In the coming semester, I will be doing an exchange semester at Business Academy Aarhus, Denmark. Because there was no student who had attended my prospective school or any school in the country at all, I joined forces with two other students who are going to schools in a neighbouring country, Finland, to interview a third-year student who went to Finland in the past semester. Below is the video of our interview with this student, Wouter Moereman. The school he did his exchange semester at is Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Finland.
My analysis of the interview with Wouter
The cultural image that is projected of the setting—considering which phenomena, traits, rules, norms and values are cited
The interviewers and interviewer started by discussing how Belgian students go very far away from home once it comes to study abroad and internships as they have been in Belgium and most countries within the EU since childhood. The emphasis of both interviewee and interviewers was on the need that Belgian students feel to go explore the farthest part of the world this first chance they get (on exchange semesters) to live alone in foreign countries.
The interviewee spoke about the Finns culture of eating reindeer as one of their cuisines and one of the most wanted of all their delicacies. He said food is decent there but a bit expensive and asides the reindeer meat that is peculiar, the rest of their meals are very similar to Belgium, potatoes, vegetables, etc. At some places, as a student, you can get food at cheaper prices as well.
The only phenomena he never quite got used to was how fast it got dark during the winter. He said it got dark already around 14:00 - 16:00 in the afternoon. He felt and thought it was depressing. The snowy weather that barely let the sun to shine was another trait that stood out to him in Finland. It snows a lot there and heeps of snow are always pilled up to each side of the road and salt-sprayed by machines all day long. He also mentioned that it was really cold there as well.
The attitude the interviewee holds towards the setting
He wanted familiarity, to be close to his home, Belgium, for his first time living alone. So he chose to not go too far away from his home and his mother. He also went for a living place that was close to his school (only 10 minutes away) so that worked best for him. He was really receptive to the culture or cultural image he saw of the Finns as he travelled there with an open mind, thus he adapted very well to it, including the public transport systems, food (he even tried and liked the reindeer meat), etc., except the darkness at early hours of the afternoon. The cold weather was to be expected since Finland is in the far north of EU, so it did not really border him. According to him, he would rate his experience there at 8/9, on a scale of 1 - 10. He shared some lessons he learnt or skills he developed from the experience as well and the most important ones that he mentioned were the skill of solving problems all by himself, the skill of developing more confidence in himself, being independent/self-sufficient. Although he missed his mum, he was able to take care of himself and spontaneous situations or challenges that arose while he was there in Finland.
What message the interviewee is sending about his or her cultural identity, and about the cultural identity of his/her hosts?
The interviewee sends a message of his cultural identity as a Belgian to being a bit reserved and Belgians are known to be mostly be reserved people as well. About the Finns, the interviewee talks about how they are nice, friendly, a little bit shy (those he met), not too open and not too closed up either. He pointed out that they were similar to Belgium in cultural identity as he himself was the same way.
Ways in which the interviewers or interviewees may have questioned or made explicit the way these cultural identities were constructed
The interviewers rephrased some questions to gain clarity on what exactly the interviewee meant the times he talked about the similarities between Belgian cultural identities and the Finnish cultural identity. When the interviewee said the Finns were friendly and nice, the interviewers asked follow-up questions to see if he made any friends there since they were friendly people.
What is indicative of a (non-)essentialist viewpoint on the part of both the interviewers and the interviewees?
The interviewee portrayed non-essentialism as Belgian and international students via his curiosity to get to know more about the Finns and other Erasmus students, although he was a reserved person, while he was there instead of basing his experience solely on any stereotypes he had had. He got clarified on the fact that the stereotype he had that Finns were cold and unfriendly was not true. However, a little stereotypical display that the interviewee might have made was his presumption that the Finns were almost the same as Belgians even before he went there. The interviewers did the same (showed nonessentialist viewpoint) by showing interest in getting to knowing more about the Finnish culture, traits, phenomena, etc. as experienced by the interviewee while he was there in Finland.
How interviewees construct Erasmus students’ communities and people they have met or tried to avoid meeting. What do these stories/constructions tell us about their attitudes to diversity?
The interviewee mentioned that his class was very international and he only had about 3/4 Finns at a time in his different classes. This meant that there were more Erasmus and international students in the school that actual Finns. He also explains how Erasmus student communities get invited to a WhatsApp chat group of the general student community where various social activities are organized. Some of the social activities organized are potluck dinners, game nights, movie nights, etc. and this helped him bond and make friends with lots of people that he actually ended up going on a trip to Lapland with some of them; he was really open to diversity in this way. Hence, this is to say that the Erasmus students are always given a warm welcome by the very diverse student body there.
Like I've partly earlier mentioned, Wouter (the interviewee) told us that the Finns he met were nice and okay and he liked them; according to him, they were not too open and not too closed which could basically equal a definition of his character traits as well. He also mentioned that they all speak English, especially the younger ones (students); but the older Finns you normally would meet at, for example, the stores don't really speak English. So, for him, learning a little bit of the language proved useful for him to get by. The very two words that helped him, especially at the store counters, are the hellos and the goodbyes. To him, the Finns were very similar to Belgians in attitude to diversity and also in culture. Finland even has three official languages as Belgium does, theirs are Swedish, Finnish, and Sami.
My analysis of Krisztina Czippán's video for destination Belgium.
