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What the US and China Share: Core Virtues

What the US and China Share: Core Virtues

May 24, 2019

I love Chinese culture. And I love US culture. I love and value both equally. I wouldn’t trade what I have learned from both cultures for the world. In the midst of this cold war narrative between two of the most powerful nations on Earth, I feel I need to share my story of cross-cultural identity and what I’ve learned over time.

I am a walking example of a cross-cultural bridge between the US and China. My grandparents on my mother’s side came from Beijing and Shanghai, and my grandparents on my father’s side came from Buffalo, New York. I was raised in New York, went through the American education system, and experienced your typical American suburban childhood -- barbequing out on the back deck on July 4th, riding bikes through the neighborhood, and jumping into big mountains of raked up autumn leaves. I played competitive team sports like soccer and basketball all throughout my academic career and at the same, mastered the art of chopsticks. By the age of eight, I was learning Mandarin with a Chinese teacher who came to our house every Sunday to teach us the language and calligraphy, and I was exposed to the wide array of Chinese food through family meals, dim sum and banquet feasts.

When I went to college, I decided to dedicate my studies to Mandarin and Chinese culture. My school offered a junior year study abroad program in Beijing which was one of the main reasons I chose it. That year changed my life. I threw myself into the heart of China, adapted and integrated into the society to the best of my ability, forced myself to learn the language, succeeded and failed at whatever adventures I found myself in, and built lifelong relationships with Chinese locals and friends who shared the journey with me. What I learned about Chinese language and culture combined with what I learned from my peers and the environment made me aware of how I wanted to continue my quest to understand my identity. When I returned to the US for my senior year, I knew what I wanted to focus my studies on: Confucianism, the Confucian classics, and what it meant to be Chinese.

For all of you who are unfamiliar with Confucianism, two of the key cornerstones in understanding it lie in the characters 礼“li” (pronounced “lee”) and 仁“ren” (pronounced “run”). “Li” means a custom or an act/action. “Ren” means benevolence or compassion. In the context of Confucianism, when a person acts or takes action ( 礼”li”), there has to be an intention behind that action. 仁“ren” or compassion is that intention. In Confucianism and Chinese culture, to act with compassion is at the core of society. There are other Confucian virtues that are also important in social dynamics such as sincerity, trust, loyalty, respect, filial piety, and love, to name a few. These are all fundamental to being Chinese and how one is to engage with others. Confucianism is obviously more complex than this as it also talks about societal roles and how one is supposed to act within those relationships, but this is not what I want to focus on. My point is, these core Chinese virtues from Confucianism helped me understand my own value system and how I wanted to act and engage with others. And what I did not realize was that these Confucian virtues were also deeply embedded in US culture as well.

I’m not talking about social etiquette or behavior, because we all know that things are done differently in the US and China. I’m talking about something more basic. Beneath our respective behavioral customs lies a value system that guides how we treat each other when we engage as human beings. And in the US, great importance is attached to genuinely connecting with someone with empathy, compassion, and respect. As I continued to put the Confucian virtues into my practice engaging with peers, whether from the US, China, or anywhere around the world, I found mutual understanding in our shared humanity. Intention from the heart translated across cultures. Concepts of loyalty, trust, and family (filial piety) pervaded multiple areas of society, from professional work settings to a basketball team’s success. Even when I was a complete outsider in some places of the US, if I stayed the course of my virtues, I was able to connect to others, sharing similar values despite our different stories. The Chinese and US value systems, written in different languages, share the same core intentions.

Looking back on my time in the US before I even went to China or started studying Confucianism, I began to see where these virtues revealed themselves. The friendships I developed over the years were rooted in these virtues -- having your friend’s back or lending a shoulder in comfort and understanding. My memories of partnership and romance were rooted in these virtues where loyalty and trust in one’s vulnerability laid the groundwork for love. And most importantly, family valued these virtues, where my responsibility of being a respectful, good son and brother kept our relationships intact and harmonious. But even elsewhere -- championship sports teams, highly-regarded professors, teachers, and schools, local organizations and communities --, all held true to these virtues. We all believe the same things are important, regardless of culture.

