Interview with Alex: The different thinking between US and Chinese youngs

In this Blog I would like to share with you guy with my experiences to interview a native speaker. His name is Alex and I knew him in the midtown church at Atlanta. I think this interview is a great opportunity for me to know him so I just interviewed him last week at church, and after that I invite him to have lunch in my dorm with my roommates.

The interview is not very long and I asked some questions I am most interested in many aspects. The primary  thinking for me is to find out what is the difference between US and Chinese young people's thinking. Alex is about 22 years old and he just graduated from Georgia tech last year. I got a lot of information about his and American young's thinking in this interview. And I will show you what are my questions and his answers are.

1. About food. Does Americans always eat fast food?

The answer is Yes. Alex said that Americans always eat fast food because it is a faster and easier way to this have-to thing, eating. Some people think it is easy and some is just lazy to cook for themselves. For Alex himself, he likes cook, he usually cook for himself as long as he have time.

2. Personal entertainment. What do you do when you have leisure time?

Alex has a lot of hobbies. Like reading, he likes to read literature books, fictions. In sports, hiking is his favorite. There is a misunderstanding that all the american are workholic and do not have leisure time at all. Alex told me that many of them has a lot of time for their hobbies and many american can get a lot of fun in their leisure time, some of them even can make it some successful than their main job.

3. Self independence. What's your opinion about self- independence?

Self- independence is a good thing for young people. Alex told me that in the US most of students can support for their lives after high school. In undergraduate school, the parents will pay the tuition fee and the kids can support in other aspects. That's independence in finance. Despite this, independence in mentally is also very important. One may not be mature in the beginning of a work, but he should be independence both in financially and mentally in a one or two years after working, usually in their 23-24.

4. Supporting parents. Does Americans support their parents?

It is a surprise to me that the answer is Yes. Not only I, many of Chinese thought that Americans do not support their parents because there is no law force people to do this. In China, however, there is a law forcing people to support their parents when they are old. Alex told me that many Americans would like to support their parents even though their is not a law requiring them to do it. They usually spent 15%-30% of their incomes to support their parents, if their parents need to. And they always support each other.

5. Marriage and children. What age is appropriate for people to get married? Should people have children and how many kids you want?

Alex think that 25 will be a very appropriate age for people to get married. It is also a big surprise to me. In the tradition of China, people must get married when they grow up. And we had seen some news that there are some people in the US or other place refused to get married, and some of them get married in their 50s or 60s. It is unbelievable for me. In my experience, I have a foreigner professor who teaches us English in undergraduate school, and he is over 40 and didn't get married
yet. So it surprised me that he said he got a plan to get married at 25.

For Alex, he want 2 kids after married, and the sooner, the better. He told me that most of American families have 2 or more kids and 2 is a stable number. He also knows the One-Child Policy in China and thinks that is not correct.

6. Opinions about foreigners, Religion and conflicts. Do Americans have prejudices to foreigners?
How do you treat other people's different opinions with you in religion?

It depends. It is impossible that all the Americans is capable with all the foreigner customs and traditions, especially some religion tradition. However, he said that most of Americans are very nice to different traditions, and they can understand other cultures. As a Christian, he think himself is a understandable person and, he is very curious about other culture, like Chinese culture and Chinese food. I treat him to go to our dorm for lunch after the interview.

In conclusion, this is just Alex's personal opinion and maybe it cannot present all american young people. Actually, I have talked about this question before the interview and I told him that my questions are kind of general and if he think his answer cannot be representative, he can just talk about his own opinion. After the interview he told me that the most of his answer can represent