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