After graduating from college, I lived in China and Taiwan for five-and-a-half-years, traveling, teaching, working, studying Mandarin, and deepening my understanding of my heritage. After my time in Asia, I returned home to New York City where I wanted to consciously reconnect with my US roots. And after a good four-year stint in the US, I am now back in East Asia (Taiwan), wiser and more aware my identity.

With tensions rising between the US and China, it breaks my heart to see such judgment placed on cultures that are widely misunderstood. There is such beauty and value in both. Instead of letting the contentious US-China rhetoric taint what I’ve come to learn about both cultures, I continue to strive to live the way I believe is most important. Building a mutual understanding between these two cultures is essential for the world’s future, and if we would just look at the core virtues and values of these two great nations, I think we’d find we have more things in common than not. In the end, we are all human, and we all call this planet home, so why not share the core virtues of our humanity?

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Culture Shock in a Cup

Culture Shock in a Cup

May 16, 2019

Back in the day when I worked for a study abroad program in China, a dear friend of mine shared a metaphor with me that I feel represents cultural adjustment and culture shock well. He displayed a cup that was filled with water and described how throughout our lives we fill this cup up with our own culture -- our own values, beliefs, and ways of doing things. However, when we travel and integrate into new cultures, we often don’t have enough room in our cups. The key is to recognize this and work on the ability to completely empty our cups when entering a new culture. Let that new culture fill us up so we can learn and absorb. Then, when we travel and enter another new culture, empty once again. Repeat and grow.

The question is, how do we become willing to empty our respective cups and let them be filled up again? The word “let” is key here. Letting a new culture in and being willing to learn unconditionally is not easy. I’m not saying that after each new cultural experience our identities have been completely transformed. I am saying that it all comes down to our attitude towards cultural acceptance, being cool with learning from the unknown, and trusting the process. Sure, it is almost impossible to completely disregard all the filters we’ve built up over the years in our respective pasts, but if we are unwilling to try, how can we expect others to accept us in return?

In today’s world, cultures are blending whether we like it or not. To return to the metaphor of the cup, when we arrive in a new culture, if our cups are completely filled, we keep what’s already in the cup and continue to fill it up to overflowing.

Welcome to culture shock. Now when I talk about culture shock, I’m referring to a certain amount of time spent in a new country/culture, say at least a semester abroad to a couple of years. We’ve seen the charts of how culture shock arcs throughout a student’s time abroad (image below), and I’m sure a lot of us have gone through it ourselves (I sure have). Even though at first culture shock can be seen as a struggle, I don’t think it is a bad thing. Sometimes we need a little punch in the gut in order to see things clearly. When our cup is overflowing with our old and new cultures, it forces us to not only feel and live questions about both cultures, but also eventually makes us prioritize which values, beliefs, and ideas, matter most to us. It forces us to take a deep breath and shift our attitude towards the whole experience -- and accept that THIS transformation is happening, whether we like it or not. Some people can’t handle it and some people thrive on it. For myself, culture shock was not that difficult as I was very excited to experience a new culture. However, where I truly struggled with it was upon my return home -- a good old punch of reverse culture shock in the gut.

(HTTPS://WWW.RESEARCHGATE.NET/FIGURE/THE-COURSE-OF-LEAVING-AND-RETURN-CULTURE-SHOCK-W-MODEL-SOURCE-GULLAHORN-GULLAHORN_FIG3_328383617)

Reverse culture shock can be even more difficult than initial culture shock. Sometimes when we spend a significant amount of time in a new culture, we forget how to adjust back to what we knew before, although we can never completely forget our old normality. But what we can do is view it through new filters and see what we like and don’t like. Reverse culture shock forces us to home in on what values we choose to keep across the spectrum of cultures we have experienced. Only after we have experienced a variety of cultures can we start to figure out what combinations of values and morals go well together and what do not. But, before we get to this point, we have to be willing to go through the process.

Cultures experienced, whether direct or in reverse, eventually change us. They shine light on our characters and force us to decide on who we want to become. To be able to empty our cups and let a new culture in does not happen overnight. Nor is it ever that clear cut. However, we need to make a conscious shift in attitude in order to embrace the experience. Once we begin to put this shift into practice and become more comfortable with the idea of multiple cultures defining who we are, then there is true wisdom to be had. In the end, we all hold our own cups and decide on how we choose to engage with this world.

