The storm before the calm...

Where the hell does the time go? It's already the end of October, and I can barely remember where last week went...

Aside from various meetings and appointments, perhaps the most interesting thing of note was that I was at a conference on diversity at my old college on Wednesday. I participated in a panel discussion on the challenges of ethnic and cultural diversity during college life.

The panel had 11 participants from all walks of life. I was the token Chinese guy, and shared the different experiences I had when I went to UBC out of high school, and when I came to my current college two years ago.

To make a long story short, there was a huge culture shock coming from a small high school being the only Chinese kid, to going to a huge university with tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese people from all over the world. If I wasn't determined to explore this huge cultural difference, I don't think I would've been as ethnically and culturally aware of the challenges that come from being in a "multicultural" country like Canada.

People tend to think that multiculturalism is about accepting other people's backgrounds and ethnic heritages, but people rarely think about the fact that to truly appreciate another person's culture requires lots of work and effort and understanding.

We have to give up our own stereotypes, our own minor prejudices about our own culture to appreciate someone else's. We can't say, "That's wierd," or "That's wrong," about anything about another person's culture. We should not be offended if we feel something uncomfortable, but rather, reflect on the experience and understand why we feel this way, and what we can do to prevent it from happening again--the emphasis being on what "I" can do, rather than what "they" should do.

Becoming a person of understanding and appreciation takes a lot of work on our part. It's not always going to be easy, and in fact, it rarely is. We have to shed a lot of our own fears and prejudices in order for us to accept another person for who they are, instead of wanting to change them to what we think they should be "as a Canadian." To me, multiculturalism is about recognizing each person's strengths that comes from their ethnic heritage, rather than saying they should "be Canadian."

We may not always agree about specific aspects of another person's culture or heritage, but that's not an excuse to say they don't deserve to be who they are. When it comes to ethnicity and culture, there is no right and wrong - only unique differences that makes each person a distinct individual.