Student Union
- By Sunny Peng
My First Christmas in America: Why Did My Host Ask for a Gift at His Own Christmas Party?
“Wait a second. This is funny,” said I, as she was about to go back to numbers and equations, “The professor asked me to bring a dish and a gift to the dinner. I can understand about bringing a dish. But how could someone invite you to his house while asking you explicitly to bring a gift?”
I found out eventually what the gift was for, but first I spent a lot of time getting excited about this Christmas Eve dinner, even when I was studying for my finals. I had traveled home to China during last winter break, so this year’s Christmas would be another of my “first times” in the U.S. Besides, as an anthropology major interested in America, being able to celebrate Christmas in the U.S. with Americans fascinated me.
My roommate and I got up very early on December 24th, Christmas Eve, to start worrying about the food we would bring to the dinner. We had no idea how to cook American food, and almost everything in our fridge was from an Asian market in town. “You know what? We can just make Chinese food. It would not look that weird. He is an anthropology professor, so he would probably be very interested in what we cook.” I said to my roommate.
My professor knocked on our door to pick us up at 5:50 pm. We said “Merry Christmas” to each other as my roommate and I came to his car, carrying a high-pressured cooker with Chinese pork rib soup inside. Of course we had our wrapped gifts in tow as well. “I am curious how Americans will react to a Chinese soup at a Christmas Eve dinner, and how they are going to eat the ribs in the soup,” my roommate whispered to me in the car.
Before dinner started, I spent some time mingling with other guests there as well as touring around the first floor of my professor’s house. As instructed by my professor’s wife, we had all placed our gifts on a table when we came in, and there they sat, keeping us in suspense as to their purpose. It did not take long for the table to be crowded with nicely wrapped gifts, and my heart to be filled with jealousy while looking at them. “My professor’s family has got a lot in return for this Christmas feast.” I said to myself.
Some of the guests were faculty members, and others were neighbors who do not work in the university. Many were dressed in the Christmas colors that I had learned about, red and green. His living room was decorated with a Christmas tree with little ornaments hung on it, and there were lights surrounding all the windows.
Dinner started with my professor’s brief “significant words.” He thanked everyone present, and introduced each to the rest. When he was introducing me, my professor emphasized the special and authentic Chinese soup we had made, which was waiting on the table with the other American foods, like mashed potatoes and turkey. I realized, after dinner started, that our Chinese soup was quite popular. My roommate and I couldn’t help but feel a bit proud of our contribution.
The wrapped presents were still on the table, but it didn’t take long after dinner until we finally learned why my professor had made this odd request of his guests. Before we got to desserts, my professor and his wife introduced us to a Christmas Eve tradition for their family, a game called a “Yankee Swap.”
Everybody drew a small piece of paper with a number on it from a basket, and in order of their numbers, went to the gift table to pick and open one of the gifts. The catch was that the people with higher numbers could force those who had already chosen to swap gifts, if they preferred that person’s gift to the one they had picked.
“It’s all about capitalism and being greedy,” said one regular guest in explanation of the name Yankee Swap, “which is how we southerners make fun of northerners.” Some of the gifts that were unwrapped were quite peculiar; someone had given a pair of fake teeth as their gift. Luckily, my roommate and I ended up with a beautiful plate and a coffee mug.
After we relished the cute and yummy desserts some guests had brought, my roommate and I were given a ride back home. We finished our night by watching a very classy Christmas movie, White Christmas, and wishing for a beautiful snow in Charlottesville on Christmas Day. And guess what? We got our wish!
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- By VOA News
International students have options to pay for grad school
U.S. News & World Report tackles the challenges of paying for grad school as an international student with this story giving tips on paying for school. Read the full story here. (August 2024)
- By Tracy Liu
Economics, tensions blamed for Chinese students shifting from US to Australia, Britain
U.S. universities are welcoming international students as the academic year begins. But while the total number of foreign students is steadily growing, the top sending country, China, is showing signs of leveling out or shrinking.
Industry analysts say the negative trend is mainly due to higher costs amid China’s struggling economy, with a growing number of students going to less expensive countries like Australia and Britain, and tense ties between Washington and Beijing.