So, fill me up another one and let’s toast to enjoying the experience (to having fun with this!)

干杯!

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Cross-Cultural Education: The Bridges in Our Stories

“Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbor is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions.” – Paulo Coelho

The term “cross-cultural education” is quite the umbrella, wouldn’t you say? Applicable, flexible, and vague at most. What does cross-cultural education even mean, for that matter? Or a better question -- why is it so damn important in this day and age?

We divide each other, point fingers and judge, question other beliefs and people’s character, and yet, on the other side of the coin, we celebrate and document travel on Instagram. We listen to the stories of local indigenous people, and we fantasize about slurping chili-splashed noodles while sitting on plastic stools in the streets with Anthony Bourdain. It’s an interesting time to discuss cross-cultural education and to maybe look at it in simpler terms. In light of all this, I’d like to share with you where I feel the roots of cross-cultural education reside and why this trajectory point is essential to building bridges between cultures. And hopefully, will make us more aware of who we are…together.

Once again, terminology is a very tricky thing to navigate. And I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with friends about what the word “culture” means. We all have our definitions, which in the end, we should respect. One comes from where he or she comes from and I’ll simply leave it at that. But how we start to analyze and almost discover the diverse pieces that form our respected cultural identities, in my opinion, I find quite fascinating. And frankly, very important for our future and understanding.

The stories of how our identities are formed may be able to give us some answers. We often forget what kind of influences in our lives create our value systems, impact how we interpret the world, and make us who we are. Whether we are from a small town in the Midwest of the US or the bumping streets of Beijing’s Chaoyang district, we still have our traditions, our family values, our way of life. All of us have this, no matter where we come from. And I think more times than not, we forget about this very basic understanding and choose to not respect it of others. Whether we choose to venture out of our initial environments is up to us, but we cannot deny the fact that every other human being has also come from a background that has shaped his or her story.

Yes, the media, the geo-political environment, language, education, economics, even the natural geography of where we are located plays a role in the formation of our identities, but again, I’m not focusing on that today. The point I’m trying to make is that the stories we are individually living are actually more similar than different. We all share the journey of trying to make sense of a) what we are taught which we think is right, specifically core beliefs, values and ideas in one’s family, community, etc., and b) all the influences outside of that foundational world, which more times than not, challenge or differ from what we have previously known to be right. And there really is no hiding from that truth either. It simply comes down to choice. Do we choose to say no; my way is the right way of life and everyone else is wrong? Or do we choose to say yes; my old ways are wrong, and all of these new ideas are right. Everyone is entitled to their choice. But is there a third option?

In my opinion, I believe there is. I don’t think it simply comes down to what is the right or wrong way to live, but more of an acceptance and validation of different ways to live. In another words, an acceptance and validation of all of life’s stories. We often forget that there are so many ways to live in this world and more often than not, we get caught up in our spatial vacuum, not recognizing the other. When in fact, there lies a beautiful opportunity for connection and understanding. Looking at the essential elements of what makes up who we are, our identity, our culture, are all shared throughout the world. From the simplest cases of parenting styles to classic dishes traditional to a region or passed down from generation to generation -- all these fascinating things we are proud of being and that have and continue to define us, lie within each of us. Ideas of love, family, purpose, friendship, health…the list goes on. We are all trying to write our respective stories and simply make sense of it.

Now I’m not saying any of this is easy nor so simple, but my point I’m trying to make is when it comes to cross-cultural education, it’s not just a one-way street. I have my story of comprehending my cultural identity and you have yours. We have our defining moments of struggle, success, happiness, etc. What I am saying is in the name of cross-cultural education, let’s share these moments that have formed our stories and use them as keys to bridge our humanity back together. From the basic to the complex, our stories across cultures connect our lives in ways that we still need to understand. What we share is the responsibility for writing this world’s next chapter.

So next time you meet someone from another culture, another country, or maybe even someone you have known your entire life living next door, take a moment to engage in their story; learn, share, and embrace the difference. For what makes us all different, in the end, makes us all the same. For me, this is the essence of cross-cultural education, and in order to unite this world in understanding, we need to first share who we are.

