January 28 - February 3

Almost like family

Every year for the past three decades Chiangmai University has welcomed students from a small midwestern US college

Story and pictures by TERRY FREDRICKSON
If you visit the Chiangmai University campus any time between mid October and late December, chances are good you will see groups of students who look decidely non-Thai. They will almost certainly be US students from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

They are part of one of the more notably successful study-abroad programmes to be found anywhere. St. Olaf, in fact, has been sending groups of students to CMU for more than 30 years as part of its "Term in Asia" programme. At the same time, each year two CMU students receive scholarships to study at St. Olaf and there are regular exchanges of faculty between the two institutions.

The relationship clearly works and the learning post recently paid a visit to the CMU campus to find out some of the reasons why.

A part of CMU

St. Olaf’s term in Asia began this year in late August with sessions in Hong Kong and mainland China. The group arrived in Chiang Mai in October where they stayed until the end of the year. This was followed by several weeks in Vietnam and the group should be arriving back at the St. Olaf campus just about now.

While at CMU, the St. Olaf students are treated as regular, albeit somewhat privileged, students. They enrol in the university; they wear the school uniforms; and they attend classes designed and taught by CMU professors from the Faculty of Humanities. These include Thai language and Thai society courses.

Rather than staying in university dormitories, however, each student is assigned to a local family. This, for most students, is the most meaningful and fulfilling experience of the whole trip. In addition, the organisers traditionally arrange for a group of CMU students to act as "buddies" for the young Americans, and they provide instant access to campus life that would be otherwise unattainable.

Part of the family

"This part of the trip," says Lindsay Fimmen, "has definitely been the best because of living with a host family. I think that has taught us so much more about the culture than we can get in the classroom.

"For each of us, the situation is really different," Lindsay observes. "Some of us have more traditional families, others have very modern families."

For Elizabeth Brandell, her family experience has been almost a step back in time. Used to a very independent life in the United States, she has struggled to adjust to the rather tight parental control found in her home and those of some of her friends.

"Our Dads talk about us getting together and what time we’re going to get picked up and it’s not like we’re arranging it. It’s our fathers or mothers doing it for us. It brings back a lot of memories for most of us," she says.

"It’s not bad by any means," she adds quickly. "It’s just different from what we’re used to."

Very different indeed for Susana Johnston. "In my family, there are just so many people," she says, sounding a little bewildered. "Like the maids, or the people who work for them are just as much considered the family in my situation as anybody else. We all eat together and go out together."

Is hers a nuclear or extended family? "I don’t know. It’s kind of confusing. It’s big. It’s really big!" she says.

Language problems are inevitable in most families, but each seems to work out a way of coping. In Fimmon’s family, for example, her two younger brothers act as translators.

"My mother speaks very little English. I’ll be trying to ask her a question and usually she’ll call for my eight-year-old brother who speaks very good English. It seems like English is being taught a lot more these days than when she was growing up in school."

For Joseph Gardener, his little brother is an enjoyable resource for learning the Thai language. "When the kids come home from school my mom sits my youngest brother on my lap – he’s six – and I read him a book like Go dog go or The dog goes up the hill. I say it in English and he says it back to me in Thai," Gardner says. "So we’re sitting there and saying ‘Go dog go’ in Thai and English. That’s fun and that’s where I’m starting to learn more Thai.

Perhaps the student having the most unforgettable family experience is Cambodian-American Phala Hoeun. "I LOVE blending in here and I love feeling Thai," she says with obvious feeling. "I love being spoken Thai to and I love learning the Thai language. I love going home and discussing with my family how my day went and sitting down and having a family meal together and being able to relate my family history and just feeling at home here."

Credit to the managers

Each year the effect on the students is unmistakable. But such results don’t come without effort and a lot of experience. They are a testament to the 30-year relationship between the two institutions.

Dr Chongchit Sripun Robert (left) and project manager Unchalee Sermsongwad take care of the guests with northern hospitality coupled with a lot of hard work.

"For three decades, I personally never heard of anything negative said between the two institutions," observes Dr Chongchit Sripun Robert, CMU’s Deputy Dean for International Affairs of the Faculty of Humanities.

