Singapore: Gender and Race Paradigms in Oral Narratives
If there is a phrase to describe the impact of education abroad, it is that first-hand experience can be more valuable than first-class, second-hand knowledge. International experience gave me a unique opportunity to study and research in a foreign country that I previously knew very little about. Like many of my peers, I held a stereotypical image of my host country prior to arrival. I learned that Singapore really isn’t all that clean, isn’t that strict, and yes, I could chew gum! Spontaneous dialogues with locals and lengthy conversations with others expanded my sense of “place” in the world. I felt small in the flood of new knowledge and new experiences. For example, in my Southeast Asian courses, I would get the wrong answer to almost every question posed by professors. This can be upsetting to an eager student who always provided the right answers. Soon I realized that all my great American education was inherently limited and local. Having grown up and been educated in the U.S., I learned the benefits as well as the intellectual constraints of one cultural perspective. Barbs of “how come you don’t know that?” or “only Americans think that way” were often directed at me and my exchange peers. The learning process was both painfully humbling and enlightening. Knowledge is always circumspect, and the coherent ideas that I was inculcated with growing up were shattered and fragmented in my journey abroad. “Objective” facts and their interpretations differ throughout the world and I had to make sense of it all. I conducted a research project on the oral history narratives of exchange students because I wanted to explore how others perceived their experiences as well. There was a developed understanding that learning is multi-dimensional and always contingent on one’s background and experiences. I’ve come to appreciate the fact that learning is a never-ending complicated process that is continually transformed with each new discovery and adventure. My international experience was the first true step in my life of learning. —Long Thanh Bui, UC Irvine
|
|
|
