Here I am … 11 am at work already… everything seems surreal: the last thing I remember from a day before is me turning over the corner to the gates at the airport of Champaign-Urbana: last waving at my friends who came alone to see me off on the plane back home after two years spent at U of I and being alone with my thoughts on what I am going to do back home… Since then nothing changes in its rapid tempo and tendency to the accumulation of an academic workload… Reverse cultural shock turned out to be true … the worst thing was to be of one nationality and speak the same one language. Meanwhile they should be somewhere over here… they: the aliens ;) after all, it is the Urals – the border between two worlds – Europe and Asia and we are the Faculty of International Relations of a university big enough not only for the region but for the country itself, i.e. the hub for all possible borders and identities imagined and unimaginative. It turned out to be not that complicated: all I had to do is to smile, talk and exchange contacts with students and teachers speaking Russian with an accent. Visiting students and teachers are all the same everywhere: interested in building a new home at a new place usually with a piece of the world that they feel attached to and that distinguishes them from others. They are quick in building such new homes and open to other worlds and cultures. The more places they had been to the better they would understand what I meant. The task now was to get them all together and activate the resource: activate an international community of our University, knowledge and experience of visiting teachers and students and those of our own, to show the variety of cultures existing in the world, its importance and value. Why to do that? Maybe I was nostalgic about the multicultural community of the U of I and very international people I was part of… Cosmo Coffee Hours and the whole idea that “ Above All Nations Is Humanity ”… maybe because I truly believe in that … and most definitely wanted to convert others into believing in the same… that was that piece of the world I felt attached to and wanted to reproduce at home. So… having sent a pilot inquiry to the discussion at the faculty forum I realized people were waiting for something like that… and got it started. It: the Cosmo Club of the Ural State University, Yekaterinburg, Russia (where in the world is it? Look up in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yekaterinburg). With the reference to the local peculiarities our gatherings represent something similar to the Coffee Hours of the U of I Cosmopolitan Club. There is typically no coffee, but tea;) and representation of national cuisine is rare – we have local sweets instead. But what we share in common is that Club’s sessions are informal relaxed meetings of visiting foreign students and teachers and students and faculty of the University and of other schools of the city. It is less often but regular. It is on Saturdays mainly. We started in September 2006 with Spain, and since then we had Cultural Saturdays of Turkey, Canada, Korea, Indonesia, Italy, the United States, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Japan, and Brazil, all of which turned to truly represent the variety of cultures. Looking now back through the events I can definitely pick out something which would distinguish one meeting from all the others, and I am sure everyone who took part in it could do the same but for themselves. As a simple instance of what I mean, I can mentioned some memorable moments of the Saturdays: Turkey – coffee, Canada – one of the meetings that gathered a big crowd, sounds of the loons demonstrated by our Canadian friend, Indonesia: dances and colorful fruit, Brazil – forró!!! , Italy – songs and pasta, Poland – nice cartoon movie of Lolka and Bolka, etc. It is always a pleasure for me as an initiator to see that people are asking about it and that the schedule is filling up quickly. We got even our space upgraded: moved from a university room to a nice, 19th Century, pink mansion – a city library which generously opened its doors for us :) It is closer to the student dormitory and simply is a nice place. At university students, anyway, felt more reserved. The problem is probably still the lack of a big variety of cultures represented, which we are trying to compensate by asking students, faculty members and anyone interested to share his or her experiences of traveling. Another problem which I can think of now is a lack of true enthusiasm about cultural / volunteer events among our students… But they are getting there… and we work often in tandem with other student organizations of our Faculty – Akebono – a student organization of Japanese culture and Soraksan – organization of Korean culture… and of course with the Central East European Club… whose organizer is – me :) Thank you Cosmo Club of U of I for inspiration and all the warmest greetings from the Urals – International Student Club (link: fir.usu.ru/clubs/cosmo is still under construction, more information can be found in our group in vkontakte.ru) |