MOTIVATION IN THE INTERCULTURAL ADAPTATION OF CHINESE INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS AT INFRASTRUCTURE UNIVERSITY KUALA LUMPUR

With the deepening of globalization, political, economic, and cultural exchanges among countries have been strengthened, and international and regional learning and exchanges have been increasing, especially in the context of the increasing income of domestic residents, the declining threshold for studying abroad, and the more diversified market demand for talents, studying abroad has become a common phenomenon in China. After the end of the global epidemic, Chinese students continue to go abroad to study and live in the countries where they study. As a student studying in Infrastructure University Kuala Lumpur, the authors witnessed the foreign students studying in IUKL one after another. Among them, there are undergraduate, master, and PhD students. Foreign students can successfully complete their studies and must adapt to the study and life in Malaysia. Chinese students at IUKL are faced with the problem of intercultural adaptation, and different intercultural situations have corresponding related motivations. In this study, 20 international students of different years at IUKL were selected to conduct semi-structured interviews. This study explored the motivation of Chinese students at IUKL in intercultural adaptation, and the strategies to improve intercultural adaptation. This study uses qualitative research methods, citing the interview outlines of Long (2017) and Zhang (2022), and supported by Black & Mendenhall's (1991) cross-cultural U-shaped theory. This study concludes that there are two main types of motivational strategies in the cross-cultural adaptation of Chinese students in IUKL, namely, interest in knowledge and self-development. Furthermore, this study gives the motivation strategies of Chinese students in IUKL in intercultural adaptation from three aspects of students' individual, family, and school. This inspires future scholars to pay more attention to the intercultural adaptation of Chinese students studying in Southeast Asia and other countries, in order to give students greater support and help, and also to do a good job of cultural exchanges and dissemination between the two countries by virtue of the special status of foreign students.