality of Chinese culture from such a small and self-selecting data set. 

Yes!

And, um, *cough* I mention this in my blog *cough*

Since the early Imperial exam system, Chinese rote-learning has gone far beyond knowledge of cannonized works. Exemplars of writing--calligraphy, as well as content--were etched in stone, for students to take rubbings from and copy, verbatim. Even students of, say, the classics in Western institutions never had to copy the Iliad down in the origional Greek, marked on calligraphy. Islamic (madrassa) scholarship provides an interesting contrast. Even though students are expected to practice Arabic calligraphy, they also learn to recite the Qur'an, with the spoken word granted equal footing (classical, spoken Arabic is very different from many dialects in common use). Chinese is a unique example, since the written word has no real modern speech counterpart--Putonghua is the standard spoken form, but still very different from standard written Chinese. There is an emphasis on writing above all that simply has no counterpart in any other cultures' educational practices. And this bookishness permeated every culture under the influence of both Confucian thought and Chinese orthography. Korea and Japan are examples. People I've known who've taught ESL in East Asia have complained about their students' lack of exposure to the spoken, as opposed to written word.

And I stand by my assertion that university students are a privelaged class. Compared to when I went to school, tuition rates are eye-poppingly high, especially for foreign students whose generally well-off parents pay about double the rates of Canadian students' tuition. And there isn't the vicious sinophobic racism of the early 20th Century, with persecution of Chinese-Canadians. These students are neither poor, nor marginalized in any way. Actually, there does seem to be a great deal of on-campus friction between mainlanders and Taiwanese students, and I've encountered some pretty racist comments about Tibetans from Chinese students, particularilly after the Dalai Lama visit.

With respect, Sean, I feel like you're reading a different article than I am.  The opposition set up throughout is between 'white' and 'Asian' students - not between 'Western' and 'Asian' or 'Canadian' and "Asian'.  This starts in the first paragraph:  "“The only people from our school who went to U of T were Asian,” explains Alexandra, a second-year student who looks like a girl from an Aritzia billboard. “All the white kids,” she says, “go to Queen’s, Western and McGill.”"

It's spelled out a couple of paragraphs further down:  "“Too Asian” is not about racism, say students like Alexandra: many white students simply believe that competing with Asians—both Asian Canadians and international students—requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make."

The paraphrase from Stephen Hsu refers to discrimination faced by "Asian-American university applicants".

A couple of paragraphs down from there:  "Asian-Canadian students are far more likely to talk about and assert their ethnic identities than white students. “I’m Asian,” says 21-year-old Susie Su, a third-year student at UBC’s Sauder School of Business. “I do have traditional Asian parents. I feel the pressure of finding a good job and raising a good family.” That pressure helps shape more than just the way Su handles study and school assignments; it shapes the way she interacts with her colleagues. “If I feel like it’s going to be an event where it’s all white people, I probably wouldn’t want to go,” she says. “There’s a lot of just drinking. It’s not that I don’t like white people. But you tend to hang out with people of the same race.”"

Now, at other points the article does refer to "immigrants", suggesting that all of these groups are being lumped together, which is what we object to.

(I teach at university btw.)

Evening Star-- perhaps I am reading the article to include both the students and 1st generation immigrant Chinese like some mentioned-- traditional parents etc.

There is a cultural difference between them and those whose parents went to school here.

The fact that very high numbers of the parents who in many cases are paying for the education are insisting on their cultural values towards education be respected-- emphasis on the academics and pressure to avoid the rest of campus life should not be a shock.

I don't get why this assertion is a problem. And it does not support the articles "Too many Asians" line.

My purpose here was merely to assert that yes they as a group are different and this is not a bad thing. This is not a suggest that one is better smarter etc. These are suppositions others are making. The issue here is if there are self-selecting separate communities and if these communities are separate because they are different or only because of racism. I am merely saying they are different and there is a lot of pressure on some Asian students not to spend much time with those that will party away their tuition. And I can't tell you how many times I have heard Chinese parents say that they don't want their kids involved in all the other stuff-- student union, clubs etc. because they want them to focus exclusively on academics.

