I've seen family members who integrate and others who treat the new place as enclave and half learn english. The ones who do integrate did much better in life. It really is a waste, short term and long term.
Many Indian face similar predicament.
I think he now more or less secretly switches to juice after first couple of glasses (and I guess counts minutes till the end).
There is the expectation that you drink too unless you are visibly muslim.
And with some people, there is the feeling that if you aren't drinking with them then they can't trust you fully.
In my first two years here i ran into all of that.
Then i said fuck it and just started telling people honestly why i wasn't going out drinking with them 'i really don't like to drink much, it makes me really sleepy and not much fun. I don't like being around drunk people when i'm sober, and besides all that i'm not spending £120 for a hotel so i have to drive.'
After repeating that a few times most people understood. Some never did.
Those people who never did understand or accept it, i don't work with them any longer.
> "All English are dunks so I'm forced to avoid them."
That's not what drieddust said at all. His (her) problem isn't with the English being drunk or not - it's with the English expecting him (her) to drink if he wanted to be part of their in-group. Which is a reasonable complaint.
There are a large number of teatotallers in the UK. There are large numbers of people who don't like to drink much and don't drink often in the UK. There are people who like to drink often to excess. Rain is wet, sugar is sweet...
It is difficult to find a group of friends when in a new country. I've heard expats claim Indians don't accept white people and scoffed similarly. I'm sorry if you haven't (yet) found a social group you like. Blaming the inhabitants of a country because of their culture, attitudes and practices for that is not something I have to treat with respect - whoever does it.
Nowhere does the poster imply that it's a bad thing or tend to dismiss English people as lesser mortals. It's just a matter of fact comment and is a barrier for him to socialize.
I've made very cruel fun of some British people in Hong Kong sprouting similar nonsense in defence of having no friends outside the expat community. They were actually better people than that and deserved to feel ashamed about it and to their credit they did. People from ones own culture will always be an easier social fit when overseas, even if you wouldn't have much in common with them at home. Overseas you have home and the fact you're finding out about the foreign culture in common - but it's pretty superficial and lazy to fall back on that as a basis for your friends exclusively. Moreover you will miss rather a lot of the benefits of being overseas in a foreign culture.
My experience of Brits is that they are not all such hopeless alcoholics so as to be utterly incapable of socialising without excessive alcohol. If your experience is different maybe you should ask yourself why that is. Maybe you're expecting someone else to do all the work of socialising for you as one suggestion? You may come up with others.
I would say people from other places usually have less of such problems mostly because the culture differences are smaller. When Chinese people goes to Japan or other Asian countries, they blend into the local culture much more easily.
On top of that, a lot of Chinese immigrants are not seeking immigration when they came here for study or work. They'll go back eventually, and what they what out of being abroad is just a degree or some work experience. What's the point of mingling with locals if that's hard thing to do and will eventually be useless?
Err, no. Yes, appearancewise, some Chinese are not easily distinguishable from Japanese, although the locals can often tell each other apart based on clothing, haircut, makeup etc. But rest assured, the moment a Chinese person in Japan opens their mouth, they will be every bit as much a gaijin as a blond and blue-eyed Caucasian, if not more so since the associated stereotypes are more negative.
No, they aren't. Your original premise is incorrect. Those Chinese and Indian students are going back to their dorms/apartments and watching TV shows in their own languages and communicating with friends/families back home. The number has nothing to do with it. It's all about culture.
First, like you said, the cultural issue makes them more reserved and less open to others. But it can also be a pure personality issue, or a mixture of both.
Secondly, it could simply be a result of some prior events, like failed attempts to overcome language barrier, unwelcoming attitudes from local students, or even discrimination in some cases. All these could contribute to such things happening, and I think it is usually a mix of factors, not just culture.
Except Indian and Chinese culture are not reserved at all. As the guide mentions, it is very common in China for people to socialize outside of work with their classmates or colleagues and even with their professors or supervisors. This often involves going out to eat and drink together. And when I say drink, I mean drink. It's amazing how much alcohol gets consumed in a country where acetaldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency is common. I'm not as familiar with Indian culture, but from speaking with Indian friends, I gather it's quite similar.
The issue is that Chinese and Indian international students have left behind all their social connections back home. It's not easy for anyone to start their social life from scratch. Then you add on the language barrier, and it's no wonder that they may appear unsociable.
I went to poland for only a week for a foreign language meetup, and I'm very surprised at how much more introverted I became, with nobody to speak english to. It's definitely harder to socialize in a second language.
The fact that Chinese and Indian students tend to form cliques or enclaves, is a perfectly normal and natural behavior, because of the sheer large number of students in the same community.
Do not mistake this as "Chinese and Indians are not good at mingling with the locals because of their mindset and culture." It is mostly just because their social circle is large enough to sustain itself in a typical overseas community. In fact, it requires much more effort for them to get out of the comfort zone than students from countries that do not have so many students studying overseas. Another easy way to see it is that, they literally have a "larger comfort zone" to jump out of.
To put it into perspective, consider a US college where there is only a few Chinese or Indian students, chances are they will naturally interact more with locals.
Then consider a group of exchange students in an Asia university, chances are they are going to be mingling around within themselves all day with minimal interactions with locals.
So my point is, do not judge them negatively because of this, and do put in some extra effort in reaching out to them if you are kind enough and want to change the status quo.