The Relevance of Personal Networks - Essay Example

Insert Insert Insert 18 February The Relevance of Personal Networks (Social Contacts) in China and, especially, in Germany Personal networks or social contacts remain mutually beneficial to an individual as they lengthen team work further than the close peer group. Personal networks also become influenced by factors such as gender, overall network size, age, frequency of interaction with network members, country and the percentage of close network members. Moreover, personal networks act as a drive towards bridging the gap between income levels and the employment rates for Chinese immigrants in Germany. Additionally, the social assets of an individual would always be quantified with regards to the variety and size of his or her own personal networks or social contacts of friends. Personal networks serve as sources of information on business, education, jobs and wage prospects. Hence, personal networks or social contacts remain more valued when they comprise contacts of individuals from a range of diverse networks. This essay presents a qualitative research analysis based on interviews conducted on five Chinese students in Germany. Following an interview with Kenny (Chinesestudent_De_02_Kenny N.d.:1-18), personal networks enable individuals to gain a wider perspective of ideas and thoughts when faced with challenging situations or issues requiring appropriate decision making. In addition, social networks in Germany enabled Kenny to arrange everything for his studies abroad thereby easing the whole process. Chinese students studying in Germany have created a website forum where they interact establish social contacts and receive answers to problems they encounter while in Germany. This forum remains useful as the Chinese in Germany experience similar problems and could obtain useful feedback from their colleagues who have stayed long enough in Germany or had similar experiences. The main difference between personal networks in in China and Germany would be that those in China are honest while those in Germany know more about the world and have exposure to more things. Kenny goes on further to state that social contacts possess lifestyle attitudes which vary in both China and Germany. Social networks also facilitate the discovery of ideas that an individual may have not thought of in advance or missed out. Moreover, certain things an individual could do relies much on the type of social contacts a person has. According to Kenny, establishing personal networks in China remain rather easier than in Germany. More so, he indicates that an individual needs to have personal networks of those people he or she likes and who possess similar personalities. Social contacts to Kenny like engaging in various fun activities and in this regard, Kenny would select the appropriate social contacts depending on the specific activity for which he would like to have their company. Kenny also prefers to explore new things and this mainly dictates the kind of social contacts he maintains in his life both in China and Germany (Chinesestudent_De_02_Kenny N.d.:19-32). According to Monica, she prefers to maintain her social contacts in China since she would only pursue her studies in Germany and go back to China. She also acknowledges the presence of few people in Germany cities as compared to the presence of many people in the China cities. In her viewpoint, most social contacts in Germany stay warm hearted and open in times of need, express themselves directly and remain pure and simple. Germans seem to inquire more about Chinese culture whereas Chinese remain conserved about telling more about their culture. She points out that girls receive more help than boys and this becomes reflected also in the search for apartments in Germany unlike in China. Married Chinese ladies also place their husband’s feelings into consideration before making any social contacts while in Germany. In addition, the social family background also plays a significant role in shaping an individual’s social contacts, as remarked by Monica (Chinesestudent_De_03_Monica N.d:1-11). She indicates that she lacked the care of one parent and this contributed considerable to her inability to connect to males in general despite the fact that she became married. Due to the challenging and need for constant improvement in China’s work environment, Chinese prefer to seek further research studies in Germany so that they could maintain their social contact and achieve higher status at workplaces. Monica also regards her social contacts in China to provide feelings of stability and comfort unlike being in Germany as a stranger (Chinesestudent_De_03_Monica N.d.:12-21). Anya, a Chinese student in Germany, also maintains a traditional sense of marriage and family similar to Monica. She remains social though this becomes limited by the language barrier as she does not know much of German. As well, some of her classmates stay cold and this also poses challenges to her making of social contacts. Anya further remarks that Germans remain conservative and reserved since they never want to communicate with people. From her experience, she established close personal networks with other foreigners while at the preparatory school. In addition, students from other foreign countries shared information with her concerning their studies. Attending dinner parties with friends remains the traditional way of making friends in Germany though to Anya this becomes quite unvalued for her since most of them start late at night (Cinesestudent_De_04_Anya N.d.:1-7). Anya points out those German students make prior appointments for meetings, like planning and must settle on the place, time and dishes regarding the party beforehand. However, Anya finds this to be rather difficult for her to maintain close relationships with them. Moreover, German students place more value on the use of polite words and the contrary causes them to be hurt and have only sport courses. Conversely, Chinese have various