Learning to learn: A cultural evolution
My hand shoots into the air, along with the majority of the rest of the ASU students studying abroad with me. The professor ignores our eagerness to respond while he looks around for a less familiar hand to sprout up from the garden of thinkers. All of the Hong Kong City University students are more than capable of answering his question, but unlike the ASU individuals, these students are quiet group thinkers.
They collaborate among themselves to come up with a collective response, while the group from the states has a similar discussion out loud. We are more than willing to question another person’s response or admit that we disagree. In our opinion, this is not rude; this is how we operate in a classroom. But here in Hong Kong as we sit among a wide variety of diverse ethnicities, this variation in approach is one of the most obvious cultural differences in the classroom.
As we collectively work on our group projects, I find myself luring answers out of my teammates like a magician pulls an endless scarf out of his sleeve. The opinions, values, ideals, concepts and even vocabulary are all so vastly unique and intriguing, but why won’t they volunteer their responses aloud to the whole class during lecture?
My mind is littered with questions and discussions for my Hong Kong peers. Each time we talk, I am more enlightened and feel like I have a better understanding of not just their culture but also my own. Suddenly, my glasses have different lenses in them and now the world I have been viewing all of my life looks so much different than I remember it. The subtle and not so subtle differences I see can be applied outside of the classroom, as I consider the differences in the strategies, economies and the specific professional fields of the United States and Hong Kong.
While the trip so far has been very eye opening and educational, I feel like the interaction between cultures offers me more of an opportunity to grow than I could have ever imagined.
I knew that I was coming on this trip to work on sustainability and policy. As a sustainability major and business minor, I have a unique view on the triple bottom line that is driven mainly by my passion for the environment and my understanding of the needs of an economy. In less than a week, my interdisciplinary education has expanded to view each of the three sustainable pillars—economy, environment and society—in a more well-rounded way.
Sustainable solutions that are practical in one region or one government may not be universally applied. As I struggle to modify the solutions I am used to studying to accommodate a complex city which is “one country, two systems,” I find myself in an “ah-ha” moment that could never be achieved in a traditional classroom. Here, I must find a unique solution that ensures the sustainable growth potential the government and citizens need, while ensuring that their values, ideals and sensitive systems are left intact.