This last of the semester has been much busier for me than the first half, with this past week being the worst of it. Due to the way professor schedule semester long presentations by last name, I had to give 3 presentations last week, as well having 2 tests and a paper due. It wasn't all bad, as the presentation topics I was given were all interesting and different. The topics of my presentations ranged from cross analyzing different cultures, canned wine, and piracy in China, which was by pure coincidence interestingly enough. With professors giving either instant feedback or email the next day, the way I present worked well for me here, as I was worried professors here may have different criteria than those at UH. The main part that was difficult about the presentations were that my professors gave the topics to us only a week before we present, so I only had a week to research all the topics, but I was able to survive it all and start preparing for finals in a couple weeks.
Despite the semester being almost finished, the past week has shown to me how different my cultural background is from everyone else, and how little people know about Asian culture here. It started on Monday, when I was talking with my communications professor, and she noticed I had nearly opposite values of the other American students in the class, based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions. I then explained to her that despite being classified as "American" in the class, Hawaii is far different than the rest of the US, due to both Asian and Hawaiian having stronger collectivist values.
In my economics class, a portion of the time was discussed about relationships within Asia, and I could tell that the professor was calling on me more often than the other students, as I'm the only Asian person in my class. I actually appreciated this because I likely have the most knowledge about Asia, and it showed she respected my opinions. Finally, the other day my home stay family noticed I walk around the house barefoot, so I explained to them that it's just a reflex, and I didn't realize other cultures don't take off their shoes when they're indoors. While I didn't expect people to know much about Asian or Hawaiian culture, it was just surprising how much of my culture I had to explain this past week. |
AuthorThank you for visiting my blog. The purpose of this blog is to document my time while studying abroad in Italy. Archives
December 2019
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