The University of Hong Kong held its orientation for non-local students this last Friday, August 28. Though I appreciate the effort, much of the event seemed to drag on and students found themselves socializing with each other more than listening to the presentations, making the presentations hard to hear. Apart from the main event, there were a few subsequent components to orientation that I found were much more informative and useful than the opening act.
The day was opened with all of the non-local (mainland Chinese and international) students gathered in the assembly hall of Main Building. My HKU buddy informed me that, as that building is one of the oldest and most architecturally significant edifices on campus, important events are held there to give a good first impression of the university.
Unfortunately, since the hall is so old, it’s also quite small, and many of the students could not fit. They were directed to nearby rooms where the presentation was broadcasted live to them. What happened at that first event were mostly formalities—introduction of the administration, various resources available to us, and a plug for the Chinese-language courses they would be offering to us in the coming semesters.
As a bad sign, I couldn’t understand a significant amount of what they were saying. Though while listening closely I could gather 75-90%, I’m still uncomfortable with the current degree of comprehension. But I’ll get to language in another post.
About those Chinese-language courses, I’ve decided to take Cantonese for Foreigners 1, as I have a pretty good Mandarin foundation, and figured that it could be good to get as local as possible. I think that the biggest thing I’ve found here is how profoundly bad my Cantonese is. And though a Canadian exchange student “called shenanigans” on me for not speaking Cantonese, she was highly uninformed of my upbringing, but I’ll talk about that more in that upcoming language post.
They provided us with a “light lunch” which was actually quite filling with three half-sandwiches, an apple, and a juice box. At that point most non-local students were done with their orientation; however, American students had an additional meeting with a representative from the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong.
That meeting started with her asking where everyone was from. Starting with California, about a third of the American students raised their hands. The other two thirds were from various places scattered around the country. As many of the students from California (undoubtedly mostly University of California students) were Asian Americans, my roommate mentioned that night that Asian American students being a big chunk of students studying abroad in Asia should be no surprise, but I informed him that the UCs have a large Asian population, and still more students, at least at UCSD, went to Europe for study abroad.
Like I said earlier, I’m in good company.
At the meeting basically said the standard “don’t make yourself stand out” stuff and told us how to handle ourselves if we were to get arrested. The consulate would provide a list of attorneys to help, but if someone’s incarcerated, he or she will be visited every quarter by a member of the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong.
Someone asked how serious jaywalking in Hong Kong is, and the representative said that she didn’t know, but it would be safer to cross at the crosswalks and she herself prefers to wait a couple seconds after the light turns green to cross, allowing those running red lights to do so.
An hour after that, my faculty had a quick session (that lasted an hour and a half) on how to register for classes. It was really complicated, but more on that later. Off to class now!
Showing posts with label orientation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label orientation. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Some Notes Before I Go
Tomorrow, I leave for Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong, where I will spend the next four months studying and sightseeing. I’ll leave for Los Angeles International Airport at 6 a.m. for my first leg to San Francisco. From there I have a thirteen-and-half hour flight direct to Hong Kong. I’m all packed but not necessarily ready to go.
I’m still nervous as ever as I anticipate my long journey and longer transition. But already I am confident that I will quickly make Hong Kong my home away from home. At UCSD I served as an American student to help orient international students and in the same manner, HKU has set me up with a Hong Kong student to help me, now the international student, find my way. While I’ll mosey my way to the university from the airport, she has graciously offered to show me the campus the day after.
I arrive on August 21 and have orientation the following Friday, August 28. Class begins on September 1. Maybe by then I’ll get used to British English orthography and the metric system. Surely by then I’ll have bought blankets and a pillow.
Next time, I’ll be writing from Hong Kong.
I’m still nervous as ever as I anticipate my long journey and longer transition. But already I am confident that I will quickly make Hong Kong my home away from home. At UCSD I served as an American student to help orient international students and in the same manner, HKU has set me up with a Hong Kong student to help me, now the international student, find my way. While I’ll mosey my way to the university from the airport, she has graciously offered to show me the campus the day after.
I arrive on August 21 and have orientation the following Friday, August 28. Class begins on September 1. Maybe by then I’ll get used to British English orthography and the metric system. Surely by then I’ll have bought blankets and a pillow.
Next time, I’ll be writing from Hong Kong.
Monday, May 18, 2009
"The Ugly American," Part 1
UCSD is known for its lack of social life. While not entirely true, there are notably less parties here than the notorious UC Santa Barbara or our neighbor San Diego State University. In reality, if by social life, parties are implied, we rank low, but if drugs and alcohol are thrown into the equation, our numbers are probably not much lower than everyone else. It has been said here that fun won’t be thrown at you, for you will have to go looking for it yourself. The perceived lack of alcohol and related socializing (or vice versa) is notorious here at UCSD, for all people do here is study, right? In short, I wouldn’t testify to that.
At the general orientation a couple of weeks ago, we were taught something about stereotypes and how to avoid them. The prevailing theme of this discussion was “the ugly American.” While it is probable that the average American could guess the meaning of these three words, I doubt a lot of my college classmates get the full extent of this stereotype, for most of them fall into that stereotype.
