Cultural Reporter Introduction

This past week I was sitting around outside the Union eating some lunch and people watching.  On a side note there are very very odd things to be seen and heard around the union, I digress, I noticed( felt) that there were almost more Asian students then there were white.  After a while I began to think back to our first CAPs blog about Whiteness. “…Particularly as demographics change in the United States and as some white perceive themselves as the minority.”(Martin & Nakayama, 2012, p.195)  I found myself amazed by the sheer numbers because coming from a school with 2% minority rate I’m unaccustomed to being around other races.  I am quite sure that the Asian students here through the International program think the very same thing when they walk around since many of the countries they are from are somewhat homogenous. 

There is a website: http://unl-haters.tumblr.com/ that is actually pretty embarrassing for the University due to the blatant racism and closed mindedness of the students who attend here.   It is a collection of tweets made by students from UNL.  Some of the tweets contain #CampusAsians or #AsainNationl, these titles have become ascriptions that ostracize them even further, as if being somewhere new isn’t enough they are becoming a campus joke for some people just for being different.  This is why I chose to base my Cultural Reporter Blog on the Lincoln Asian culture with a concentration on Malaysians.

Culture is defined as a learned pattern of behavior and attitude shard by a group of people.  Malaysia also stuck out to me because they have such a complex culture due to its location; Eurasian, Indian, and Chinese.  Some people refer to Malaysia’s culture as a hybrid. National Identity in Malaysia is somewhat hard to hold onto not only because Malaysia is a hybrid but because it is still a relatively new nation that was founded in just 1963.    Most of the Malaysian International would be considered Malaysian elite, which means that they are educated in overseas universities.  The class identity in Malaysia is ranges from the type of car you drive to how tan you are.  Eastern Malaysia has territories; Sabah and Sarawak.  Peninsular Malaysia is divided into west and east by mountains.  West is more industrial and urbanized whereas the east is less populated with cultivated land. 

During this project over the semester I hope to encounter International students from multiple regions in Malaysia so I can better understand their regional identities.   I also hope that I can get a better feel in general for the International students and see if there is any common ground.

 References:

Martin, J.N. & Nakayama, T.K. (2012). Intercultural Communication in Contexts 6^th Addition. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Anonymous (2012, August 22). UNL Haters. http://unl-haters.tumblr.com/

Ma, J. (2006, September) Culture of Malaysia. http://www.everyculture.com/Ja-Ma/Malaysia.html#b