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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: People you know here who are completely bilingual/bicultural - personality more Chinese or Western?
I've only met a few such people here. Most have studied/lived abroad a long time (for Chinese) or grew up in China (Westerners whose parents worked here). I know it's a broad question, but I'd like to know your impressions of such people and how being completely assimilated into two different cultures has influenced their personalities. Do you find that their personality will change depending on the language they're using and who they're interacting with, or do these two sides meet somewhere in the middle and stay that way regardless of everything?
I know a few who come from Sino-American or Sino-Canadian marriages, and they identify themselves as Canadian or American first. One of them will identify as American only. She used to say she was "Chinese American" but stopped saying that when the Chinese would "correct" her "you mean "American Chinese". She was born and raised in Virginia.
Now she just says "American". If they ask her why she does not identify as Chinese, she will specify that her mother is Chinese.
The only reason she came to China was because her parents felt that she should have the experience of living in her mothers culture, so she took a year to work here before attending graduate school. She is counting the days before she leaves in July.
Very few people are completely bilingual. In most people, one language is always dominant, whichever one is used most.
Bilinguals report that some words and phrases in their native language don't exist in their second language, or have different meaning, and vice versa. In that respect, they report thinking differently when using the different languages.
The entire country of China is adopting the western culture now (with Chinese characteristics). The "traditional" Chinese ways are a thing of the past.
EDIT: This is particularly evident in clothing, architecture, transportation, technology, entertainment, business and industry. In fact, western culture is so dominant in China that the government is responsible for the majority of the world's IP and cyber theft of anything western they can get.