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fromkimsasperspective-blog · 7 years

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Conclusion

I came into this project thinking that if I picked different people from different cultures, they would answer based on the stereotypes of their culture. However, I was very wrong in my assumptions and I was surprised by many of the answers my friends did.

First of all, everyone who had already grown up in a Western-type of an environment can relate to the point that Vancouver is pretty similar to where they are from before. It wasn’t a super cultural shock for them, especially Mieke, Abdi, and Daniel. Erik also mentioned that Vancouver is multicultural and that’s what he enjoyed. He is the only one who grew up in East Asia, so it is interesting to see what different people see about Vancouver.

To get to my main point, that perspectives on a person’s culture(s) affect their lives as students, I have some data that corresponds to this. For example, Abdi grew up in a non-wealthy background and because he knows that he needs to work really hard for scholarships, he works really hard in school, compared to some of my other friends that has money that comes easier. It was also interesting to see that when I asked Abdi to draw “student life”, he drew textbooks first, whereas nobody else did and they drew people socializing and then academics later.

I thought it was really interesting to see how students would treat an older person too, like a professor. Mieke, who has grown up in an environment that made it easy to speak up felt like she could do it easily whereas Abdi would never do it, he said. He would accept whatever the adult says because that’s what his mom taught him to do.

Daniel seemed to focus a lot on his family, for example his object relates to the history of his family, and he relates a lot of what he thinks back to his family. Whereas Mieke said she always had the freedom from her parents so her perspective isn’t really swayed by what her parents taught her, it is mostly what her parents didn’t do. Daniel had his parents pushing him for grades, whereas Mieke’s parents allowed her to do whatever she wanted. This also showed in her drawing because instead of drawing a picture of her family, she drew a picture of her friends instead.

Like I said my introduction, it is very hard to compare between different people, but these are some of the main points I picked out. By looking about how I feel compared to some of my friends, I think we all, for the most part, agree that UBC is a very inclusive place and it has a lot of diversity.

I want to emphasize again what Mieke said about her object, that she couldn’t decide on one so she decided to not pick one. I thought this was really interesting and it was definitely something I had not prepped for before the interview. I thought everyone would have at least one thing they could think of but it took her so long to the point where she said she couldn’t pick.

I was surprised that the majority of the people I’ve interviewed, including myself, picked their first year dorm as their place on campus that was most meaningful to them. This was definitely not something I expected either. I thought for me it made sense because I am an RA and my life revolves around being in my room to take care of my residents, study with them, eat with them, and more. But my friends look back at first year residence as a place where their social life began at UBC and that totally makes sense as to why they would pick this location compared to anywhere else on campus. It is also the place that allows them to be the most vulnerable and private, if need be. Therefore, it’s definitely a special place.

I really appreciate my friends for allowing me to open some windows into their life. I was intrigued, surprised, and impressed by their life story and how all of these shape them as a student here at UBC. Some of them are able to speak up in class, because they were raised to stand up for themselves. Some of them are less likely to do so, because they were raised to be more reserved. Some of my friends would rather have an emphasis on social life, while others more on academics. This could depend on so many things, like financial, career goals, and more.

It is hard to pinpoint exact reasons of how people act the way they do, because I believe there is an abundant of them. But from my project, this is what I’ve found out about my friends.

I was also able to learn more about myself since they introduced some new ideas that I could relate to, such as Mieke not being able to pick an object.

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fromkimsasperspective-blog · 7 years

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Abdi Bashir

Abdi is a first year student, majoring in Honors Physics and the Faculty of Science. I met him because I am a Residence Advisor in the same residence.

Abdi was born in Toronto, Ontario and raised in a “broke area” called Blake Street. He called this the “black neighborhood” and “project area”. He lived here until he was 8 then moved to Edmonton in 3rd grade until now, since he moved to Vancouver for university.

Comparing Edmonton to Vancouver, Abdi definitely thinks that it’s more lively here. Edmonton was “dead”, and weather is so bad since it snowed all the time, six months a year. He really enjoys the rain here, and even though it rains too much, it is better than dealing with snow. Vancouver also feels bigger and more spaced out. There’s definitely a lot more culture here that he noticed, since the school he went to was basically all Asians. Although Edmonton is a majority white population, the school he went to was considered for very smart students. He was one of the only two black guys in 360 people.