I analyzed Krisztina's video since it was Belgium based and I am an international student here in Belgium just like her because I had no other video from someone going to my country as no upper-level student in the list attended a school in Denmark last academic year. See video below; the analysis follows.
The cultural image that is projected of the setting—considering which phenomena, traits, rules, norms and values are cited
The cultural image of food here in Belgium is projected to be different from what she was used to; products found in the grocery stores differed a lot: more processed food, For example, instead of big pieces of cheese, you can find all kinds of grated cheese and differently shaped cheese. Also, it's a norm to find washed and cut-up fruits, marinated meat, etc. in grocery stores. Although some of these things can be bought in her home country, Hungary, you don't often have many people buying them. Usually, Hungarians prepare food from scratch. The houses and streets in Belgium are mostly kept clean and neat, except for the famous always messy student party street in Ghent. However, they are ever so nice and clean generally, especially in the countryside. Krizstina mentions from experience that wages are really high in Belgium (compared to her home country), thus rents are a bit higher, thus people get more wealth and acquire possessions like the many cars that are frequently seen on the roads. The overall cultural image projected of the Belgian setting here is that of wealth.
The attitude the interviewee holds towards the setting;
While the student or interviewee cited the differences between her home country's setting and the Belgium setting, she had an attitude that portrays the Belgian setting of wealth and high standard of living to be superior to the lower living standard setting of her home country.
What message the interviewee is sending about his or her cultural identity, and about the cultural identity of his/her hosts
The interviewee sends a message of pride in her cultural identity and a message of comfortability in the Belgian cultural identity. She buttresses the fact the cultural identity of Belgium was quite similar to that to her Hungarian identity in a few ways but still different in some ways. She thinks that Belgians are friendly, not very open at initial contact, rather direct and honest, and can sometimes be culturally blind in the sense that sometimes they feel that their culture is superior, in areas like the educational system, work system, children, etc., and they feel the only right way of doing something is the way it has been done in the culture they grew up in. Nevertheless, she thinks that it is a positive attribute that Belgians speak a good level of English, but she still warns us about the fact that in job ads the English language is almost always the 3rd or 4th required, and sometimes not even required language while Dutch and French are always top two languages required. She emphasizes the need to learn Dutch if one wants to integrate better, especially in view of a longer-term stay. She sites the fact that young Belgians have a laissez-faire attitude of caring so much less about politics and how it affects their lives while it is very different in Hungary where people start getting into politics at the very young age of 12.
Ways in which the interviewers or interviewees may have questioned or made explicit the way these cultural identities were constructed
The interviewee felt that although Belgians have an attitude of superiority to other cultures, they were also mostly welcoming to foreigners as she never felt negatively discriminated throughout her stay in Belgium till date. And from her expressions, I think she thinks this is very wrong for young Belgians not to pay any attention to the political affairs of their country.
What is indicative of a (non-)essentialist viewpoint on the part of both the interviewers and the interviewees?
Her viewpoint on her own cultural identity and that of Belgians is indicative that she does not display levels of prejudice, stereotyping or essentializing Belgians rather she mentions some traits that she observed from the people she has met so far and not necessarily generalizing it. She does the same when she talks about Hungarians.
How interviewees construct Erasmus students’ communities and people they have met or tried to avoid meeting. What do these stories/constructions tell us about their attitudes to diversity?
For student life, she sites the fact the students she has met and almost all students spend a hilarious amount of time in the library and that this was rarely the case in her home country and definitely not the case for her personally as she prefers to study at home. She highlighted the living options for Erasmus students have here to be either living in student lodges called "kot" or living in student hostel; while Begian students sometimes live with their own parents as well and, to her, the concept of student lodges (kot) is not a very familiar or common attribute as in her country where students mostly live in shared or single regular and well-equipped apartments as students very rarely go home every weekend as the Belgium students do. She feels that Hungarian students are more independent than the Belgian she has met and finds it weird that Belgian students do that (go home every weekend to get laundry done by their parents, etc.). She talks about how the Belgian students she has met have little or no knowledge about people from outside the western world and see them as all the same; however, she blames their ignorant attitude to diversity on the fact that these are not taught to them in their history classes. Nevertheless, she feels the teachers she had met at Artevelde are quite friendly and always happy to help and that makes studying at Artevelde interesting to her.
The interviewee likes living in Ghent as an international student. She talks about the city, the historical buildings in the centre, the chocolate, the fact that there are different varieties of restaurants and fast-food restaurants, and the language which wasn't very difficult for her to learn in a short period of time, etc. with so much delight in her demeanour, eyes, tone, and nonverbal language lightened up as she talks about these things. When the interviewee speaks of Artevelde, she sends a message of the courses she follows being practical and theoretically up-to-date which keeps her motivated to always go the extra mile as it is the direct opposite of what she experienced while studying in Hungary where most theories are outdated.
Comments to the filmmaker
What would you have added?
More insight about students' communities/life, festivities, recommendations of places to visit, challenges faced by Erasmus or international students, level of difficulty of the integration process for Erasmus students, housing and living costs for students.
What would you have liked to know that is not there?
More insight about students' communities/life, festivities, recommendations of places to visit, challenges faced by Erasmus or international students, level of difficulty of the integration process for Erasmus students, housing and living costs for students.
How helpful is this video to you as a student going to this country yourself?
The video was very helpful; lots of insights were present.
Self-assessment
Comments