[coraphans]

If that were the case, then you should see Chinese international students hanging out with Japanese and Koreans.

But from what I've seen, the various East Asian groups don't interact much. And each group speaks their own native language.

[nicolas_t]

I'd say that the cultural differences between Chinese and Japanese are easily as big as the cultural differences between Chinese and Americans or between Japanese and Americans. So, no they would not be hanging out between each other because of similarity of culture.

If it were the language barrier that was the issue then actually between Chinese and Japanese students while the spoken language is very different, they can sort of communicate between each other via writing.