Feeling Culturious?

Part of the New Student at Clemson at program is a mandatory course called Clemson Connect. I wish to emphasize the word mandatory because no one I know would really want to do this if they had the choice. The first assignment was to read a book and attend a session by the author, who we all respected until she admitted that it was not she who choose the end result of her characters. Apparently the fictional characters decide their own fates and 'speak' to her. In addition, during the first few days of life at Clemson, one is required to attend a convocation, a small group session called One Clemson, attend a Library Workshop, and finally write a report about one Culturious experience at Clemson. It's horrid. If I'm being honest.

Culturious is defined as something involving curiosity for another culture, religion, lifestyle, or anything different than the lifestyle you are accustomed to. The examples they gave us were meeting some of the foreign exchange students, attending church with a friend from a different religion, trying a different sport unfamiliar to you, asking questions and getting answers from a roommate or fellow student with different lifestyles. Personally, I thought it rather odd that a school as un-diverse as Clemson would assign a project as such, but oh well?

I am a little weird myself, having spent a year in Japan and a year in France, so I tried to think of something at Clemson that was culturious. I thought it would be cheating if I wrote about helping the Japanese exchange students get to class with my language class, attending the French language table, trying foreign food (certainly not for the first time,) among other things. I wrote about something that was truly a new experience for me.

I wrote a report n what it was like to live with a Southerner.

The Project was distributed on August 25th, and I submitted it on September 2nd. Meanwhile, I decided to go around and hear about the other topics that my fellow Clemson students were choosing. These are a conglomeration of some of the excellent topics.

*Trying Sushi; Apparently trying sushi is culturious. I just thought that it was trendy when Americans ate Sushi, but apparently some of my fellow Clemson students had never eaten raw fish. The predicament: Disgusting! Steak and Potatoes are a million times better. Humans are not meant to eat raw fish.

*Attending Catholic Church; The difference between Catholic Church and Baptist/Methodist/Non-denominational are the following: Catholics don't want to be at church and aren't sure why they even go, but they feel they must raise their children in the Catholic faith; Catholics have cheap wine; they respect and worship their pope, but aren't sure why; peace be with you means to shake someone the hand of someone you know, but no one else; the priest tells you a verse of the bible, but doesn't teach it. (My roommate wrote about this topic, just fyi.)

*Southern Cuisine; Fried Okra. Grits. Fried Chicken. Biscuits and gravy. Sweet Tea. 'Nuff said. I might get a coronary just writing about the stuff.

*Meeting the Chinese Exchange Students; Not all Chinese people live in the Great Wall, sleep with panda's, and eat rice at every meal! Mind you there are only 2 undergraduate Chinese students (that I know of.) That being said, I don't know if this is a large enough sample to rule out that most Chinese people don't live on the Great Wall!

*Conversation with an African-American: "I talked to this very friendly black guy! He told me that if I wanted to make friends with black people at Clemson, I should refrain from asking them what sport they play." Yeah that's a very good idea.

*Going to a Waffle House for the First Time: Response from a born and raised South Carolininian when finding out his Michigan roommate was writing about eating at a Waffle House: "What the hell? What kind of place is the North of this fine country. It's Godless ice desert with no Waffle Houses!"