Wednesday, January 7, 2015 // The Statement
6B
Students abroad grapple with cultural consciousness
by Michael Sugerman, Daily News Editor
W
ith the plethora of opportuni-
ties for students to study abroad
at the University of Michigan,
it is nearly impossible to avoid destinations
where the history is fraught with past vio-
lence or political tumult. In fact, it seems
study in some of these places is encouraged
so students can understand there is more to
them than can be written in the pages of a
history book.
Such is the opinion of Thuy’Anh Nguyen,
a lecturer of Vietnamese language in the
Department of Asian Languages and Cul-
ture. For years, Nguyen, who was born and
raised in Vietnam, led a summer trip there
through the University’s Global Intercultur-
al Experience for Undergraduates program.
The last trip she led was in 2013.
“It’s the experience for the students, not
just to be in Vietnam as a tourist, but to have
an actual living experience, working experi-
ence in Vietnam,” Nguyen said.
The trip is about more than building
knowledge, but also a “friendship” with both
the people and the country, she added. The
GIEU trips to Vietnam, she said, integrated
Vietnamese students with University stu-
dents, and this exposure to even the most
basic cultural differences was important.
“When they share experience with stu-
dents, it can be something like … TV shows
that they watch,” Nguyen said, laughing that
the students bonded over their love for the
CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.”
“Even experiences like (when) they share
the rooms together. Vietnamese students
may have different experiences using air
conditioner. Because here it’s very cold and
in Vietnam it’s very hot.”
Nguyen said a huge difference is the use
of the bathroom. In Vietnam, something as
simple as toilet paper is seen as “fancy” —
sometimes, locals use crumpled-up news-
paper. She added that people flush very
infrequently, which came as a surprise to
American students who thought it was “less
hygienic.”
However, Nguyen said, bridging cultural
divides was often not the biggest hurdle;
rather, it was exposing the American stu-
dents to the remnants of Vietnam War vio-
lence that was the hardest.
This manifested itself in a trip to the vil-
lage of My Lai, where in March 1968 Ameri-
can soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War
killed the majority of Vietnamese locals — as
many as 500 people — including children,
women and the elderly.
“We went there, and we had first-hand
experience seeing what happened and how
Vietnamese people see it,” Nguyen said.
“And then the U of M students would say, ‘Oh
we feel very bad. We think that our Vietnam-
ese students would hate us because of what
Americans have done.’ ”
However, Nguyen said, there was not
hatred, but constructive discussion and sub-
sequent community service work to learn
more about Vietnamese experiences and
help ameliorate them. These efforts ranged
from planting trees to building houses to
simply exploring old war sites and gaining a
better understanding of the history.
LSA junior Caroline Hickey was on the
2013 trip to Vietnam and agreed that locals’
reception of Americans was far from hateful.
Though she sometimes felt she “stuck out”
because she is tall, blonde and white, she felt
that the students were received with open
arms.
“As far as the way people treated us, espe-
cially in small villages … people who were
living there … who remembered the war very
well were so kind to us, and invited us into
their homes, and spoke with us and told us
about their experiences,” she said.
The personal anecdotes were one piece
in changing Hickey’s perspective. Another
was the opportunity to walk through a field
where there were still active landmines from
the Vietnam War. She said the location was
one where safe paths had been carved out by
local researchers, but the prospect of having
active landmines just inches away from her
feet was enough to keep her on the sidelines
instead of walking around.
“It’s very clear that we’re still part of their
country and still harming people in such
grave ways,” Hickey said.
For Hickey, this was the greatest takeaway
— learning the nation’s history from the per-
spective of locals instead of U.S. history text-
books. Upon returning home, she said she
felt that the U.S. education system “glosses
over” the Vietnam War, and leaves little to
no time for their side of the story.
The importance of learning new perspec-
tives, it seems, is what drives many of the
University’s study abroad programs, espe-
cially in regions known for political unrest.
This lesson is true of Taglit-Birthright,
which offers a free, 10-day trip to Israel for
“young Jewish people” ages 18 to 26 in an
effort to “strengthen Jewish identity, Jew-
ish communities and solidarity with Israel,”
according to the program’s website. The Uni-
versity of Michigan Hillel organizes spon-
sored Birthright trips each year.
Gita Karasov, Hillel’s Director of Engage-
ment, staffed this winter’s trip, and said this
summer’s heightened conflict between Israel
and neighboring Arab populations in the
Gaza Strip — which resulted in thousands of
deaths in Palestine and hundreds of deaths
in Israel — yielded not fear from students but
an eagerness to gain a deeper understanding
of the conflict.
“The group of students were well aware of
the political climate in Israel this past sum-
mer,” she wrote in an e-mail interview, later
adding that, “While on the trip, students had
a heightened awareness to our surroundings
and our proximity to places such as Gaza, the
West Bank, and Syria, which led to thought-
ful discussions and questions throughout the
trip.”
LSA sophomore Anna Marie Mondrusov
went on this winter’s Birthright trip to Israel
through Hillel, and said it was an opportu-
nity for her to learn more about Israel first-
hand, as opposed to what she had learned
and followed growing up.
“You get to see the people, meet the peo-
ple, talk to them,” she said. “So you get to
learn personal stories, not just what you
heard on the news.”
Mondrusov said the summer’s violence
is not a huge concern for those traveling in
Israel — she never felt unsafe — but certain
infrastructure in Israel serves as a constant
reminder of potential attacks.
“The bus stops are all made of concrete;
there are bomb shelters everywhere,” she
said. “You can see that the city has had to
change their lives to adapt to what’s happen-
ing to them.”
One striking reminder, she said, was that
most if not all Israelis join the army after
graduating from high school. She said their
involvement in the Israeli Defense Force
made these people more aware of their coun-
try’s politics and history than students in
the United States, and at times more mature
than their American counterparts.
“All of the Israelis my age there are work-
ing in the army. Some of them are working on
the border, near Gaza,” she said. “So you get
to hear actual stories of what happens on a
day-to-day basis. We had the opportunity to
stand on the hill bordering Gaza and Israel …
where that summer, reporters were standing
and they could see the rockets flying.”
She found, however, that the Birthright
participants and younger army members had
a great deal in common. One anecdote that
sticks out to her was their shared love of tak-
ing selfies.
Ilan Ofir, a former Israel Fellow through
Hillel who helped lead Birthright trips, just
finished leading a two-week program in Isra-
el with MBA students from the University of
California, San Diego. He said travel within
the country, despite the summer’s conflict, is
very safe.
“Most (of the students) have never heard
of Israel before this (summer’s) events and
yet chose to go to expose themselves to its
strong startup culture,” Ofir said in an e-mail
interview.
Read the rest of this story online at
www.michigandaily.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF ARI KIRSCHNER