4 days in Dhaka

Hello!

I got back from a 4-day trip to Dhaka, Bangladesh yesterday evening. My main mission was to participate in a small working group of the Association of Universities in Asia and the Pacific (AUAP), drafting 'AUAP Standards for Internationalization (IZN)', sponsored by Daffodil International University, the largest university in the country with 25,000 students.

As it was my second trip there, I was eager to see how different I felt as well ka.

My sharing is as follows:

On the mission itself, the 6-member working group comprises two from the Philippines (one is the Secretary General of AUAP), one each from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the US (living in Indonesia).

The topics (called, ‘parameters’) agreed are:

·       International/intercultural philosophy

·       Regional and global partnerships

·       University demographic

·       Physical and digital infrastructure

·       Community engagement

·       Top management on strategic planning and resource allocation

Each parameter starts with some description followed by items to consider. The group will move on to discuss rubrics for each of the sub-items (non-compliance, partial compliance, compliance, exceeds compliance) and there could be another level which is yet to be discussed. With its Board’s approval, the final product will be pilot-tested with a few volunteer members before putting it into use. The process will take some time as there will be many more discussions along with the development of handbooks and training.

The discussions were challenging to come up with terms most Asian universities would find it easy to understand. It was amusing to see us raise and change terms that our American member never heard of in this context, and sometimes, among ASEAN members, we too had different terms!

Personally, I still wish we could have added some crucial aspects like health and personal safety as well as knowledge management. Will push further in future meetings if I continue to participate ka.

On Daffodil International University, being host to our group gave it a good opportunity for us to meet with the national University Grant Commission and other private universities so they learned of what AUAP has been up to. There was a special interview for us to be on its campus TV, run by its students. Time was set for us to see its huge out of town campus when students had its annual innovation carnival ka. The Chairman/owner of the university has over 40 businesses in his Group and yet, he managed to be with us several times and give a speech to the students at the Carnival.

On Dhaka, I noticed many more high rise buildings and ongoing construction. I think with quite a few industries in the city and cities nearby, dust is everywhere and this could be harmful to people’s health a lot.

Rickshaws (tricycles) and motored tricycles (similar to our tuk tuk) are everywhere. We learned that the rent for a rickshaw is about $1.5/day while the earning could be around $10-15 a day though it’s a real tedious job ka.

Like other Asian countries, this is a gift giving culture so we were spoiled with so many gifts….one even personalized!

The people there are super friendly and hospitable. Ladies are BEAUTIFUL, I mean really good looking ka. One thing that struck my heart hard was that whenever kids and girls/ladies caught your eyes, they smiled widely to you. I couldn’t help but think of our own ‘land of smiles’, which may have to be transferred to Bangladeshis laew ka! We’ve lost lots of our friendly smiles to tougher lives, more individualism, and more competitions mai ka?

This is a bit too long so let me stop here even though there’re others to share too lae ka!

learning from a volunteer project with a Japanese

Hello all and hope this Monday has set a good start for your week ka.

I still have my Japanese friend with our group and the past week, we both had a volunteer project for the Royal Park-- ราชพฤกษ์ in Chiang Mai. It was she who said to me she wanted to do a little volunteer work during her time here so I organized something (big), asking her (as a teacher of English in a Japanese university) to share about the country, people, and culture since the staff at the Royal Park have to meet many visitors from various countries.

My Japanese friend was thrilled with this rare opportunity and in fact, she was very nervous. To decrease her worries, I jumped in to give an overview about cross-cultural communication and self assessment about our own Thai culture.

Like all the Japanese people I've known and met, she worked hard on her presentation despite her busy schedule. She improved her slides until the last minute as well....something that I do all the time too.

It turned out that we had about 35 participants from every section of the Park. They were very quiet at first but the bilingual session I gave seemed to work to tune them to be less scared for a full English session. I was glad to see a few who had low proficiency trying hard to respond!

Lessons learned from this volunteer project are:

1. I now appreciate the term, 'responsibility' even more. To Japanese, it means you must be responsible not to trouble others so they have posters everywhere to remind people to be thoughtful. Some examples are: 1) Don't talk to each other loudly as it will disturb others and it's everyone's responsibility to take it to their hearts. 2) Be punctual as you have the responsibility to work with others on time. 3) Bring your trash home as you're responsible for the cleanliness of the park, etc.

By so doing from the family teaching on, Japanese people care for others and public spaces much more than us, Thais! We think of our homes and much less about anything public, agree?

2. Being exposed to another country increases one's flexibility. My friend is a good example. She spent one year in the US and accompanied her husband on his overseas postings in Hong Kong and London. The accumulated experiences have shaped her to be very international and flexible. She could stay real calm and play by ear to go along what was offered on the site. The most important was that she could laugh about her own mistakes and tell the stories with fun.

More exposure to diversity is highly needed for our faculty and staff and it MUST GO BEYOND traditional exchanges to maximize the presence of our foreign staff and students so the mass can benefit even without real overseas experiences.

3. Networking at its best is when we take into consideration intelligent risks. For this volunteer project to happen, people involved had to weigh some chances they took. Before I asked my dear Thai friend to open the way for me and my Japanese friend, I thought of how my Japanese friend and I could bear an impact and whether it would be relevant. I should have thought further about the expenses incurred from the other end, though!

My dear friend also took a risk as she didn't know my Japanese friend. Knowing me for 5 decades, she had confidence in me. Yet, we discussed a few times to make sure this volunteer project wasn't just to satisfy one person's desire. There were processes to initiate one project, especially government offices.

I have to admire my Japanese friend to be so very accommodating to go along with whatever was given to her.

4. Every learning is a two-way street. My Japanese friend captured some slides and discussed it with me. She now knows 3 useful terms, grengjai, mai pen rai, and muun-sai (หมั่นไส้)!  She laughed when she said she knew more how Thais love yet get scared of ghosts.

Learning gland is on at all times!

The cross-culture day went smoothly with loud laughs from all. Everyone enjoyed it tremendously. I liked it so much when we llearned how to pronounce 'Royal Park -- Rajapruk' in Japanese. We also know how to write our names in Japanese. "The three musketeers'' heard from a senior leader there that it was the first time she saw how happy the staff members were and how she wished such a similar session could be held more often.

Our three hearts can't be happier!