When oversees, avoid wearing college shirts, especially those with acronyms such as UCSD and SDSU because that just screams American college student. What it said then was don’t stick out like a sore thumb. Even if you don’t fall into the stereotype in the full sense of it, parts imply the whole. Hear Democrats, think gay rights; hear Republicans think religion—it’s the same concept.
In my opinion, the “ugly American” concept is not based on anything too far from the true lives of many undergraduate college students. It entails binge drinking at parties to feel looser and more socially apt, as well as being loud and obnoxious. Now the drinking part really hit me as odd. I personally don’t drink, and I know that alcohol is off-putting to me, not to mention illegal in non-medical, non-religious circumstances for people of my age in the United States. I would say that I buy into the stereotype that those Europeans drink a lot. I’ve heard stories of four-year-olds drinking in Croatia and lax enforcement of the drinking age in other countries. Granted, I haven’t been to Europe, though I am planning on going early this summer to France (mostly Paris) and Italy.
I recently had a conversation with a good friend of mine who goes to UCSD, and with whom I went to high school, about drinking and drugs. It did not turn out at all in the way that she seemed to have expected, though judging by the lack of feasibility of alternative answers, she must have had other motive that was in the end unfulfilled by my answer.
And I told her, “I honestly don’t see the fun in getting so drunk that you’re throwing up. I like being in my head, and an altered state of mind seems equally undesirable.” She told me that I was being on the offensive to the entire social aspect of her life. I apologized half-heartedly, but said that she had solicited my opinion, of which I had given.
She told me that drinking is the only thing that she does regarding drugs. She revealed to me that another old high school friend of mine was into experimenting with drugs, to which I was surprised. I guess you could say that this is where my naiveté becomes transparent and my ideology had to be shifted to accommodate others.
I always prized myself on having drug-free, alcohol-free (or what I like to call clean) friends. This stemmed from the effectiveness of the D.A.R.E. (or Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program on me. Administered in sixth grade, but now defunct, it involved having a police officer come to campus a couple times a week and lead us through the program. Sometimes the police officer would come to campus during lunch and show us how real handcuffs look and feel both on and off our wrists. The program worked on me, I believe, because I was not a rebel in short. I am not more righteous than others for my history, just to say that I am an active product of society rather than the unintentional-though-pervasive product of society, which creates the adolescent/teenage rebel culture.
Because the D.A.R.E. program was presented in a didactic fashion during school hours, rebelling against society included the program through school. When the ineffectiveness of the program was fully shown, it was cancelled, with the money that used to be appropriated to the program re-appropriated to hiring a full-time police officer for each of the three high schools in the school district.
As the high schools in Thousand Oaks were already safe, violent crime didn’t exactly go down. As I would find out later, drugs existed on campus in considerable quantities, and the presence of a police officer did little to decrease drug crime. All that it did was provide more immediate consequences for those caught.
As I would find out later, our Associated Student Government vice president was a pot dealer on campus, and many of the members of the club Students Against Drunk Driving (bouncing off of Mothers Against Drunk Driving) could be seen drinking vodka, Jose Cuervo, and other liquors from Pyrex measuring cups and those infamous red disposable plastic cups on Facebook.
My personal opinion on the matter has changed considerably since I came to UCSD. Before, I took to the D.A.R.E. philosophy that drugs are bad—drugs being any substance besides food that changes or alters bodily function. In my mind, it was an easy enough definition to deal with. Nicotine (tobacco) is bad, as is marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, and opiates (heroin).
I have never smoked first hand in my life, tried a marijuana joint, or dealt with any illicit drug. I know how alcohol tastes and I hate it, which is part of the reason why it has not been an issue to avoid drinking at college parties. On the other hand, many of students that I reside with in my suite do pot, with the frequency, might I add, as often as once every other day. In one seven-day period, O=one suitemate in particular was completely clean but one day.
This provided an overwhelming point of contention for me, because as I had long found solace in being drug free, suddenly I found myself in an environment where I felt as though I were the only level-headed one (or at least one of the very few). When I went from high school to college, I put myself under the impression that I would never have to feel in such a way again.
Up until recently, I was very put off by this experience and in the end I had to fix my mentality. No longer was I stuck in the confines of high school. Even in college, I was surrounded by less-than-savory people, and with no escape, I was forced to cope. I entered this last quarter with my faith in God and the knowledge that they could not change who I am if I don’t want them to.
My mother, the only person that I can really confide these feelings in, told me that I shouldn’t feel so down because of what other people do. She told me that I based by sense of morality in legality and the law, and maybe I shouldn’t so much. I began reevaluating what I believed to be the rule of law in society until I realized that my conception of the law in society fell in the same arena as a great ancient thinker.
Socrates and I were on the same wavelength. Socrates was sentenced to death for three charges that were frivolous at best. In his defense (The Apology) he failed to simply appease his jurors and answer his accusers. He made a scene of it and justified himself with the set of laws that was used to condemn him. When he was found guilty and subsequently sentenced to death, his good friend Crito came to help him escape. He refused his assistance to escape, and said that he must answer to the state that had so nourished him up until that point. Although he may have been unjustly sentenced, he would die as a testament to the legal system, for where would we be without our laws?