"I’ve never been involved with St. Olaf in terms of the running of the programme, Dr Chongchit remarks, but as an outsider under the same faculty I hear not only from people who work directly with the students, but the host families and the community. They accept St. Olaf students and their professors as part of CMU."

For Dr Chongchit, there is little doubt who deserves the most credit for the success of the programme. "I would give the credit to the project managers every time. They work very hard and they realise that mutual understanding and sharing of culture is very important."

The project manager on the CMU side is English instructor Unchalee Sermsongwad. She herself has been to St. Olaf twice, so she has a very good working relationship with all those involved in the Term in Asia programme.

"I’ve been working with the St. Olaf group about 12 years," she says. "I coordinate the whole programme."

This involves, among other things, finding a coordinator for the Thai language course and the instructors for that course as well as the Thai society course that is delivered by the CMU faculty.

"We have 11 Thai language teachers for the three groups of students and we have many experts for the Thai society course. In the Thai society course we cover history, education, religion and the experts that we invite are experts in those fields.

"We also have a housing coordinator to help. Some host families have been with us for many years. This year we have some new families."

Archarn Unchalee says problems with host families are minimal. "Many families have hosted students from different programmes and they all agree that the students from St. Olaf are well-behaved," Archarn Unchalee says.

"We get a few complaints – about phone calls or cultural misunderstandings – so we try to have a cultural consultant for the students. Also, I have like a hot-line in my house so families can call me any time."

"We have help," she admits modestly. "Everyone cooperates. Everyone likes the programme and they want to share in the programme – not only our collegues here on campus, but from the community."

Making connections

Group leader Dr Mary Titus teaches a course throughout the "Term in Asia" programme.

Each year the St. Olaf group is led by a college professor who teaches a course throughout the term. This year’s leader has been English professor Dr Mary Titus.

A professor of English literature and director of women’s studies at St. Olaf, Titus is using literature to help her students learn about the lives of Asian women.

"My students have to read some fiction and autobiography in each country we visit," she says. "So in China they read an autobiography, short stories, some essays.

"In Thailand they’re reading short stories about women and women’s lives and a scholarly autobiography about a Buddhist nun.

"In Vietnam, they’re reading a novel and an autobiography having to do with how women’s lives were changed by the war.

The course has been insightful not only for the students, but for the instructor as well.

"I’ve taught a lot about western women, but not about women in Asia, so I try not to claim authority," Titus says. "I use the class as a way in which the students explore what they’re seeing and what they see in the books and how it relates to their own lives.

"Yesterday I taught excerpts from a couple of Thai novels. In the novels, people use pronouns to show respect and disrespect and the students had just had a Thai family course on pronouns. They had also just gone home to their families and been given nicknames and learned that they were ‘Phi Joe’ and so on. So everything comes together and it’s fabulous that they see the connections," Titus says.

The Chiang Mai environment, she explains, is particularly conducive to helping the students make these connections, a compliment to northern hospitality and a great deal of effort on the part of the CMU staff. "They work very, very hard."

Archarn Unchalee and the people on the office staff are not just available during the day, but they’re available at other times, a fact Titus, who is travelling with her husband and two children, particularly appreciates.

"Krit works in Anchalee’s staff office and his father drives my children to and from school. Unchalee and her sister went to an elephant show with me and my children. Unchalee’s probably been to 200 elephant shows, but she seemed to enjoy it," Titus laughs.

St. Olaf, too, deserves credit for its positive role in the relationship, Titus says.

"I have to say that I think St. Olaf has an affinity with CMU in some ways because the two schools have the tradition of service and politeness," Titus explains. "I think there can be a harmony that might not be there with all American institutions. It’s not just a business relationship."

The result for the students is a memorable and meaningful experience that would be impossible to reproduce in courses back on the St. Olaf campus.

"You not only read the books and try to understand," says Gardener, "but you live it every day. You’re using the Thai words that you learn in class. You’re understanding more about the religion and culture and you’re understanding ten times better than you ever could in the States.

"It’s around you everywhere and you start to realise more each day," Gardner continues. "Things all of a sudden click in your head and you understand why that’s the way it is. You live it. You see it. You’re in it everyday.

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