This paper provides an in-depth account of lived racial experiences faced by a group of international students in Hong Kong and how such experiences affected their academic, social, and mental well-being. Using neoracism as a theoretical lens and drawing on in-depth interviews with 10 international students, we found that most of our participants encountered subtle forms of racism inside campus while the experiences of racism outside campus were explicit. Participants were ostracized and felt lonely, helpless, and stressed out, which propelled them to adapt some coping mechanisms to survive the remaining study years and return to their homeland. Given the recent push towards internationalization of higher education by Hong Kong government, the findings of the study will help academics, support staff, leaders and policy makers undertake measures for creating a positive racial climate to attract more international students and provide them meaningful international education experiences.
Bhowmik et al. (Thu,) studied this question.