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By Feifei Zuo
Chengdu, China
Economics, Studio Art
and
Kristina Doan
Chanhassen, Minnesota
Political Science
What is Burundi’s GDP? What is Albania’s capital? Why does it seem like most cultures have different interpretations for eye-twitching? As odd as it may sound,
at Macalester these are part of our daily dialogues in our work-study jobs at the International Student Program office. Coming from the suburbs of the Twin Cities and an inland province of China, we became friends as we learned from each other—how the American greeting of “How are you?” is typically not meant to be answered candidly, while the counterpart Chinese greeting of “Ni chi le ma?” meaning “Have you eaten?” is intended to be answered literally. We shared many laughs over attempts to quickly convert feet to meters, Celsius to Fahrenheit, and pounds to kilograms. We reflected on practices and customs of our own cultures that we took for granted. Initially, we expected to easily embrace the diverse cultures at Macalester, but what we
found was an environment that pushed us to think about, and discuss, the rich complexities of the world.
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