(Article from the Illio 1998; reprinted by permission of the Illio;)
Founded in 1907, the Cosmopolitan Club is the oldest international club on campus. Since the beginning, the Club has strived to live up to its optimistic motto: "Above all nations is Humanity."
According to Executive Director Andrea Shields, "Many international students find themselves feeling alone, and the people at the Cosmopolitan Club are able to offer sincere friendship."
In addition to the residents, the Club has many additional members who support and attend Club activities. These social opportunities provide a sense of community to a large number of international students on campus at one time or another.
|
| 14-year-old Prapaporn Jisook dances in the traditional Thai style during the Thai Dinner. (photo Chris Boraski) |
Nevertheless, it is the residents that give the Club much of its vitality. The residents are there day in and day out, and the mix of people who live there at any given time provides the Club with much of its personality.
Two of the current residents from nearly opposite sides of the world are Julio Urbina from Peru and Kazumi Ohira, originally from Japan. These two have become good friends through their years at the Cosmopolitan House. Ohira actually had the opportunity to visit Urbina's native country on a trip that they took together.
Both of them had differing expectations of what America would be like before they arrived. Ohira felt that the U.S. would be a liberal and dangerous place where there would be a large amount of variation in the way people act and dress. The America that she found in Champaign-Urbana turned out to be quite conservative and quite a bit safer than she expected.
Urbina, on the other hand, felt that America would be very safe and structured. He was surprised at the amount of order that he found here. Drivers of cars here obey traffic rules and yield to pedestrians, as compared to the anarchy which characterizes transportation in Peru.
Urbina, a graduate student in Electrical Engineering, said he had a hard time when he first came to the University because he had trouble with the language. As he got to know the language better, he found out that people here could be very friendly and helpful.
Still, differences in culture make themselves apparent from time to time. Among the questions he is often asked by students here when they find out he is from Peru include "Do you sell drugs?" and "Do you have cars [in Peru]?" Urbina says he hates these types of questions, but he has learned to shrug them off over time.
Ohira, a graduate student in Educational Psychology, says that she often has a hard time finding clothes for her petite build. In addition, she misses the food choices available to her in Japan.
In the six years that Ohira has been living here, she has developed the cheapest way to communicate with home. She writes letters out and faxes them to her home. This is cheaper than either talking on the phone or mailing letters through the postal service.
Urbina called home often when he first arrived in America. After receiving a number of expensive phone bills, he changed his ways. Now he calls home to talk with his mother about once a month. After spending some time in the States, he went back to Peru to discover that he had "reverse" culture shock. He found out that now he was having a hard time getting used to Peru and wanted to return to America.
Urbina is the House Manager, which means that he has added responsibilities in the house. Among those is helping out to make sure that the social events go smoothly.
 |
| Delphine Mei hosting a tea ceremony during a coffee hour; she is giving a guest a serving of tea. (photo Chris Boraski) |
International Dinners are held on Sunday nights. For the year's fall semester, dinners included the Nambe Pueblo Indian Feast, Turkish, French, Polish, Thai, and a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner.
Coffee Hours are held on Thursday evenings. More informal than the dinners, the coffee hours are another opportunity for people to get acquainted with another culture's customs. Featured during the Fall were Peru, India, Fiji, Spain, Turkey, China, Brazil, Thai, Zimbabwe, Bulgaria, Germany, China, and Puerto Rico.
These events provide a fantastic opportunity for at least some of the international students to share in each other's culture, laugh together, and relax within a community that is brought together through the magic of sharing both similarities and differences.
The fact that these students can form such great bonds despite some huge differences in cultural expectations is testimony to the uniqueness, intelligence, patience, and compassion of those who are members and residents of the Cosmopolitan Club. Shields certainly summed it up: "The individuals we have here are very special people."
Continue to the next article.
Return to
the Cosmo Connection May 1998 contents page.
Return to the Cosmopolitan Club home page.