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Redefining Education: Experience and Dewey's Wise Words

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself” – John Dewey

I’m sure many of you have heard this quote before, or some rendition of it. Or something along the lines of “experience is the greatest teacher.” It’s true. At least, that’s what I’ve come to believe in my journey as an educator and as a regular human being just like yourselves. We often stamp the word “education” on the academic world without looking a little bit deeper at what is right at our fingertips. It’s everywhere. We are in a constant flow of learning all the time, from the smallest minute shift in daily routine to grand travels to new cultures that transform our value systems and self-understanding. Truly everywhere.

Sure, we can dive into the details of social constructs, school systems, and traditional pedagogies and how they have robbed us of our freedom of thought, but I’m not going in that direction. And in no way am I bashing traditional education either, as I am also a product of that world. That being said, I still believe we forget how impactful experiences can be in the light of being “education”, and how powerfully transformative they can be for each of us. Yes, we are products of our own environment, but we are also students of life, whether we like it or not. Why not embrace this truth and use it to empower change in who we choose to become?

Where does experience start? When we arrive on the day of our birth, everything is new – new colors and shapes, new smells, sounds, tastes, feelings -- fair to say we start with our five senses, yes? But it’s not just that, we are also interacting with our parents and family. The people around us. Our teachers of life. Before any school happens, any grades, any test scores, we have experiences and human interaction. Our parents over time nurture and cultivate our experiences to shape what we learn, how we learn, and who we become. Their role in crafting experiences for our development should shine some light on this. This process has not changed (not saying parents are still doing this, but you get my point). No matter how old we are, experiences are always happening, shaping us. There are always lessons to learn from them.

This is education to me. The whole process of an experience. It allows us to tap into the development of ourselves in ways that can profoundly influence our lives and is vital to our overall education as beings. To be consciously aware of this experiential process empowers us to choose how we want to engage with life. How we want to engage with our own education and our understanding of it. But it has to begin within us. There has to be a conscious need for this to happen, a choice on our part. A choice where we recognize how an experience CAN change us.

After all, we know ourselves the best. We know our strengths, our weaknesses, and most importantly, what it is we want to change about ourselves. The question is, are we taking action on this or are we still doing the same thing we always do, getting the same results? I think Einstein said it best, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

That being said, I’d like to introduce you to experiential learning and specifically David A. Kolb’s experiential learning cycle, which lays the groundwork for the work that we do.

Here is a visual for you:

Simply put, we start at the top of the cycle in an experience. We are completely immersed in it (could be an activity, project, etc.), doing it, engaged in it, it’s the only thing that matters in the moment. After the experience, we reflect on it however we choose. We observe how it went, reviewing specific moments during the experience, and mainly how we felt during it. This could take form in discussions/dialogues, creative reflection like using art, writing, whatever. The point is to focus on the emotions that we felt while in the experience. Then we draw conclusions on what we learned from the experience and the reflection. What are our main takeaways from such an experience and how can we apply them for our next go-around? And finally, we try out what we learned. We take our conclusions, especially looking at what we would/could do differently on our next go-around put them into practice. Into our next experience. Trying out new things to see if they work and change the outcome is how we learn. And around we go again. (Obviously this isn’t the most descriptive explanation of Kolb’s experiential learning cycle, but if you are intrigued and want to learn more, simply Google it and you will find an abundance of resources).

Being aware of the experiential learning cycle process can be life-changing. I’m not saying to literally stop every time you have an experience and throw yourself into a loop, but once in a while, take a moment to go through it for your own sake. The beauty of it is that it transcends and is applicable to all contexts; whether it be love, professional, or cross-cultural. You name it. But again, it has to start from within you. The change you seek starts with the recognition of how you are engaging with experience and learning from it. And finally, it is what you do with what you learned that will change you.

For me, education is change of heart. And without a doubt, it has been the experiences and human interactions in my life that have made me fall in love with the process of education. Experiential learning will always be at the forefront of my own education and hopefully this has opened your eyes a bit on what education means to you. In the end, define education however you like, but be certain of one thing, life is always undeniably teaching us.