Now if you want to drill down you may find additional racist explanations -- perhaps such as the assumption that Chinese students must do better to succeed because of racism and that the social connections aren't worth anything because of racism-- I have heard these, although rarely. Mostly I just hear, you go to university for academics don't waste time on anything else.

These opinions are so popular and they do drive the students in a certain direction. In any case each family and student decides what they want to get out of university. But this emphasis that any statement that these kids are differently culturally is called racist just makes no sense because their experiences, expectations are different. I not sure if people are arguing that there should be something wrong with that or if we can only be equal and prejudice-free if we are all the same. That is not how I see anti-racism.

I'm working from a combination of speculation and memory here as I don't have a copy of the studies and analyses at hand, but the first problem is the overly broad category "Asian-American" which effaces from the picture the highly segmented statistics within this population -- between for instance Chinese-Americans and Laotian-Americans and Filipino-Americans, who have different histories of immigration to the US and Canada (economic migrant vs. refugee, etc.) and different rates of success in things like university admissions.

More generally, much of these statistics can probably be traced to the particular ways immigration policy in the USA and Canada generate a very specific profile of immigrant from Asia -- typically highly educated, with material resources to be able to immigrate in the first place -- which is not at all representative of the population of the respective countries of origin. Given that one of the most significant determinants of educational outcomes is social class and the level of educational attainment of the parents (children of PhD holders tend to perform better in school, for instance), it appears likely that it has more to do with the ways in which immigration policies select for a historically contingent profile of "Asian" that would tend to do well in education. 

I have read some of the studies related to immigration since it is an interest of mine. Your explanation is at least in part valid as more recent waves of immigrants have been wealthier due to rules for immigration.

However, the other students they out-perform tend to be just as well off once they get to university.

Certainly, immigrants in general will have higher admission rates as expected according to your explanation but this does not explain why Asian students once admitted then still tend to out-perform other students who also have to be of a higher economic status to get in the school. It is true that Asian immigrants are of a higher status than the general population but i doubt that this is true of the student population since lower income people are already selected out.

I don't have the statistics but I did see some related to Chinese students in university (translated for me from a Chinese Newspaper).

The upshot was that Chinese students had more than their share of the top of the classes and also a surprising number at the bottom. They were underrepresented in the middle.  The explanation (I am not sure if this was the writer or the study) was that they worked their way to get to the top, had more family support (which I am arguing is the cultural value in this thread) and they were less involved socially. The reasons for being less involved socially included parents wanting them not to, lack of interest and difficulties fitting in - so dedicating to work instead. As well good study habits and training were mentioned.

The reason they were also overrepresented in failure as well was attributed to, lack of some of the soft social skills that can be needed, a lack of interest in the subject (parents pushed them in to it), problems with the language and being overwhelmed by the difference. Other points were mentioned but I don't remember them.

This article applied to Chinese students not Asians in general although given the percentages I think that Chinese students would swamp any more general Asian stats as I showed upthread.

The article did not address second generation Chinese and neither am I. I was very interested in the article when it appeared and at the time remembered a great deal more of it but unfortunately it is fading away. At that time I discussed it with a lot of people because it was so interesting to me. This is more than a year ago now.

The upshot of the article (and I think the headline too) was to warn Chinese parents not to push their kids towards studies for which they had no interest or aptitude just because they might make money. The reason I asked someone to translate it is because this fits with what I have long believed and advised students-- follow what you love-- you will be better at it and therefore more successful than by following where you think there is money.

Sean, I agree, in general principle, that it is possible for different cultures to have different attitudes towards learning.  I do not think that is a racist view at all.  If anything, it seems fairly obvious.  That has little to do with the article's many problems as I see them.

I don't know about a term making any attempt itself, but...

On another note, why is it that some people use "Asian" rather than "Chinese" when they want to sound polite in talking about ethnic origin?

And to be clear, I realize that's a horrible, offensive term.  I just think that most of the time, people are talking about physical features and old-fashioned concepts of race when they use the term 'Asian'.

What?