So where would we be without our laws? My studies during this quarter have led me to a class on international drug policy—and a revelation. A drug, or more specifically a psychoactive substance, includes the illegal (cocaine, marijuana, and heroin) and the partially legal (alcohol and nicotine), but also caffeine.
Caffeine has a full range of effects, including negative ones, consisting of insomnia, sweating, palpitations, headaches, etc. In addition, studies suggest that caffeine has a higher addiction rate than marijuana, as many a professional would tell you.
As science is showing, marijuana is not nearly as dangerous as initially thought and has lower addition rates that alcohol and nicotine, both partially legal drugs. So why are we still in such an uproar over keeping marijuana illegal? Logic leads one to ask why alcohol and nicotine are legal and a less harmful drug such as marijuana is illegal. That is why countries such as the Netherlands have decriminalized it.
This brings me to my new opinion of drugs and alcohol—moderation. The “ugly American” stereotype also stems from the treatment of marijuana by people in the United States. Similar to college students drinking to the point of unconsciousness, many Americans go to the Netherlands to engage in recreational marijuana, but I am told they over-indulge, treating marijuana as the forbidden fruit of the populace, being what alcohol is to the American under-aged.
However, even if marijuana were made legal, I would not participate recreationally along the same reasoning as why I choose not to smoke tobacco, thought it would be perfectly legal for me to do so. I am not an advocate for lowering the drinking age, but were I of age, I might engage lightly, but never to the point where I find myself bent over a trashcan nor where I might wake up in Mexico. The drinking age is 18 in Hong Kong, and as I will be 19, why not socialize a little?
In short, I am not a rebel to the rebels; I am a traditionalist among the insecure; I am a traditionalist among those who think they are traditionalist; I am a liberal American. Attack me now.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
At the general orientation a couple of weeks ago, we were taught something about stereotypes and how to avoid them. The prevailing theme of this discussion was “the ugly American.” While it is probable that the average American could guess the meaning of these three words, I doubt a lot of my college classmates get the full extent of this stereotype, for most of them fall into that stereotype.
When oversees, avoid wearing college shirts, especially those with acronyms such as UCSD and SDSU because that just screams American college student. What it said then was don’t stick out like a sore thumb. Even if you don’t fall into the stereotype in the full sense of it, parts imply the whole. Hear Democrats, think gay rights; hear Republicans think religion—it’s the same concept.
In my opinion, the “ugly American” concept is not based on anything too far from the true lives of many undergraduate college students. It entails binge drinking at parties to feel looser and more socially apt, as well as being loud and obnoxious. Now the drinking part really hit me as odd. I personally don’t drink, and I know that alcohol is off-putting to me, not to mention illegal in non-medical, non-religious circumstances for people of my age in the United States. I would say that I buy into the stereotype that those Europeans drink a lot. I’ve heard stories of four-year-olds drinking in Croatia and lax enforcement of the drinking age in other countries. Granted, I haven’t been to Europe, though I am planning on going early this summer to France (mostly Paris) and Italy.
I recently had a conversation with a good friend of mine who goes to UCSD, and with whom I went to high school, about drinking and drugs. It did not turn out at all in the way that she seemed to have expected, though judging by the lack of feasibility of alternative answers, she must have had other motive that was in the end unfulfilled by my answer.
And I told her, “I honestly don’t see the fun in getting so drunk that you’re throwing up. I like being in my head, and an altered state of mind seems equally undesirable.” She told me that I was being on the offensive to the entire social aspect of her life. I apologized half-heartedly, but said that she had solicited my opinion, of which I had given.
She told me that drinking is the only thing that she does regarding drugs. She revealed to me that another old high school friend of mine was into experimenting with drugs, to which I was surprised. I guess you could say that this is where my naiveté becomes transparent and my ideology had to be shifted to accommodate others.
I always prized myself on having drug-free, alcohol-free (or what I like to call clean) friends. This stemmed from the effectiveness of the D.A.R.E. (or Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program on me. Administered in sixth grade, but now defunct, it involved having a police officer come to campus a couple times a week and lead us through the program. Sometimes the police officer would come to campus during lunch and show us how real handcuffs look and feel both on and off our wrists. The program worked on me, I believe, because I was not a rebel in short. I am not more righteous than others for my history, just to say that I am an active product of society rather than the unintentional-though-pervasive product of society, which creates the adolescent/teenage rebel culture.
Because the D.A.R.E. program was presented in a didactic fashion during school hours, rebelling against society included the program through school. When the ineffectiveness of the program was fully shown, it was cancelled, with the money that used to be appropriated to the program re-appropriated to hiring a full-time police officer for each of the three high schools in the school district.
As the high schools in Thousand Oaks were already safe, violent crime didn’t exactly go down. As I would find out later, drugs existed on campus in considerable quantities, and the presence of a police officer did little to decrease drug crime. All that it did was provide more immediate consequences for those caught.
