DISCUSSIONS
Different Perspectives, Shared Questions.
Explore questions that cross cultures and borders. Read what students from different countries think — and share your own perspective.
Can you belong to two cultures at the same time?
What does it mean to belong to more than one culture? Can two cultural identities coexist, or do we sometimes feel pressured to choose between them?
I think you can belong to two cultures without choosing only one. We may have different traditions, but we also share many similar experiences, like worrying about school, thinking about our future, and balancing family expectations. Learning about another culture does not mean losing your own. It gives you another way to understand the world.
I think you can belong to two cultures without having to choose one over the other. My family is Chinese, but I grew up in the United States. At home, I speak some Chinese with my parents, eat Chinese food, and celebrate holidays like Lunar New Year. At school, most of my experiences feel very American. When I was younger, I sometimes felt like I had to decide which culture represented me more. As I got older, I realized that both have shaped who I am. Being connected to two cultures can sometimes be confusing, but it also gives me different ways of understanding people and the world.
Why do different countries remember the same history differently?
The same historical event can be taught, remembered, and understood in very different ways. How do education, culture, and national experience shape the way we see the past?
People can see the same history in really different ways depending on where they grow up. I’ve talked with immigrant students from other countries and sometimes they learned about the same event very differently than I did. very interesting~
I noticed this when talking about World War II with an American student. In China, we learn a lot about the war against Japan and what happened in China during that time. My American friend learned much more about Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific. We were learning about the same war, but focusing on different parts of it. It made me realize that where you grow up can shape how you understand history.
Are young people in the U.S. and East Asia more similar than we think?
From school and family expectations to social media, friendships, and the future, how different are the lives of young people across the Pacific — and where are they surprisingly similar?
Before talking with students from the U.S., I thought our lives would be really different. But we actually worry about a lot of the same things—school, college, friends, and what we want to do in the future.
We’re more similar than you would think. I talked with students from East Asia, our high school systems are different, but we still talk about the same music, social media, school stress, and plans for the future. Everything sounds the same especially with social media.