Acculturation Attitudes and Sociocultural Adaptation of Chinese Mainland Sojourners in Hong Kong

Abstract

Within these years, there has been a significant increase in the number of Chinese Mainland sojourners studying in Hong Kong. Due to the huge differences in various aspects like language, culture, cultural value, it would be considerably difficult for the Chinese Mainland students to adapt to the Hong Kong environment. This article investigates the ways for a group of doctoral students from Chinese Mainland to acculturate in Hong Kong. With the help of questionnaires, the difficulties that the sojourners have encountered in social situations are measured. It is found out that age and gender may have influenced the participants’ acculturation strategies, and interpersonal relationship is that which the subjects have the most difficulties with, while academic domain is the area with the least difficulties. Meanwhile, the results have shown that competence of local language is not a determinant factor of the sociocultural adaptation, and female subjects seem to adapt better than male subjects. Keywords: sojourner, acculturation, sociocultural adaptation, acculturation strategy