As I would find out later, our Associated Student Government vice president was a pot dealer on campus, and many of the members of the club Students Against Drunk Driving (bouncing off of Mothers Against Drunk Driving) could be seen drinking vodka, Jose Cuervo, and other liquors from Pyrex measuring cups and those infamous red disposable plastic cups on Facebook.
My personal opinion on the matter has changed considerably since I came to UCSD. Before, I took to the D.A.R.E. philosophy that drugs are bad—drugs being any substance besides food that changes or alters bodily function. In my mind, it was an easy enough definition to deal with. Nicotine (tobacco) is bad, as is marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, and opiates (heroin).
I have never smoked first hand in my life, tried a marijuana joint, or dealt with any illicit drug. I know how alcohol tastes and I hate it, which is part of the reason why it has not been an issue to avoid drinking at college parties. On the other hand, many of students that I reside with in my suite do pot, with the frequency, might I add, as often as once every other day. In one seven-day period, O=one suitemate in particular was completely clean but one day.
This provided an overwhelming point of contention for me, because as I had long found solace in being drug free, suddenly I found myself in an environment where I felt as though I were the only level-headed one (or at least one of the very few). When I went from high school to college, I put myself under the impression that I would never have to feel in such a way again.
Up until recently, I was very put off by this experience and in the end I had to fix my mentality. No longer was I stuck in the confines of high school. Even in college, I was surrounded by less-than-savory people, and with no escape, I was forced to cope. I entered this last quarter with my faith in God and the knowledge that they could not change who I am if I don’t want them to.
My mother, the only person that I can really confide these feelings in, told me that I shouldn’t feel so down because of what other people do. She told me that I based by sense of morality in legality and the law, and maybe I shouldn’t so much. I began reevaluating what I believed to be the rule of law in society until I realized that my conception of the law in society fell in the same arena as a great ancient thinker.
Socrates and I were on the same wavelength. Socrates was sentenced to death for three charges that were frivolous at best. In his defense (The Apology) he failed to simply appease his jurors and answer his accusers. He made a scene of it and justified himself with the set of laws that was used to condemn him. When he was found guilty and subsequently sentenced to death, his good friend Crito came to help him escape. He refused his assistance to escape, and said that he must answer to the state that had so nourished him up until that point. Although he may have been unjustly sentenced, he would die as a testament to the legal system, for where would we be without our laws?
So where would we be without our laws? My studies during this quarter have led me to a class on international drug policy—and a revelation. A drug, or more specifically a psychoactive substance, includes the illegal (cocaine, marijuana, and heroin) and the partially legal (alcohol and nicotine), but also caffeine.
Caffeine has a full range of effects, including negative ones, consisting of insomnia, sweating, palpitations, headaches, etc. In addition, studies suggest that caffeine has a higher addiction rate than marijuana, as many a professional would tell you.
As science is showing, marijuana is not nearly as dangerous as initially thought and has lower addition rates that alcohol and nicotine, both partially legal drugs. So why are we still in such an uproar over keeping marijuana illegal? Logic leads one to ask why alcohol and nicotine are legal and a less harmful drug such as marijuana is illegal. That is why countries such as the Netherlands have decriminalized it.
This brings me to my new opinion of drugs and alcohol—moderation. The “ugly American” stereotype also stems from the treatment of marijuana by people in the United States. Similar to college students drinking to the point of unconsciousness, many Americans go to the Netherlands to engage in recreational marijuana, but I am told they over-indulge, treating marijuana as the forbidden fruit of the populace, being what alcohol is to the American under-aged.
However, even if marijuana were made legal, I would not participate recreationally along the same reasoning as why I choose not to smoke tobacco, thought it would be perfectly legal for me to do so. I am not an advocate for lowering the drinking age, but were I of age, I might engage lightly, but never to the point where I find myself bent over a trashcan nor where I might wake up in Mexico. The drinking age is 18 in Hong Kong, and as I will be 19, why not socialize a little?
In short, I am not a rebel to the rebels; I am a traditionalist among the insecure; I am a traditionalist among those who think they are traditionalist; I am a liberal American. Attack me now.
Copyright © 2009 James Philip Jee
This work may not be reproduced by any means without express permission of the author.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
My Nervousness
Recently, I hypothetically asked my mother what she thought of me driving down to San Diego from Thousand Oaks, some one hundred fifty miles, by myself. I will be turning 19 in less than two months and like to feel as though my maturity exceeds my years. She told me that she was unsure, and still felt that it was still too early. While I understand that she’s just being a protective mother, inconsistencies arise, such as the fact that she knows that I take rides back to UCSD with other students around my age with less driving experience than me. I suppose this exception is to make sure I get to school, seeing as the alternatives would be either a three-and-a-half-hour train ride (costing $27) coupled with a half-hour bus ride to campus, or they drive me to school (two-and-a-half hours optimistically) and then back. Anyway, I help pay for my friends’ gas and carpooling is good for the environment, right?
