Understanding ‘integration’: Chinese ‘foreign talent’ students in Singapore talking about rongru

Abstract

Abstract Studying abroad is an increasingly prevalent form of transient migration. How do international students understand their relationship with the host society and host nationals? Based on in-depth interview data, this article investigates the ways in which international students from China at a Singaporean university understand the idea of ‘integration’ (or rongru in Chinese). It is found that these Chinese students tend to define ‘integration’ in terms of friendly and everyday social interactions, but their understanding has a more or less assimilationist underlying assumption. This explains their generally modest self-evaluations of their success at ‘integration’. This article argues that this social and somewhat assimilationist understanding of integration might be explained in terms of the Chinese students’ cultural-linguistic ideologies about rongru, and the characteristics of their social space, position and circumstances in Singapore as academically capable ‘foreign talent’ students on Singaporean government scholarships.