Perhaps you have ideas
Here is a picture from last week's graduation. At the front left in Herrly from Sabu (his major issue are illegal immigrants in Sabu). Of the five women in hijab's I teach all but the woman in the dark blue hijab. The four I teach have very different personalities and interests. In the second row to the right is Rebecca from Kuching Her English language skills are among the best in the class. Next to her is Kali. Kali has an undergraduate degree and theater - it seems like a perfect match of personality & major. The sman in the dark blue shirt is Mahis - he is quite out-going; he has focused on Malaysia's policy on the language of instruction for science and math. The other students are random graduates who I don't know.
So how can you help? Next Tuesday I am going to Johore Bahru (near Singapore) to take part in a discussion with students (early univrsity) on multi-culturalism. A US Embassy staff member asked me to give a picture of what it is like to be on a multl-cultural (US) campus. Her perception, and I have heard this often from different people in different places, is that young Malaysians tend to stick with their own ethnic group (Chinese, Malay, or Indian). They have few friendships or even contact with people from other groups. A great challenge for a society that sees itself as multi-ethnic. One of my colleagues teaches a course on multi-ethnic relations (required at the university) and she doesn't have enough non-Malays for students to interact across ethnic groups.
If you have opinions about the multi-cultural climate/experiences at a US university that you would like to share - and I will share with the group - either post a comment or send it to me at eosullivan at ncsu.edu
If you have opinions about the multi-cultural climate/experiences at a US university that you would like to share - and I will share with the group - either post a comment or send it to me at eosullivan at ncsu.edu
posted by Liz at
12:11 PM
1 Comments:
Hi, Dr. O! Thank you so much for this blog - I enjoy keeping up with you and your experiences. I guess I'm living vicariously through you these days!
As a 3-time university student at two American universities, my experience has been very much the same as what you described there in Malaysia. Considering that America is often pointed to as the quintessential, multi-cultural "melting pot" there is very little mixture among the various ethnicities. I think human beings are wont to mix most frequently with those who are similar, though. It takes a bit of stretching, or going out on a limb so to speak to make that first effort to mix with those from another background.
My first real experience with someone from another culture, I'm sad to say, was as a freshman in college. A young man across the hall from me was from Japan. His name was Sato and he was quite a character! He worked extremely hard - his spoken English was nearly non-existent, though I remember he was fairly adept at the written word. He smoked like a chimney. I recall his room having a constant fog! Our conversations were often one-sided - he generally understood what I was saying to him, but was self-conscious about his own ability to speak English, and so tended to nod a lot and take a long time to piece together a sentence or two. Sometimes, we'd "talk" about something and he'd come back to me a few hours later with his response and discussion with little notes or sentences jotted down for him to follow. Later in life (after grad school and my MPA, actually), I gained close friends from Spain, Paraguay, and Argentina and discovered that this self-consciousness can be fairly common. I guess we all want to fit in and be accepted and so taking that first step to make contact with someone else can be a giant one. It's a shame really - I count my few international friends as among my best friends. I have learned so much from them about their countries and frankly, about my own as well.
All that to say that human nature often steers us away from experiences we should relish and which, frankly, the world could use more of. Thanks for your blog, Dr. O. Keep up the good work and keep posting. I'll keep reading!
Rob
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rob, At
August 25, 2008 at 8:48 PM
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