There is one big hurdle that one needs to get over when studying abroad—leaving home. I guess it is a fairly straightforward process that everyone goes through when they leave the nest. Unfortunately for me, I, as well as most of my suitemates (whom I dorm with), have not really left home. We all go home for breaks, most of us have gone home more than once during each of our three quarters (each quarter consisting of eleven weeks), and first and foremost, we refer to our former domiciles as “home,” and refer to the act of visiting as “going back [home].” Last quarter, my roommate went back to Glendale six or seven weekends out of the ten, and another suitemate went home every weekend until just a month ago and still goes back frequently. I really am no different. Fall quarter, my family visited me once, and I went home once. Winter quarter, I went home twice and my family visited me once. This current spring quarter, my mother has visited me once, and my family plans to visit me the weekend after next, both occasions regarding orientation for study abroad.
My home is in Thousand Oaks, where I was born and raised. I can point to minute landmarks and show whoever cares to where I reached milestones in my life, just the way my parents intended. Don’t get me wrong—I love La Jolla. The weather’s great and insects are few; there is much more diversity here than the suburban community close to my heart, and I can see the blue Pacific from by window. In fact, the similarities between La Jolla and Thousand Oaks, particularly around Westlake High School (where I graduated), are plenty. In a sentence—it’s full of old rich people. There are many nice cars, crime is low, and drivers are bad. It reminds me of home in my own personal way and I’m glad to have it. So in a different way, I have not yet left home. My new town is reminiscent of the old and I have yet to start seeing my family any more than three times a year. Therein lies my stage in life.
Well, I purchased my round-trip ticket from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) a couple weeks ago, and ever since my nervousness has been building steadily. I told my mother of this increase when she was here the other weekend. I received the response, “Why?” Simple and succinct, her one word said a thousand. Did you do something wrong? Did you miss a deadline…oh no, did you miss a housing deadline? It would have been a good thing she didn’t say it out loud, but her intonation gave her utterance meaning, possibly including meaning she didn’t mean to give.
My mother used to live in Hong Kong during her early childhood back in the day, so I’m not sure she understands the full gravity behind my nervousness. Previously, my family visited China for two weeks with a tour group. We visited Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou, all of which in central and northern China. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is in southern China (along with the good food, my mother tells me!). It was a good experience in every sense. Not only did we experience a slice of culture, we also got too see the developing country in development. There were construction cranes everywhere, and unfortunately the cities were masked in pollution. My brother and I realized the extent of our language barriers (my brother’s more than mine).
Will Hong Kong be enshrined in smog? Will it be hot and humid like the rest of China during most of the year? I already know I will have to give up my California weather—but to what extent? I suppose I will find out soon enough. How will the people be? Will the people spit all over the ground like they did in Beijing? Will the people lift their shirts halfway up their chests so as to mitigate the heat as the men did in Xian? Only time will tell I guess.
And back to my family—I will not likely see them during the four-month semester, nor will they likely see me. Whereas I do not think this is going to be a problem on my end, I know my mother has different feelings, to which I answer, “Well at least I’m not leaving for the whole year.” Little consolation, I know.
Recall that she is currently against the idea of me driving to San Diego myself—a distance of one hundred fifty miles. Hong Kong is seven thousand, two hundred miles away (or forty-eight times the distance), on a journey I will be taking by myself, crowded onto a Boeing 747 “Jumbo-Jet” with some four hundred fifty other people. I know that she will be worrying about me and my safety, and while I tell her that I’ll be okay and there’s nothing to worry about because I’ll watch myself, I know that she will remain worried until the whole episode is over and done with.
This is evidenced by the first time I came home by train. I had a 6:35 p.m. train from Oceanside going north to Los Angeles Union Station; and from there I had a bus leaving at 9:30 p.m. for arrival in Simi Valley at 10:40 p.m. Now, I am confident in my directional bearings more than the average bear, and my parents know of my keen abilities (such as being nocturnal). Nevertheless at 6:15 p.m. my father called me to see if I was at the train station yet. On a side note, I realize this whole time I’ve been focusing on my mother. That’s not to say that my father doesn’t care, I just don’t know if in his silent ways he worries about me in the same way. Because of this, I do not know whether he called me on his own accord or whether my mother had him call me. My parents claim to put up a unified front, so I’ll treat this matter as such.
Anyways, I told him yes, that I am at the train station, on the proper platform, and I will call him when I board the train. The train was late by five minutes. At 6:40 p.m., as I was entering the train, my father called me worried because I did not call him shortly after 6:35 p.m. I cleared things up, but before we hung up, he made sure I was on the correct train (keep in mind that trains don’t come any more often than three or four in any given hour on one of two platforms) and that I had my ticket still.
At Union Station in Los Angeles, I boarded the bus and called my parents again to update them. My father wanted to make sure I was on the correct bus again. I told him I was sure because it had the correct number on it as well as the destination Santa Barbara, along which was Simi Valley, the driver accepted my ticket without a problem, and the bus-loading lot was populated with one bus—the one I got on.
In Chatsworth (one stop before Simi Valley), I texted him to tell him of my whereabouts. I didn’t call because there were people on the bus sleeping.