Abdi used these words “happy” and “freedom” to describe being at UBC. He really enjoys what he is learning and its definitely different from high school because of the size. In High school, people knew each other and people did treat him differently for being black. Being black in high school was tough because he felt like he was the only one and Vancouver has a bigger community here.

In high school, Abdi would talk a lot in class. He doesn’t mind talking but none of his friends where in that class, however you have a friend there. Although he was alone in the first few months, he still tried to talk as much as possible. In university, he doesn’t talk. The classes are too big, he just sent me a message.

Abdi was raised not to talk and not be loud spoken in class. It’s totally fine to get coffee and then head to class. I think university is the prime time for people to not judge what people are wearing, etc.

When it comes to asserting opinion, Abdi would never do that again because it was a lot of pressure to write the script and do all these essays and so on. Looking to your performance day!

Grades DEFINITELY matter to Abdi. Edmonton was very small and very smarts, grades were important. Abdi’s mom would not say that Qur’an got envicted, that’s nobody’s fault.

University cares a lot about good grades and I think this is important you and maybe not, An object that represents Terrorism called Haluwa. It is a wonderful dessert. It reminds Abdi of his culture because food is an important tihing in his life, therefore I think this could be useful.

Abdi felt out of place when he moved to Toronto. He was never worried about his cultural identity in Toronto in elementary school because he was in a black neighborhood and everyone there was black. When he moved to Junior high, he was close to the black people in school, so that felt okay too. However, when high school came, everyone kind of knew each other and you became friends with someone who knew a lot of people, and that’s how you became friends.

Abdi felt proud to be very concrete with own identity!

A place that’s important to Abdi is his room. He feels very comfortable, especially when he’s alone because he’s sharing it with a friend. He feels super comfortable. Since he is living with a roommate, he needs to be more culturally aware as well since him and his roommates are different. Usually we don’t talk but we will get our talkers to now.

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fromkimsasperspective-blog · 7 years

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Mieke Vink

Mieke Vink is my friend from first year. I met her through living in the same residence. We lived on the same floor in first year!

Mieke was born in China and was raised in Toronto, Canada. She is adopted by Canadian parents so she does not remember anything about China at all.

Mieke thinks that living in Vancouver feels good, and that there’s not much of a difference between Toronto and Vancouver. It culturally feels very similar and she didn’t go through any cultural shocks. She really likes it UBC and says that it “feels pretty normal”. She felt like a lot of people had cultural shocks or lifestyle shocks but that didn’t apply to her since she was raised in the same environment. She also mentioned that her life at home was different than some of her Asian friends because many of them had stricter parents. She didn’t have strict parents at all and she said that played a role in not feeling the distance and homesick all the time. She also never had the rebellious moment in university because she felt like she had that freedom already, growing up.

She doesn’t talk in class in university, but that’s a different case in high school because in high school, the classes were much smaller and she knew everyone better. It was also much easier to follow along in high school, so participating here requires a lot more effort. With friends, she can say whatever she wants but in a class setting, she is more shy. When she was young, she was told to speak up more but she was never pushed to be more outgoing. Her parents and friends left her alone to do whatever and she feels good about that.

Usually, when she feels strongly about something, she is not afraid to speak her mind, no matter the age. She can tell it to younger, older and people her age group if she strongly agrees or disagrees with an opinion. It’s not that she was raised by her parents to be this way, but it’s that she was raised in an environment where it was okay to do so. She believes in standing up for what you believe in. For example, there was once where she disagreed with a professor because he was stating how “family is who you are born with”, but for Mieke, as she is adopted, she disagrees and wasn’t afraid to say what she felt like at that time.

One of the very situations in which she might feel uncomfortable in speaking up is when she is speaking to someone who has authority over her, like her boss. But other than that, it doesn’t matter who she’s talking to.