collective activities and courses to choose from that enhance social networks. In addition, she likes associating with males more often than females since most of her classmates comprise males but avoided going out with them due to differences in the male’s activities. Furthermore, she notes that Germans like themselves in marriage and don not take care of old population whereas Chinese take care of their old and have collective love for one another in marriage (Chinesestudent_De_04_Anya N.d.:8-21). Fatty likes to learn things out of interest and feels that it would be impossible for him to reach a higher level of in relationship with Germans since no close social contact could be made with them. He indicates that Germans like parting and going to clubs or bars, a phenomenon he does not like and thus he maintains close social contacts with classmate Chinese than Germans. Also, Fatty attributes to his inability to make German contacts due to his quietness and differences in personality, and does not like talking much about his experiences at some points. He goes on further to mention the gender based discrimination prevalent in the university especially between male professors and female students. Similarly, some German professors also discriminate against Chinese students so openly that they eliminate them from participating with others in the same group. Germans show fairness to their fellow countrymen and Fatty learnt to integrate the same while handling his fellow countrymen studying in the same university. The mode of addressing people in different levels remains different in Germany unlike in China. Like other interviewed Chinese students, Fatty intends to live in comfort while in China and also cares much about family though he makes no prior plans with regards to the future since he never thinks about them currently (Chinesestudent_De_07_Fatty N.d.:1-25). Unlike the other Chinese students, Peng had personal networks with a German while in China before deciding on going to study in Germany. Despite that his German friend helped him on arrival to German through other German friends, he, however, notes that people from Asia remain friendly and sensitive as compared to Germans who remain conservative and individualistic. Most notable from this interview, Chinese share similar culture with those from the Arab countries regarding friends and family and also maintain close social contacts with other people. Peng’s personal networks consist of contacts from various parts of the world such as India, Iraq, Eastern Europe and Germany. As compared to other Chinese students, Peng remains open minded, willing to adapt and does not take any behaviors personally. He also stays talented in language, one concept that creates considerable barrier to the other Chinese students. Peng foes out with her social contacts and also undertake some activities together such as watching movies and cooking together. She keeps watch of her social contacts so as to avoid having conflicts with them at any instance and in this regard prefers to live with those from Asia (Chinesestudent_De_10_Peng N.d.:1-6). Peng also attributes his ability to communicate in good English, German, Arabic, Latin and French as well to having pure interest in learning languages. Her interest in languages would be mainly focused on understanding different cultures as well as an achievement and a way for relaxing after concentrating on engineering work. On a similar account, Peng would return aback to China after completing studies so as to help her fellow countrymen since she believes she understands the country well and Chine being an international market would have several opportunities as compared to Germany. She believes Germans maintains social contacts for purposes of hanging out rather than getting close to each other. However, Peng does not seem to be worry much about either taking care of her family back in China or getting married but prefers to be independent and pursue more of her career ambitions (Chinesestudent_De_10_Peng N.d.:7-20). In conclusion, it emerges from the interviews that most Chinese students remain very social, participate in various collective activities and in some instances do things because of money. They also presented evidence about having family pressure regarding marriage and the inability to become an expert after undertaking a bachelor studies due to the high rate of competition and the need to improve oneself in career to achieve high positions. According to them, a bachelor study enable an individual to fit into society and provides one with basic understanding as well as knowledge but does not offer much in terms of career development hence the need to constantly study and improve oneself. Chinese social contacts provide good social skills that enable an individual to deal with people of all kinds. Most Chinese care so much about family and maintaining close social contacts unlike the Germans who prefer to be independent and reserved about having close relationships. On the other hand, Chinese students observe that Germans have too much confidence in themselves in addition to being individualistic and selfish. Germans follow rules relatively strictly, stay overly precise especially in social networking and discriminate against Chinese mostly in relation to Chinese’s poor language structure of German. It would also be rather difficult or impossible to establish and maintain close social contact with Germans mostly attributed to the cultural differences between the two countries. In addition, there exists much prejudice and favoritism for the girls in Germany rather than boys in almost every aspect such as housing and studies. Lastly, all these differences reveal the relevance of each individual’s personal networks or social contacts to their individual lifestyles, attitudes and approach to life in general. Reference Chinesestudent_De_Interviews. N.d. The Relevance of Personal Networks (Social Contacts) in China and, especially, in Germany. Personal Communication. Read More