“I’m in chatsworth. I should be in simi by 1045”
I was texting my brother’s phone, which my parents borrowed to pick me up. My parents, having never owned a cell phone personally except for a short stint in 1994, much less one with texting abilities, made an attempt to reply.
“O 2 n i k 2 m m m” I read it and lol-ed.
Anyways, I got there and saw my parents a couple hundred feet away. I began walking to them when I saw my mother flaring her hands about to get my attention, for fear that I may go the wrong direction, though I was clearly going towards them. It was like a corny movie, a scene that was bound to happen. In the car during the ride home they told me how they were so worried because the bus was fifteen minutes late and that it was night, to which I smiled.
Multiply that by 48 for the difference in distance and 4 for the difference in time gone without seeing each other, and we’ll see where we are then.
*
There is one big hurdle that one needs to get over when studying abroad—leaving home. I guess it is a fairly straightforward process that everyone goes through when they leave the nest. Unfortunately for me, I, as well as most of my suitemates (whom I dorm with), have not really left home. We all go home for breaks, most of us have gone home more than once during each of our three quarters (each quarter consisting of eleven weeks), and first and foremost, we refer to our former domiciles as “home,” and refer to the act of visiting as “going back [home].” Last quarter, my roommate went back to Glendale six or seven weekends out of the ten, and another suitemate went home every weekend until just a month ago and still goes back frequently. I really am no different. Fall quarter, my family visited me once, and I went home once. Winter quarter, I went home twice and my family visited me once. This current spring quarter, my mother has visited me once, and my family plans to visit me the weekend after next, both occasions regarding orientation for study abroad.
My home is in Thousand Oaks, where I was born and raised. I can point to minute landmarks and show whoever cares to where I reached milestones in my life, just the way my parents intended. Don’t get me wrong—I love La Jolla. The weather’s great and insects are few; there is much more diversity here than the suburban community close to my heart, and I can see the blue Pacific from by window. In fact, the similarities between La Jolla and Thousand Oaks, particularly around Westlake High School (where I graduated), are plenty. In a sentence—it’s full of old rich people. There are many nice cars, crime is low, and drivers are bad. It reminds me of home in my own personal way and I’m glad to have it. So in a different way, I have not yet left home. My new town is reminiscent of the old and I have yet to start seeing my family any more than three times a year. Therein lies my stage in life.
Well, I purchased my round-trip ticket from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) a couple weeks ago, and ever since my nervousness has been building steadily. I told my mother of this increase when she was here the other weekend. I received the response, “Why?” Simple and succinct, her one word said a thousand. Did you do something wrong? Did you miss a deadline…oh no, did you miss a housing deadline? It would have been a good thing she didn’t say it out loud, but her intonation gave her utterance meaning, possibly including meaning she didn’t mean to give.
My mother used to live in Hong Kong during her early childhood back in the day, so I’m not sure she understands the full gravity behind my nervousness. Previously, my family visited China for two weeks with a tour group. We visited Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou, all of which in central and northern China. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is in southern China (along with the good food, my mother tells me!). It was a good experience in every sense. Not only did we experience a slice of culture, we also got too see the developing country in development. There were construction cranes everywhere, and unfortunately the cities were masked in pollution. My brother and I realized the extent of our language barriers (my brother’s more than mine).
Will Hong Kong be enshrined in smog? Will it be hot and humid like the rest of China during most of the year? I already know I will have to give up my California weather—but to what extent? I suppose I will find out soon enough. How will the people be? Will the people spit all over the ground like they did in Beijing? Will the people lift their shirts halfway up their chests so as to mitigate the heat as the men did in Xian? Only time will tell I guess.
And back to my family—I will not likely see them during the four-month semester, nor will they likely see me. Whereas I do not think this is going to be a problem on my end, I know my mother has different feelings, to which I answer, “Well at least I’m not leaving for the whole year.” Little consolation, I know.
Recall that she is currently against the idea of me driving to San Diego myself—a distance of one hundred fifty miles. Hong Kong is seven thousand, two hundred miles away (or forty-eight times the distance), on a journey I will be taking by myself, crowded onto a Boeing 747 “Jumbo-Jet” with some four hundred fifty other people. I know that she will be worrying about me and my safety, and while I tell her that I’ll be okay and there’s nothing to worry about because I’ll watch myself, I know that she will remain worried until the whole episode is over and done with.
This is evidenced by the first time I came home by train. I had a 6:35 p.m. train from Oceanside going north to Los Angeles Union Station; and from there I had a bus leaving at 9:30 p.m. for arrival in Simi Valley at 10:40 p.m. Now, I am confident in my directional bearings more than the average bear, and my parents know of my keen abilities (such as being nocturnal). Nevertheless at 6:15 p.m. my father called me to see if I was at the train station yet. On a side note, I realize this whole time I’ve been focusing on my mother. That’s not to say that my father doesn’t care, I just don’t know if in his silent ways he worries about me in the same way. Because of this, I do not know whether he called me on his own accord or whether my mother had him call me. My parents claim to put up a unified front, so I’ll treat this matter as such.