Grades definitely matter to Mieke. But, she does feel that social is more important for the life aspect. It is what you have in life that gets you far because academics only give you so much. She thinks that social connections are needed to be happy, and she needs people, like her friends and family, for her to be happy. Academic helps with jobs but you “can still get a job without an education”. It is scary if there is no one there to support you. Also, her parents never pressured her with grades at all. But, her dad did pressure her a lot to learn about Chinese culture. He opened up a camp in the summer for her and other friends to learn about the Chinese culture. He wanted Mieke to take mandarin lessons and he goes to China all the time to teach at a monastery. Even though Mieke herself doesn’t feel at all part of her hometown/or where she was born. She doesn’t identify with that culture, maybe a little because she was born there but it doesn’t mean as much as a Canadian.

It was interesting asking Mieke to think about an object and explain why it relates to her culture. During this time in the interview, I waited for about 20 minutes and asked if she had thought of one yet. She replied to me with a bunch of questions like, “What is Canadian culture?” She was trying to find something that represented multiculturalism, since she has Chinese, Canadian, and Dutch in her. She was definitely struggling and in the end she couldn’t find one because she doesn’t want to stereotype things and place it into cultural categories.

Mieke is Canadian therefore she feels like she really belongs in the community. There have been small instances where she has felt awkward, for example in elementary school when her friend stretched out her eyelids to make it look like the “small eyes” and Mieke was offended by that. But, she definitely feels pride in where she’s from as well. She doesn’t feel a huge sense of nationalism, but pride sometimes when she interacts with another Chinese person and understands some of the things they are talking about. Also, she is happy that she is in a location where sustainability efforts are substantial. She is also proud about the reconciliation events that are happening around campus.

The rugby field is the important place for Mieke, because that place has helped her a lot this year. She allows herself to destress at this place, because she can’t be thinking about assignments anyways so she allows her to get her mind off of work. She also feels more like herself playing sports, Last year, she did not have this opportunity and felt like a big part of her was missing last year. Other people use this space to play American football and rugby. No matter where she is, since she grew up with gymnastics and rugby, in whichever field she would feel normalized because this place is same or similar around the world.

For Mieke’s “student life” drawing, she drew her bedroom with important things to her in it, for example picture frame of her friends, music, and desk. In the middle of the page, she made a diagonal river to metaphorically signify that she is drowning in work and on the other side of the river is just a huge amount of paper that shows how many assignments she has to deal with.

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fromkimsasperspective-blog · 7 years

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Daniel Laronde

Daniel Laronde is a second year Biology student in the Faculty of Science. I also met Daniel at JumpStart but we did not become friends until second year of university when we worked together in the Totem Park Residence Association.

Daniel was born in Livermore, California and was raised there as well. He has never moved before until he moved to Vancouver. He feels like living in Vancouver is surreal because it’s an amazing place. He thinks there is more culture here, such as Lunar New Year. He learned more about that here than at home. He did mention that it is “fairly similar”.

Daniel stated that he took a challenging step in life to come to UBC and that UBC has a lot of resources. He loves it here because he feels close to his professors and TA. He feels like this is a similar experience in high school.

Talking in class is not something that Daniel is particularly comfortable with, especially here in university. In high school he participated a lot more. However, he did mention that his upbringing taught him to “not respond in class, let the nerds answer”. However, he feels a lot more included in UBC because the “nerd” idea was prominent in his high school.

Daniel stated that he thinks in a lot of Asian cultures, you don’t really open up and talk and he personally feels okay to assert his opinion on people. However, he is a little bit apprehensive at first and just wants to double check everything before talking to people. As for elders, he believes that they are wiser and therefore it is harder to assert his opinion. He was “to an extent” raised to assert opinion; he just needs to make sure that it’s facts that he’s talking about. He feels the same about this topic here and in high school. In high school, he had a teacher who was very anti-vaccine and anti-science, and he learned to incorporate her opinions and built off some of his knowledge off of hers instead of completely shunning what she thinks.

Grades matter to Daniel, but it is not to the extent where it would wreck his mental health and social life. In high school, it was much more important because he felt like the teachers were more engaging which encouraged him. Now, he thinks the social aspect is more important because we could use social skills to promote ourselves in a professional way. In high school, he was involved in theatre as well. He said that his high school was very divided between the nerds and the social people, and he “was between all that”. The people that were more towards grades were mainly his Asian friends. He had friends who had parents that would make them go on lock down for a week before exams for their children’s academic success. For Daniel, his parents were pushy and wanted him to study but they were much more relaxed than some of his parent’s friends.

