It is awkward（令人尴尬的）when everyone around you bursts out laughing at a joke that you do not find funny, especially if it's a joke told in a foreign language.

While Chinese students find it easy to adapt to a foreign lifestyle, socializing with locals is much harder, according to a recent study. Researchers looked at how well Chinese students made themselves a part of communities across the world. Of all the activities they struggled with, understanding jokes was considered the toughest.

Most of the time, jokes are funny only for people who share a common cultural background or are aware of humor in the same way.

Being able to understand local jokes can help students feel a sense of belonging. But even without the ability to understand jokes, students should not feel any less confident about themselves.

"It's OK if you don't get the jokes. Don't doubt yourself because in most time, it is not a problem of language ability but a matter of the known and unknown, "said Christine Han, who was once an overseas student and is now an Australian permanent resident.

Australia is ready-made for jokes, thanks to its history as a colony for prisoners, its unusual accent, the inner bush country and its strange food. However, to most Chinese overseas students, understanding jokes about sports is the biggest headache. Sport is an important part of Australian national identity.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 16percent（3. 3 million）of the population aged 15 years and over watched Australian football in 2010. About 9 percent（1. 9 million）attended a rugby league game.

British actor and comedian Simon Pegg discussed the differences between British and American sense of humor in a column of The Guardian. He believes that while Brits use irony（反语）on a daily basis, the Americans do not see the point of using it so frequently . He wrote, "British jokes, on the other hand, tend to be more subtle with a dark or sarcastic（讽刺的）undertone while the American jokes are more obvious and forward, a bit like Americans themselves. "

   Heads turned, tears dropped, and gossip-filled whispers went on and on from the hospital passages to the house windows. There was a problem: a daughter had been born. She wasn’t the first disappointment born to her family. Although my aunt didn’t care about giving birth to a girl, her mother-in-law constantly reminded her of the criticism she would have to face if she gave birth to a daughter. In India, most people held these views.

When I visited my relatives during the summer, one sentence managed to fill me with anger and start arguments with my so-called relatives. “You are a girl, stay within your limits.” They simply don’t know how different it is living in the US. Anyway, comparisons to my cousins led me to end the arguments for the moment and accept the way they lived their lives.

My words didn’t make sense to them so my mind was set on proving them wrong.

Although their words didn’t tear me apart, their actions managed to. The amount of sexism(性别歧视) in this culture, especially my hometown, made me feel bad. It was the 21st century, yet women had to eat after the men at family gatherings. They had to cook all the family meals and were asked to take jobs that required little skill or education. It was time to change these views.

As I was growing older, the same relatives repeatedly questioned me about my future: “What do you want to be?” And the answer was always the same：electrical engineer. I have a passion for electronics; as clichéd(陈词滥调的) as it sounds, I was born to do it. When I connect wires together to repair something, I can’t contain my excitement. But when I tried to explain this to my relatives, all of them, except for my parents and grandparents, would be shocked and laugh at me — laugh because they didn’t think I could live up to my goals, being a “girl and all”. It was time to change these views.

In my world, being a girl is not a problem. Rather, it is an opportunity to allow passion, not stereotypes(成见), to shape my future. I decided to channel my relatives’ views into positive energy. Rather than letting them bring me down, I let them be motivation to achieve my goal of becoming an engineer. I, a female, will become a successful engineer.

I’m very glad to have read the post that you put on the English Forum.

I do hope that you will have a good time in China.

Best wishes!

Sincerely yours,

Li Hua

   Facial expressions carry meaning that is determined by situations and relationships. For example, in American culture (文化) the smile is in general an expression of pleasure. Yet it also has other uses. A woman’s smile at a police officer does not carry the same meaning as the smile she gives to a young child. A smile may show love or politeness. It can also hide true feelings. It often causes confusion (困惑) across cultures. For example, many people in Russia consider smiling at strangers in public to be unusual and even improper. Yet many Americans smile freely at strangers in public places (although this is less common in big cities).Some Russians believe that Americans smile in the wrong places; some Americans believe that Russians don’t smile enough. In Southeast Asian cultures, a smile is frequently used to cover painful feelings. Vietnamese people may tell a sad story but end the story with a smile.

Our faces show emotions (情感), but we should not attempt to "read" people from another culture as we would "read" someone from our own culture. The fact that members of one culture do not express their emotions as openly as do members of another does not mean that they do not experience emotions.

Rather, there are cultural differences in the amount of facial expressions permitted. For example, in public and in formal situations many Japanese do not show their emotions as freely as Americans do. When with friends, Japanese and Americans seem to show their emotions similarly.

It is difficult to generalize about Americans and facial expressiveness because of personal and cultural differences in the United States. People from certain cultural backgrounds in the United States seem to be more facially expressive than others. The key is to try not to judge people whose ways of showing emotion are different. If we judge according to our own cultural habits, we may make the mistake of "reading" the other person incorrectly.

   Every Chinese-language textbook starts out with the standard phrases for greeting people. But as an American, I always found myself unable to speak freely when it came to _____ guests at the door. Just a goodbye would not do, yet that was all I had ever _____ the books. So I would smile and nod, bowing like a Japanese and searching _____ for words that would smooth over（缓和）the visitors' leaving and make them feel they would be _____ to come again. In my unease, I often hid behind the skirts of my Chinese husband's kindness.

Then finally, listening to others, I began to pick up the phrases that _____ relationships and sent people off not only successfully but also skillfully.

The parting for the Chinese includes a lot of necessary habitual practice. Although as a _____ I'm not expected to observe or even know all the rules, I've had to learn the expressions of politeness and _____ at a leave-taking.

The Chinese feel they are _____ to see a guest off to the farthest possible point-down the flight of stairs to the street below or perhaps all the way to the _____bus stop. I've sometimes waited half an hour or more for my husband to ______ from seeing a guest off, ______ he's gone to the bus stop and waited for the next bus to arrive.

That's all very well, but when I'm the guest being seen off, my polite refusals are always ______ .My hostess or host, or both, insist on ______ me down the stairs and well on my way, with my repeating the "Don't ______ to see me off" at every landing. If I try to go fast to ______ them from following, they are simply out to the discomfort of having to run after me. Better to ______ the inevitable（不可避免的）.

Besides, that's going against Chinese ______ , because haste（doing things quickly）is to be avoided. What do you say when you ______ someone？People often say "Go slowly" ______ "Farewell". To the Chinese it means" Take care" or" Watch your ______ ", or some such caution, but translated literally（按字面）it means "Go slowly".