Anyways, I told him yes, that I am at the train station, on the proper platform, and I will call him when I board the train. The train was late by five minutes. At 6:40 p.m., as I was entering the train, my father called me worried because I did not call him shortly after 6:35 p.m. I cleared things up, but before we hung up, he made sure I was on the correct train (keep in mind that trains don’t come any more often than three or four in any given hour on one of two platforms) and that I had my ticket still.
At Union Station in Los Angeles, I boarded the bus and called my parents again to update them. My father wanted to make sure I was on the correct bus again. I told him I was sure because it had the correct number on it as well as the destination Santa Barbara, along which was Simi Valley, the driver accepted my ticket without a problem, and the bus-loading lot was populated with one bus—the one I got on.
In Chatsworth (one stop before Simi Valley), I texted him to tell him of my whereabouts. I didn’t call because there were people on the bus sleeping.
“I’m in chatsworth. I should be in simi by 1045”
I was texting my brother’s phone, which my parents borrowed to pick me up. My parents, having never owned a cell phone personally except for a short stint in 1994, much less one with texting abilities, made an attempt to reply.
“O 2 n i k 2 m m m” I read it and lol-ed.
Anyways, I got there and saw my parents a couple hundred feet away. I began walking to them when I saw my mother flaring her hands about to get my attention, for fear that I may go the wrong direction, though I was clearly going towards them. It was like a corny movie, a scene that was bound to happen. In the car during the ride home they told me how they were so worried because the bus was fifteen minutes late and that it was night, to which I smiled.
Multiply that by 48 for the difference in distance and 4 for the difference in time gone without seeing each other, and we’ll see where we are then.
*
Sunday, May 3, 2009
The Gist of It: General Orientation
The UCSD Programs Abroad Office held their mandatory general study abroad orientation for summer and fall departures this last Wednesday, and to my surprise it was more about cultural adjustment and health issues than anything else. As expected, the country-specific orientation focuses on our specific programs and the logistics of the whole thing. Hong Kong’s is set for May 16. Two things from this first orientation in particular that really stuck out were the “cultural iceberg” and Rhinesmith’s Ten Stages of Adjustment, both illustrated in the packets distributed at the meeting. Though out of the discussion I don’t believe I learned anything particularly new, the fact that it brought much possible elation about the whole experience back down to earth was probably necessary.
The cultural iceberg is a succinct representation of how we think about other countries and other cultures. The idea is that just as you can only see the top tenth of an iceberg, with the lower nine-tenths indiscernible from above water (Titanic, anyone?), most people only see the superficial aspects of culture and do not realize the other nine-tenths of a culture until later (maybe not until it’s too late?). To anyone that knows about and or feels a sense of belonging to more than one culture, this idea, possibly in a different metaphor, likely exists at a profound level. So above water is what we all see—in a word, pop culture: river dancing for Ireland, videogames and high technology for Japan, Shakespeare for England, ABBA for Sweden (thanks, Dad!), etcetera. It’s what our main interests are in as foreigners, as observers. The lower nine-tenths of the iceberg is comprised of things like “notions of modesty,” “ideals governing child raising,” “conception of status mobility,” “roles in relation to status by age, sex, class, occupation, kinship, etc.,” and many, many more. This lower nine-tenths of the iceberg is where we find fundamental differences in with our own culture, where we can easily explain a difference in culture through morality and ethics though the reality is much more complicated than that.
Despite this, in the classes I’ve taken, and not from orientation, I have learned that a big problem with studying “them” or “other” cultures exists in the notion that we consider ourselves to be normal, or relatively normal to others. An example of this is the common utterance “I don’t have an accent,” which is so common among people with many different accents that anyone who’s thought about it has to wonder, so who doesn’t have an accent? The only logical conclusion is that everyone has an accent, because linguistically speaking, no language, dialect, or accent is more neutral than another by human physiology. Therein lies the problem. In putting distance between us and them, we fail to see the similarities between people, instead emphasizing the differences. As cliché as it sounds, we are all more alike than we are different. And in the end we all share 99.9% of the same DNA, with scientific research showing that there is more genetic variation within (the artificially constructed) races than between them.
Therefore, while it was important that this iceberg theory brought our expectations regarding our cultural change to light, it is equally important that we not make a big fuss about all of this and simply open up to the host culture with an open and clear mind.
The second thing that stuck out to me was Rhinesmith’s Ten Stages of Adjustment. Though the concept is legitimate and well accepted, the illustration is accurate but comical, making us students studying abroad look bipolar.
It looks like radio frequency, with it constant ups and downs. As an emotional representation, the lows are emotional lows and the highs are emotional highs, representing different milestones in our study abroad (and subsequent reintegration into American society.
The points are as follows:
1. initial anxiety
2. initial elation
3. initial culture shock
4. superficial adjustment to host culture
5. depression-frustration with host culture
6. acceptance of host culture
7. return anxiety
8. return elation
9. re-entry
10. reintegration
So right now, I’m probably at number 1. Assuming this model is true, 1 is actually the only feasible stage I can be at, because I haven’t arrived yet. I’ll undoubtedly be in that stage through my 14-hour plane ride, and even in exiting their relatively really new airport.
