Study Abroad Enables Deeper Understanding Across Cultures?

I will be leaving for a study abroad program in China in about one and a half months.  There, I will be studying in a business school and taking classes on international advertising and global business strategy.  Because it will be my first time actually studying in a foreign country I am both excited and nervous about how it will go for me.  I have received very positive feedback from friends and educators but I am still trying to determine if it will truly be a benefit to my educational future and if understanding another culture so well will really help me in the work, or if it will set me back.
  Because I have been struggling with this I know there must be others out there who ask themselves the same questions.  That is why I have decided that I will do a little research project while I am away that will relate to my major and help me to see if studying a foreign culture really helps you promote better to them.

Here are the questions that my research will answer:

• Is the relationship between the effectiveness of Strategic Communication in a region and that region's culture a direct correlation? Why?
• Does this correlation/lack of correlation influence media choices?
• Do global corporations like Apple, Sony, Disney, and Armani adapt their advertising in such a way that the message might be received in one culture and barely understood in another, or is the correlation such that a well crafted message will be received easily by either culture.

While looking at these questions I cannot help but present my assumptions at this time as well.

• There should be a direct correlation between the culture of an area and the effectiveness of Strategic Communication in that region.  The reason is that in one culture the color pink might incite cute, adorable, girly, and playful ideas in the consumer's minds.  Yet, in another culture on the other side of the world the color pink could be viewed as a docile, wimpy, or unwanted color.  The color is exactly the same, and even the general idea of the color is quite similar for both cultures.  Yet, the feeling that is brought on by the color is quite different.
• Because the assumption is that there will in fact be a correlation I definitely believe that it already influences the media choices of the regions.
• The assumption here is that global corporations do in fact adapt their advertising to match with their different region's cultures.  However, there should be certain products and styles of promotion that can translate into any culture.  Sex is one of these that should be easily transferred from culture to culture.

I will spend the next six months doing a series of studies, observational and computational, and at the end of my study I will publish the results of my findings here.  

Also if any of my readers are interested in seeing what it is like to study abroad in china I will do a video blog on youtube while I am there.