The object that he picked to represent his culture is the Remembrance Day poppy. This is because of his family background - his grandfather fought in WWII. He wants to commemorate the sacrifices that were made for the world today. Growing up, his family slowly opened up to him about his grandfather’s story and he wants to remember his family and making sure he realizes the sacrifices that were made. He learned a lot about the American side of war, but he is annoyed about that because the American side failed to speak about how “messed up the conflicts were”. He saw another side of the Remembrance Day in Canada.

Daniel was a Science One student in first year and he met a lot of people there from an Asian background. He felt out of place in this program for that reason because they were very competitive and intense with their grades. Daniel feels like he still hasn’t gained that intensity. In high school, although people did care about their grades, it was to a lower amount.

Daniel feels proud in school to be raised in a culture more accepting to climate change, especially in Vancouver and UBC. He learned in his ecology class many sustainability and climate change issues and he feels privileged that he had this opportunity.

Daniel’s place on campus is Tower Beach, because he loves the ocean and ocean life. When he was young, his parents brought him to the aquarium quite a bit. He also always watched Discovery Channel and obsess over the new things that people did in the ocean, such as cool sharks. He stated that people definitely do different things on the beach, like playing a sport, swimming, eating, tanning and more. Especially during the summer, when the tide is low, there are even more activities then.

When asked to draw about student life, Daniel drew himself in the middle inviting three friends into his arms. This showed support for the students and demonstrated that he was more into the connections and friendships he’s made at university that outweighs the school factor.

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fromkimsasperspective-blog · 7 years

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Erik Standar

I met Erik in my first year of university during JumpStart. JumpStart is an 2-week orientation program where international students are given a head start to university life. It is a good transition program and it is where I met most of my friends now, including Erik!

Erik is half Japanese and half Swedish. He is a second year student in the Faculty of Arts and he wants to double major in History and Geography. He was born in Tokyo, Japan and was raised in a variety of places. He was in Sweden for 2 months, at 5, he moved to Shanghai, China, and at 10, he moved back to Japan. Now, he is in Vancouver.

Talking to Erik was interesting because he grew up with two different cultures within the household. He also went to an international school where he already experienced many cultures, so moving to Vancouver was not a huge shock for him. He said that living in Vancouver does feel “culturally different”. Just comparing Japan to Canada, he feels that Japan is “homogenous” and here he doesn’t feel like he’s an “outcast”. When he lived in Japan, people have came up to him and wanted to take photos of him because he looks like a foreigner due to his Swedish background. When he is on the train sometimes, the elderly Japanese people would sometimes stare at him because he looks different. However, when he speaks Japanese, people in Japan are more likely to accept him. This is the same case for Sweden as well, because they will look at him as an “Asian” in Sweden.

However, the difference between Sweden and Japan is that Sweden has more immigrants and they have a less negative outlook compared to Japan, Erik stated, although Sweden is more used to a big Arab immigration and shocked about Asian immigration. He has had people swear at him from the back in Sweden.

Being at UBC makes Erik feel very included. He feels connected to all different types of people and cultures. As a History major, he definitely notices the curriculum difference between the Japanese history studies in high school and the history he learns here. In Japan, they only focus on Japanese history, such as “Why is Japan in this trade agreement?” and so on. There is also a censor of negative aspects in Japan history, and in the history books, there are only the successes that occured for Japan. For example, there would be no mention of the Nanking Massacre in 1937. Here at UBC, thay talk about the lows and highs of Japan and he is trying to understand more of this perspective now.

