Yingdi's interview

1。您什么时候来到了美国？是什么原因驱使您来美呢?

I came to the US in 2006 for my Ph.D study.

2. 到目前为止，您在美国已经生活了有多久？

I've been living in the US for 4 years.
 3。在您安顿到威州之前，您都居住过哪些地方？

Before I came to Wisconsin, I had lived in Hunan, Shenzhen, and Beijing in China.

4。您最初抵美后，在文化上您都经历了哪些挑战？您觉得这些文化上的挑战哪些容易克服？哪些难以克服呢？为什么？

When I first came to the US, you may not believe it, the largest challenge is food! I couldn't stand eating Sandwiches as a meal. From a Chinese point of few, it's not "real" food, just some kind of snacks. For me, having a meal means there's rice, some meat and vegetables. Another challenge is language, not that I don't understand the individual words that Americans speak, it is the way the talk with idioms and specific stories that I have no background knowledge about them. Finally, one thing I wanna share is the way of communication. I realized little by little that Americans, especially mid-westerners are very polite and really nice. They talk in a very nice and praising way, and at the same time, they like to be constantly praised. As a Chinese, I'm used to the way of straight forward when I see there's a problem and what is the better solution, but some Americans cannot accept different opinions or the way that the other person tell them directly there's something wrong. I think the language and eating habit are easier to overcome, but the way how to behave as myself and at the same time being the same as the Americans is difficult.

> 5。您愿意跟我们分享一些您生活中的一些有趣的经历吗？

One thing I think it's very interesting and is related to the communication challenged I mentioned above is a little conflict I had with an American young guy. This happened the first year when I came to Madison. I lived in a house with a bunch of housemates and the house manager would take care of the house maintenance such as fixing the toilets. One day the flush of the toilet didn't work and the house manage sent a guy to fix it. We knew each other - he was a undergraduate student of UW-Madison and he is a really tall guy. So in the past every time he fixed any tiny problems of the house, we would praise him like "awesome, super...". But that day, after he thought he fixed the toilet, I found that it didn't work. So I pointed it out to him and suggested where the problem was, he became very unhappy and finally angry. He yelled at me that he was a professional and he knew what he was doing. He also said I was defensive. I didn't know what to say but wanted to laugh: how could I be defensive for such a tiny issue in front of a 6.3 feet tall guy? Anyways, I just thought it's an interesting experience and also I learned from it how people like to be praised no matter what they did.

> Part II
 1。为什么美国被称为文化的大熔炉？你觉得这个表达确切吗？为什么？

I'm not quite sure if it is the right description. If the US is really a culture oven, then all the different cultures and peoples are supposed to be in the same oven (the same social stage) and receive the same importance and respect. But it's certain not the reality: minorities such as African Americans, Latinos, Asia Americans are still marginalized.
2。美国是一个移民的国家，但是移民现象在中国和台湾却还是比较少见。你觉得“移民现象”对于一个国家大文化有着什么样的定位和冲击？

I think immigrants really help bring in different cultures and valuable knowledge and skills from the other part of the world.
 3。随着时间的推移，中国和台湾在这方面可能会有哪些变化？

It's actually happening now in China that more and more foreign faces showing in China. It's going to change the social structures of the country and have lots of challenges as well. For example, immigrants and their children's education, culture adaption ect.
4。如果你是一个汉族的话，你的移民经历将你变成了一个少数民族，这种改变对于你自身有什么意义或者冲击？

I haven't immigrated to the US yet. So I'm not quite sure if I did, how it would change my identity as a Chinese.