Putting the "Pain" in Au bon Pain

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Well, at the risk of sounding like a zenophobe (which I'm not, since I was once fresh off the boat myself, as an infant) often foreign students develop mental health issues during the years they are here. Some of it, I believe, has to do with their cultural isolation, frequently self imposed, while some has to do with their perceptions of being treated differently (especially if their English skills are weak). Very often, culture shock--especially relating to our customs, mores, and folkways are strange, conflicting and appear hypocritical (or even are). Often, foreign students that I have been in contact with over the years, seem to develop quite a lot of resentment, real or imagined, to life in the USA. As it happens, both VT tragedies were perpetrated by Asian students--South Korea and the People's Republic of China. As we know, both countries are rather conservative nations on the whole. The most difficult foreign students that I personally have had limited experience with, have been with those from Arabic or Muslim cultures. To me, it must be a terrible cultural shock for a Muslim to live, work, or study in the US. I'm not an apologist for the Muslim world, but there seems to be little in common between the two cultures.
 
There are a lot of stress being a foreign student in the US. I was one and I know how it feel.

However, most of the stress can be dealt with if you are open to friends (i.e. other foreign students) and family. Taking it out on strangers are not acceptable.

IMO the bigger issue is the refusal of mental health treatment. Other nationals are not as open to accepting treatment and admitting the need of help, hence having problem escalated to a point of snapping.

I was one, and snapped back in middle school by throwing a door knob at a bully that eventually send him to the hospital for one day. We both almost got expelled, and after the incident, surprise surprise, we end up being friends.
 
That article turned my stomach. Glad I haven't started dinner yet. Did the article say anything about a motive or did I miss it?
 
I don't suppose we could shelve the punny subject lines when something like this goes down.
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I wonder if the biggest shock to foreigners about our college campuses is how many slacker Americans are sitting around. Be the best of your class, scrape the funds together for an ivy leage school with a worldwide rep, and the other students are smoking dope and playing hacky sack.
 
Curious if decapitation is common in Oriental societies (i.e. China, Korea, Japan, as is the subject of above discussion), the way it is elsewhere.
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Curious if decapitation is common in Oriental societies (i.e. China, Korea, Japan, as is the subject of above discussion), the way it is elsewhere.


Not really. It is far more common in Muslim states.

Decapitation was only used as an official capital punishment for serious crime at least in the Chinese history.
 
It was popular in France ...and for that matter, England. Maybe Marco Polo brought it back with him.

Interesting wiki thing

Nordic countries

In Nordic Countries, decapitation was the usual means of carrying out capital punishment. Noblemen were beheaded with a sword, and commoners with an axe. The last executions by decapitation in Finland in 1825, Norway in 1876 and in Iceland in 1830 were carried out with axes. The same was the case in Denmark in 1892. The last decapitation in Sweden was carried out in 1910 with a guillotine. The last execution in Sweden carried out with an axe was in 1900
 
I think you have it nailed, eljefino. I think I would resent having struggled hard all my student life, seen my family stressed to the fiscal maximum to get me to the US, and then have to watch some American kids just P'off every opportunity and privilige I could never have back home. The level of resentment has to be huge! I've even felt some of that, maybe we all have, seeing other students (back in the day) just float through life on daddy's ticket.
 
Okay, so he cut off her head since she didn't date him or something..acting too ..western??
 
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