For Erik, talking in class is difficult because he believes he is terrible at forming ideas. In a casual conversation with peers, he is comfortable but when it comes to institutions like universities, it is harder. He has always been the quiet student, just sitting back and listening, even from his past schools and now. However, when he does speak, he believes it adds value to the conversation and he would not just participate simply for the sake of participating. He likes sitting and listening to all the ideas. When asked why he thinks he is like this, he mentioned that it is because of pressure from what he’s learned in Japan. In Japan, it is unlikely to speak up your mind and be very open because there’s pressure to just be closed off from people. He doesn’t like speaking in public. He thinks speaking to a Japanese is difficult because the Japanese language is one that is hard to express yourself in. He says it is built up on formality and it is hard to express how you feel in a personal way. Therefore, when he tries to express himself, he doesn’t have the vocabulary to do so.

Because schools in Japan taught Erik to not be very open with his feelings, he noticed that whenever he is with his friend group in Japan, it is harder to discuss feelings. It is mainly just fun banters and weird jokes; it would be awkward if they sit down and express how they feel. He also stated that he feels more distant from the professors here at UBC compared to the teachers in high school. This is because he has spent less time with them and the class sizes are much bigger. He was in the same high school for 8 years and he has built special bonds with some of the teachers. He doesn’t really want to exert his opinions on younger people because he believes that they should form their own ideas.

Erik doesn’t think that grades are important at all. He thinks it’s not about the grades but it is about what you learn in class that can help you in the future. He thinks it’s important to improve but people should learn from the small things, not the grades. Social aspect is much more important because it builds who you are. He thinks there are things you can learn from being more social than academic, such as communicating with people. “Academic success is one thing, communication happens everyday”. He thinks communication is so important because he connected it back to his Swedish culture and states that they are “very open and straightforward”. People are more willing to talk to him in Sweden than in Japan. In Japan, they have more emphasis on conforming to the norm, but Erik connects with his Swedish blood when it comes to communicating to people.

Erik’s object is a Dalahast, a small wooden horse that represents his Swedish identity. He says this feels like home for him and he brought it to university so he could be reminded of home.

Erik has felt out of place in history class especially when they speak about Japanese history. Although he is still very proud about where he’s from, there are moments where people have talked negatively about Japan in class and he was quite unsure about how to feel. It made it difficult for him to speak afterwards. Erik feels very proud that he is half Japanese/half Swedish because he believes this is rare. He likes the fact that it is “totally new and weird and different”, in both high school and university.

A location that is important for him is his first year residence dorm. He reminisced about all the friends he met there and the memories that he still holds close. He still keeps in touch with the friends he’s made there, and still thinks about eating dinner with all his friends in the dining room in first year. He mentioned the conversations that they all had together and how it was super easy to talk about anything, ranging from politics to culture, and more. He chose this place because “it is home” and he appreciated all the culture there.

When asked to draw a picture of “student life”, he drew a picture of two people talking and in the speech bubbles, there were icons of: book, globe, heart, music, food, and camera.

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fromkimsasperspective-blog · 7 years

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Questions

These are the interview questions I asked my friends.

Where were you born? Where were you raised?

How does it feel to live in Vancouver? Is there a difference?

How does it feel to be at UBC?

How do you feel about talking in class?

How is it different from where you went to school before/your other school experiences?

Tell a story about this experience.

How do you feel about asserting your opinion on someone your age? Someone older than you? Someone younger than you?

How is it different from where you are from compared to here?

Do grades matter to you? What is more important in your life? Social aspect or academic success?

Pick an object that represents your culture. Explain why.

Have you ever had an experience in school where you felt awkward/out of place because of your culture?

Have you ever had an experience in school where you felt superior/particularly proud because of your culture?

Think of a location that has meaning to you on campus.

How do you feel in it?

What do you usually do there?

Do other people use this space differently?

Why did you choose this place?

Draw a picture of what you think of when you think of “student life”.

Although from first glance, these questions may not all relate to student life, however I purposefully included questions such as “pick an object that represents your culture” because depending on the person, their object could have everything to do with being a student. I also chose some questions to just get my friends to talk about their culture before relating anything to student life at first, such as, asserting opinion on the different ages. I felt like this question would give my friends the opportunity to speak about how they were raised in their family, and then later on connecting it with their classmates and professors to see if that still relates.

I also answered these questions, because in the beginning of the project, I was also thinking about how my cultural upbringing is really different from my friends. I want to answer these questions as well and this would be a good way to look at those differences.