The number of foreign students studying in the U.S. in 2022-23 passed 1 million for the first time since the COVID pandemic, said Open Doors, an information resource on international students and scholars.
While the U.S. saw a nearly 12% total increase year-on-year for that period, the number of international students from China, its top source, fell by 0.2% to 289,526.
That’s 600 fewer students than the 2021-22 academic year, when their numbers dropped by nearly 9%. The COVID pandemic saw Chinese student numbers drop in 2020-21 by nearly 15%, in line with the world total drop.
While it’s not yet clear if the drop is a leveling out or a fluctuating decline, analysts say China’s struggling economy and the high cost of studying in the U.S. are the main reasons for the fall in student numbers.
Vincent Chen, a Chinese study abroad consultant based in Shanghai, said although most of his clients are still interested in studying in the U.S., there is a clear downward trend, while applicants for Anglophone universities in Australia and Britain have been increasing.
"If you just want to go abroad, a one-year master's degree in the U.K. is much cheaper,” Chen said. “Many people can't afford to study in the U.S., so they have to settle for the next best thing."
Data from the nonprofit U.S. group College Board Research shows that in the 2023-24 academic year, the average tuition and fees for a U.S. private college four-year education increased 4% to $41,540 compared with the previous academic year.
The British Council said three to four years of undergraduate tuition in Britain starts as low as $15,000.
The number of Chinese students in Britain was 154,260 in 2022-23, according to the U.K. Higher Education Statistics Agency, HESA, up from 121,145 in the 2018/19 academic year.
Australia’s Home Affairs office said in the 2023-24 program year, China was the top source foreign country for new student visa grants at 43,389, up slightly (1.5%) from the previous year.
Chen said Chinese state media's negative portrayal of the United States and concerns about discrimination have also contributed to the shift.
Bruce Zhang, a Chinese citizen who received his master's degree in Europe after studying in China, told VOA Mandarin he had such an incident occur to him after he was admitted to a U.S. university’s Ph.D. program.
When he entered Boston's Logan International Airport last year, Zhang said customs officers questioned him for more than an hour about his research, and if it had any links to the military, and took his computer and mobile phone for examination.
"Fortunately, I had heard that U.S. customs might be stringent in inspecting Chinese students, so I had relatively few study-related data and documents on my personal computer," he said.
Zhang was allowed to enter the U.S. for his studies in materials science, but the questioning left him so rattled that he has encouraged other Chinese to study elsewhere.
Cui Kai, a study abroad consultant in Massachusetts told VOA Mandarin that experiences like Zhang’s or worse happen for a reason.
"Students who were questioned or their visas were revoked at the customs are usually those who completed their undergraduate studies in China and come to the U.S. for a master's or doctoral degree in a sensitive major," said Cui.
Former President Donald Trump signed Proclamation 10043 in June 2020, prohibiting visas for any Chinese student who “has been employed by, studied at, or conducted research at or on behalf of, an entity in the PRC that implements or supports the PRC's “military-civil fusion strategy.”
The U.S. says China has been using students and scholars to gain access to key technology and, under Proclamation 10043, revoked more than 1,000 visas issued to Chinese nationals and has denied thousands more.
Critics say the policy is costly to the U.S. and is encouraging Chinese students to look to European and other universities.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
- By VOA News
Duolingo report details the reality of Gen Z international students
A report by Duolingo takes a look at the experiences of Gen Z international students studying in the U.S., Australia and the U.K, The Pie reports.
The report, the site says, debunks "characterizations of them as 'tech-obsessed, attention-deficit and self-centered'" and highlights "their emerging role in shaping global politics and economics."
Read the full story here. (August 2024)
- By VOA News
School with the lowest costs for international students
U.S. News & World Report crunched the numbers and came up with a list of 20 U.S. colleges and universities with annual total costs at or below $20,184. Check out these best bargains for international students here. (August 2024)
- By VOA News
How to make the most of schools' international student services
U.S. colleges and universities offer a variety of services for international students.
U.S. News & World Report takes a look at them and details how to best use them. Read the article here. (June 2024)
