"The first image for me with America is some image about New York or Los Angeles, and then when I came to Ohio, it's SO different," says Popo Huang, who came to Ohio University in 2007 from Guangzhou, one of China's largest metropolitan areas.

Scott Quad, the international dormitory at OU is referred to around campus as China Town because 180 out of the 215 residents in 2011 were Chinese. Students complain that it's hard to speak English or meet American friends while living with so many other Chinese students.

Chinese students find it hard to relate to the undergraduate party scene at OU, recently named the nations number one party school. Andy Liu moves into the dorm room he shares with two American roommates in Perkins Hall, surprised to find a Chairman Mao poster and skimpy, pin-up posters on the wall. Andy has been at OU for three years and has yet to take a single academic class, struggling to test out of the OPIE program.

“Chinese education focuses too much on exams and they’re really bad about the creative and letting the students think,” says Popo Huang who is studying Graphic Design at Ohio University. Popo’s parents at first weren’t supportive of her decision to study art. They wanted her to study something more practical, like business, which is the most popular major amongst Chinese exchange students at OU. Popo, who has already moved out of the English language program, sits in a Philosophy class where the majority of her classmates are American.

Most of the Chinese students in Scott Quad are required to take full-time English classes and are bored by the mundane grammar books and endless listening exercises. They kill time by taking smoke breaks together or playing games in the common space. An ashtray in the courtyard of Scott Quad is filled with cigarette butts on a rainy afternoon.

Chinese students in Scott Quad spend the majority of their time in their rooms. In an attempt to get Chinese more involved with American students the Resident Advisers hold events such as the Disney-themed Party held on Saturday April 16. Yvette Zhang, a Resident Adviser in Scott, knocks on doors to try to convince residents to participate.

Chinese students from larger metropolitan areas such as Hong Kong or Beijing stand out in rural Ohio. They tend to be from wealthy families and have a more urban fashion sense. "I don't want to do what other people do. I want to do something different," says Popo Huang, who is from Guangzhou in southern China.

"Some Chinese students in Athens, they just study everyday, don't have some idea, don't have some dream. But we are different, we have a lot of plans for the future," says Andy Liu. Andy and Popo are very active in Chinese clubs on campus but think that American university events are too centered around binge drinking and bars, which are frowned upon in China.

"I wish that my skin were whiter, like Americans," says Zhang Li Fang, a 19-year-old International Relations major who arrived at Ohio University at the end of March, 2011. Three weeks after arriving, she lives in Scott Squad where close to 85% of the residents are Chinese, and is waiting for an American roommate.

The Chinese community in Athens is notoriously isolated from the rest of the student body due to cultural differences and language barrier. Students in Scott Quad cook noodles in a rice cooker in their dorm room. From left, Ma Wen Qi, Zhou Yi Ming, Song Kai Li, Monroe Pan, Bill Zhang, and Zhu Zi Yang eat noodles in a dorm room at Scott Quad on April 26, 2011.z From left, Ma Wen Qi, Zhou Yi Ming, Song Kai Li, Monroe Pan, Bill Zhang, and Zhu Zi Yang.

“I want to study the real university classes more, to live a more formal American college life. I watch the American college students walking around, having meals, I can't feel that life now," says Clara Zhang, who is in her first quarter at OU.