I was born in Odense, Denmark. I lived there for five years and moved to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Living in Vancouver is very different from living in Vietnam. I feel much more “free” here than at home. This has partly to do with living on my own, but mainly the fact that I do not feel afraid to go anywhere I want by myself. I grew up in the city, and it was big, noisy, dirty, and there were barely any sidewalks. If you’ve heard anything about Vietnam, you’ve probably head that you can’t cross the road without being deathly afraid. I was used to jay walking, seeing litter on the floor, and people not respecting traffic laws. I remember the first time I crossed a big road here; it was liberating. The crossroad was EMPTY, no motorcycles zooming by or cars coming up super close to you. It felt so free to just walk without being afraid of getting hit, even though the green light is on for pedestrians. Also, I feel like people are much more friendly here. Even though I grew up in Vietnam, I went to an international school all my life therefore my Vietnamese is moderately fluent. The local Vietnamese people would judge me for this when they hear my accent, therefore I rarely engage in conversations in Vietnam. In Vancouver, I am able to speak to anyone and ask questions to people on the streets without feeling judged because of how multicultural it is.

UBC gives me a sense of belonging. I was afraid of it before, because I moved from a school with only 200+ high school students. It was overwhelming, but I found my place at UBC and now I can’t imagine being anywhere else. I felt like I learned so much already. This does not only include things that I learned in school, but it includes the different perspectives I have gained as well. People here are much more open to women’s rights, the LGBTQ+ community, and more. I felt very thankful that I was in a very inclusive environment, it was something that I didn’t get in Vietnam. I remember talking in class people were also mentioning this and I totally agree. Some of my classmates also mentioned how people were much more open here to discuss things in class, whereas in their culture, it was mainly the teacher lecturing at them for the whole class time. I personally didn’t get this experience, because my teachers in the international school were very encouraging of participation, but I know a lot of schools in Vietnam had the same situation as my classmates.

Talking to class is something I had to grow into. When I was younger, my lowest marks would always be my participation marks. I barely talked in class and this got my mom really mad because I achieved so much but my participation brought my whole report card down. I started becoming much more social in middle school, because I became close friends with energetic and extraverted people. From then, I became much more involved in school and class discussions as well. Now that I am in university however, it’s much harder for me because I feel very “small” compared to everyone. Most of my classmates seem like they know so much more, and I am worried about speaking up sometimes. Because of my IB credits, I am currently third year standing therefore I registered in a few upper year courses and in those courses, I barely speak. I also barely speak in a class of around 200+ students because I am nervous about public speaking. A story of an experience where I did speak up in a 200+ classroom was when I wanted to clarify with my Econ professor about something that was going to be on the exam. I had to figure it out because it’s important to know for my grades, therefore I raised my hand and asked for clarification. My friends knew how shy I was so when I did that, I actually received some “Wow Kim-Sa, good job!” comments for speaking up in class.

Asserting my opinion on someone my age, especially if it is my friend, is pretty easy for me. I like to tell people how I feel, however if the person is a stranger and I barely know them, then it’s harder to speak up my opinion just in case I strain a relationship that has just started. Asserting my opinion on someone older than me is really hard for me, and I tend to just not do it, even if I disagree. I was taught to respect whatever the elders have to say. Asserting my opinion on someone younger than me is the easiest. I am not afraid to tell them how I feel but I also want to make sure they can form opinions on their own, so if I do, I wouldn’t try to too much.

All these still apply to me from when I am in Vietnam until now (age wise), but I would say it is much easier for me to assert my opinion here. I feel like people are much less judgemental here, and I find myself speaking out more. Like in Vietnam, I would never see the gay pride flag hanging anywhere, but here I see it constantly and that makes it much easier for me to talk about the subject if it comes up.