Some colleges offering reorientation programs to students returning from study abroad
By Jean Cowden Moore, Ventura County Star, Monday, March 9, 2009
My father sent me a link to this article shortly after I found out that I had gotten into the University of Hong Kong program. It outlines stages 7-10 of the model and shows how some universities, such as California Lutheran University in my hometown, Thousand Oaks, California, offer and sometimes require reorientation programs to ease the transition back into American life. Outlined in the article are some details of why many students have trouble upon return, include seeing life in the United States as being wasteful and or fondness for their host culture abroad. In addition, any excitement held by the returnee, as pointed out in orientation, can be exploded onto one’s family and friends, causing them to lose interest in the experience, bottling up any nostalgic feelings with others’ annoyance at perseverance of the topic.
UCSD neither requires nor offers a reorientation program, but instead encourages students coming back to attend returnee group meetings, where students get to share their experiences with one another. Besides, everyone I’ve met has told me that studying abroad is supposed to be a positive experience, so these “support groups” after the fact wouldn’t be bad to take advantage of.
Just some thoughts…and thanks for reading.
*
The cultural iceberg is a succinct representation of how we think about other countries and other cultures. The idea is that just as you can only see the top tenth of an iceberg, with the lower nine-tenths indiscernible from above water (Titanic, anyone?), most people only see the superficial aspects of culture and do not realize the other nine-tenths of a culture until later (maybe not until it’s too late?). To anyone that knows about and or feels a sense of belonging to more than one culture, this idea, possibly in a different metaphor, likely exists at a profound level. So above water is what we all see—in a word, pop culture: river dancing for Ireland, videogames and high technology for Japan, Shakespeare for England, ABBA for Sweden (thanks, Dad!), etcetera. It’s what our main interests are in as foreigners, as observers. The lower nine-tenths of the iceberg is comprised of things like “notions of modesty,” “ideals governing child raising,” “conception of status mobility,” “roles in relation to status by age, sex, class, occupation, kinship, etc.,” and many, many more. This lower nine-tenths of the iceberg is where we find fundamental differences in with our own culture, where we can easily explain a difference in culture through morality and ethics though the reality is much more complicated than that.
Despite this, in the classes I’ve taken, and not from orientation, I have learned that a big problem with studying “them” or “other” cultures exists in the notion that we consider ourselves to be normal, or relatively normal to others. An example of this is the common utterance “I don’t have an accent,” which is so common among people with many different accents that anyone who’s thought about it has to wonder, so who doesn’t have an accent? The only logical conclusion is that everyone has an accent, because linguistically speaking, no language, dialect, or accent is more neutral than another by human physiology. Therein lies the problem. In putting distance between us and them, we fail to see the similarities between people, instead emphasizing the differences. As cliché as it sounds, we are all more alike than we are different. And in the end we all share 99.9% of the same DNA, with scientific research showing that there is more genetic variation within (the artificially constructed) races than between them.
Therefore, while it was important that this iceberg theory brought our expectations regarding our cultural change to light, it is equally important that we not make a big fuss about all of this and simply open up to the host culture with an open and clear mind.
The second thing that stuck out to me was Rhinesmith’s Ten Stages of Adjustment. Though the concept is legitimate and well accepted, the illustration is accurate but comical, making us students studying abroad look bipolar.
It looks like radio frequency, with it constant ups and downs. As an emotional representation, the lows are emotional lows and the highs are emotional highs, representing different milestones in our study abroad (and subsequent reintegration into American society.
The points are as follows:
1. initial anxiety
2. initial elation
3. initial culture shock
4. superficial adjustment to host culture
5. depression-frustration with host culture
6. acceptance of host culture
7. return anxiety
8. return elation
9. re-entry
10. reintegration
So right now, I’m probably at number 1. Assuming this model is true, 1 is actually the only feasible stage I can be at, because I haven’t arrived yet. I’ll undoubtedly be in that stage through my 14-hour plane ride, and even in exiting their relatively really new airport.
Some colleges offering reorientation programs to students returning from study abroad
By Jean Cowden Moore, Ventura County Star, Monday, March 9, 2009
My father sent me a link to this article shortly after I found out that I had gotten into the University of Hong Kong program. It outlines stages 7-10 of the model and shows how some universities, such as California Lutheran University in my hometown, Thousand Oaks, California, offer and sometimes require reorientation programs to ease the transition back into American life. Outlined in the article are some details of why many students have trouble upon return, include seeing life in the United States as being wasteful and or fondness for their host culture abroad. In addition, any excitement held by the returnee, as pointed out in orientation, can be exploded onto one’s family and friends, causing them to lose interest in the experience, bottling up any nostalgic feelings with others’ annoyance at perseverance of the topic.
UCSD neither requires nor offers a reorientation program, but instead encourages students coming back to attend returnee group meetings, where students get to share their experiences with one another. Besides, everyone I’ve met has told me that studying abroad is supposed to be a positive experience, so these “support groups” after the fact wouldn’t be bad to take advantage of.
Just some thoughts…and thanks for reading.
*
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