\n"}There are a bunch of fascinating things here: the fact that the Chinese pour into Midwestern universities who need cash; the lack of cultural integration and the weird, cool tensions it produces, including the culture of cheating students bring with them; their lack of preparation to deal with the American education style; the divide between middle and upper class Chinese students; the role of Christian outreach in some of the integration that does happen; the Party structure (explicitly) mirrored in Chinese Student Associations\u2026 and of course\u00a0I love microethnographies of the fuerdai in America:
\n\n\nJonathan Hou, a 21-year-old Chinese student with a shock of bleached-blond hair, is cruising through the campus in his newest toy: a sparkling white $86,000 Mercedes Benz C63S. \u201cIt\u2019s the only one in Iowa City,\u201d he says, apologising for the license plate sliding around the floor beneath the passenger seat. He hasn\u2019t affixed the plate to the front grill yet for aesthetic reasons. \u201cI don\u2019t want to hurt the bumper,\u201d he says.
\nThe Mercedes C63S can accelerate from zero to 60mph (97kph) in just 3.8 seconds, but today Jonathan is barely creeping along past the old storefronts on Clinton Street, the main campus artery. He wants to show off his car \u2013 but not, it seems, to the baseball-capped American students crossing the street in front of us. As the young men walk past, they stare at the car and its Chinese driver, and snigger.
\nJonathan doesn\u2019t seem to notice. He is more interested in the Chinese students who gather at the food court of the Old Capitol Mall, locally known as the \u201cChinese ghetto\u201d. He soaks in their admiring glances and scans the street for other high-end cars. His special-edition Merc is not the only fancy ride in town. A parade of Audis, BMWs and Mercedes, accompanied by a Maserati and a beige Bentley, streams past. All are driven by young Chinese students. Jonathan assures me it isn\u2019t a special show. \u201cThis is just a normal day in Iowa City.\u201d
\ndskjdlfkajsdlkfj, they just fucking\u2026 rolled into iowa city en masse\u2026.. they\u2019re engaged in status competitions within their ingroup with complete disregard for the locals\u2019 opinion, because the locals don\u2019t matter,\u00a0but it looks so off color from the outside
\nalso, not in the article, but extrapolating that re: cheating scandals, switching teaching/grading settings so that cheating is significantly harder is against the university\u2019s interests \u2013 the students pay so much it\u2019s not worth it to drive them away
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