Grades definitely matter to me. I would say growing up, I switched between having grades or social aspects being more important, and I think this really depended on who I was hanging out with. I find myself being motivated by the people around me, therefore when I was with the energetic group of friends in middle school, I barely cared about my grades. However, moving in high school and seeing how students there were much more motivated to receive the grades to get into a good university, I started becoming much more competitive in my grades. I was so competitive and grade-oriented that I would cry if I were to receive a grade less than A-. It was a very intense time for me and I put way too much pressure on myself. It was As or nothing. When I was in middle school, my mom would really enforce grades on me, since I didn’t care at all. But, in high school, when she saw the stress I was going through and the stress that I put on myself, she told me to relax and there are times where she wants me to go out with friends instead of study. In university, I think I have found my balance. Grades are definitely important but there is so much more here at UBC and Vancouver that I could engage in, instead of just hanging out with friends. Therefore, I feel productive in whatever I do. Social aspects also include volunteer work, having jobs, and more. I think I do put my motivation in both school and social aspects now because I have many more opportunities here to do so.

An object that represents my culture would be the traditional Vietnamese dress - ao dai. I got a lot more attached to this dress coming to UBC, because I felt very “at home” wearing it. I’ve only had the opportunity to wear it once and when I did, it felt amazing. I never felt that way wearing it in Vietnam, but being so far away made me appreciate its’ beauty. I was able to wear it once here, when I had a Lunar New Year dinner with President Santa J. Ono and it made me feel.

Yes I have had an experience where I felt out of place in school because my intelligence is not up to par with some of the students. Because I am asian, the students around me in high school expected me to be an A+ student constantly, and there are quite a few people who were like that. I felt very awkward when people asked me about my grades back in high school, because I knew it was about competition and if it wasn’t an A+, then you would be seen as inferior. I did not like this environment at all because it gave me extreme pressure.

I have had an experience where I felt particularly proud of my Danish culture in high school as well. In my theory of knowledge class, we were talking about words that could not be directly translated from one to another, and I said a word in Danish - hyggelige. This word means “homeliness” or “feeling at home”. I just thought this made me feel unique and since I was the only Danish in my high school, I felt very connected to this culture and I rarely connect with it.

A location that has meaning to me is Totem Park Residence. I am currently a Residence Advisor (RA) here and I have been enjoying it so much. I think if I look back to my undergraduate degree after completing it, I will never forget the time I was an RA. A good word to describe my experience as an RA in Totem Park is wholesome. I think I get the best of both worlds here - academic success and social life. There are people that live here who motivate me to do well and study with me, and my friends all live super close to me so it’s easy to hang out at home.

At Totem, I usually study with my friends in the study spaces or hang out with them. We usually stay up really late at night and hang out as well and it feels very comfortable because we all live together.

Other people use the space to play pool, to eat, and more. It is a big living space for 2000 students.

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fromkimsasperspective-blog · 7 years

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The Crisis of Representation in Anthropology

Ethnography is a specific type of writing. It is different from theoretical and makes sense of the field notes that ethnographers have. It also includes theory and qualitative data.

As I was saying, I am doing interviews for this project, and we talked a lot about how ethnographer’s take field notes and the differences/limitations, and so on in class. I wanted to write this post to explain the ways I did it and compare it with some of the different ways that I have learned about it in class.

Firstly, field notes are data that anthropologists analyze. My field notes are the interviews that I did with my friends. I took notes of some of their actions and recorded what they were saying with my laptop. I also took jot down quick notes of their responses to my answers. Referencing Geertz, field notes are “explicating explications”, which means that it is explaining what has been explained. When I write my ethnography later on in this blog, I will be explaining what my friends were explaining to me. It is not transparent and straight foward descriptions since I, as the ethnographer in this case, have to make sense of what I saw, heard and experienced. It is not something that you, the reader, experienced with me and what I have is purely mine. Keep in mind that field notes are inherently partial.

The point of this post is to say that your perspective and analysis may be different from mine. There is no way that we will have the same ideas and interpretations from the data. I am simply presenting what I experienced.

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fromkimsasperspective-blog · 7 years

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Introduction

Hello everyone!

I just want to start out by saying that the subject of Anthropology has only been present in my life for the last one and a half years. As I am a second year undergraduate student, this means that I’ve only found out about this term “anthropology” in the second half of my first year. How did I hear about this? I needed an elective and I was sitting in Irving late one night, just trying to figure out my time table and came across ANTH100. It’s called Introduction to Anthropology and literally in my head thought, “why not?”

And it is now one of my majors.

It is crazy how things have changed and it’s even crazier to think that it has changed so drastically from just one click of a button: “Register Section” on the Student Service Centre at UBC.

I grew up in an international environment. I was born in a small town named Odense in Denmark and moved to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam when I turned 5. Ever since I moved, I’ve been switching international schools and all my life, I’ve been called an international student. Coming to UBC, that hasn’t changed for me at all. In fact, it reinforces how “international” I am because of everything I’m learning at this new place.

I am writing this blog for my anthropology class and of course, it has to do with culture. My anthropology class includes much more than that, it’s called “Contemporary Anthropological Theories” and we discuss topics such as Structure and Agency, Nature, and more. I want to talk about culture because that’s what has hooked me in from the beginning. From the first topic in my ANTH100 class (witchcraft in Tanzania) until now, it has always been the topics of culture and different cultural backgrounds that hooked me.

There are so many different ways scholars, anthropologists, researchers, and people in general look at culture. When anthropology first began, there were three dominant theories of culture: the British structural functionalism, the American psycho-social-cultural perspective, and the American evolutionary one. I thought a lot about British structural functionalism. The British point of view states that society is an integrated whole has parts that serves different functions. For example, some of these parts include the state, family, relationships and more. In this structure, the father is the one who provides the family. This perspective comes across as sexist now as there is no randomness, and “it is what it is”. It really is different how much our world today views that concept so differently. If we were to study with this perspective, anthropology would not be taken as seriously, in fact, it might even receive all the hatred for being so close-minded.

Another theory I came across from class is cultural materialism (Harris). This theory looks at culture as something you can see from a distance, that you can dissect and learn. Geertz is against this perspective. Geertz believes that there are so many kinds of definition for culture and that culture means different things for different people. Culture allows for multiple interpretations and extends beyond events. Some of the defining characteristics mentioned are: “total way of life of people”, “social legacy of individual acquired from group”, “way of thinking, feeling, believing”, and “abstraction from behavior” (Geertz).

It is this whole idea that culture is a difference between a wink and a blink. Where you are from, your culture and background determines the difference between the two for you (Geertz). Geertz hopes that the ethnographer’s understanding of the signs will allow more dialogue between cultures.

In my blog, you will see interviews that I have done with my friends from all different backgrounds. I want to see how their culture(s) have affected their life in Vancouver, and in particularly, their life at UBC. My argument is that people’s perception of their culture affects their experiences as students. I interviewed four of my friends, and they are around the same age as me, but it was amazing to see the variety of answers.

What inspired me to do interviews about my friend’s cultures is that I was assigned a project similar to this in a history class. That assignment had to do with nationalism and we were to interview another classmate under four themes: language, cultural, history and myth. I realized how much I did not know about her and how so many of her actions and decisions are due to her upbringing and culture. For example, she told me that whenever she thinks about more scientific subjects, such as chemistry or mathematics, she would think in English, but whenever she thinks about her emotions or feelings, she would switch to Chinese. I would have never thought to ask my friends questions as such in a day to day conversation, but after this project I felt much more connected with my friends as well.

I actually came into this project picking people that I knew would give me different answers, however many of them surprised me. I learned so much more about my friends and I am thankful for that. I learned about their family history, their educational background, their elementary/middle/high school life, everything I haven’t really thought to ask about before we became friends at university.

I wanted to use the data I found from my friends to compare the answers to each other, but I realize how meaningless that task is because there is really no way to compare people’s culture. Even if there are stereotypes, it is not the right lens to look through it because stereotypes do not mean that it is true. We can’t possibly assume what’s true, until we clarify it with someone from that culture. But, even then, it may not be true because people in the same community have so many different perspectives as well.

I remember sitting in class one time, and Shaylih brought up the question, “Where are you from?” The amount of people who struggled to answer that question was huge. I also struggle with that question. My other blog post will describe my perception of my culture(s) on my experiences as a student here in Vancouver and UBC.

To reiterate, this is a project to find out what each culture means to each individual. I don’t want to clump answers together, but let my friends talk for themselves about their experience of their life in Vancouver and UBC, with their own way of viewing their culture and upbringing.

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