Foreign Students Enjoy Cultural Exchange at Harvard

As students from around the world descended on Cambridge this weekend for the Harvard National Model United Nations conference, the Harvard College in Asia Project (HCAP) welcomed 16 more foreign visitors from Asia and Taiwan in the group’s first exchange program held at Harvard.

Founded in October 2003 by David K. Yuan ’06 and Silas Xu ’05, HCAP’s mission is to promote cultural interaction between Harvard and Asian students through conferences hosted by the participating universities.

“Our overall purpose is to connect the leaders of tomorrow and provide them with an international perspective in order to better the relations between the United States and Asia,” said Yuan, who organized this week’s conference with five other board members.

Last spring break, nine Harvard students started this exchange by traveling to Peking University in Beijing. In addition to Peking University, HCAP is currently affiliated with Taida University in Taiwan. Yuan refers to the two Asian universities as the “Harvard” of each respective country.

The week-long conference at Harvard, which started Sunday evening, includes a variety of academic and cultural activities for the visiting students. With panels on pressing issues in Asia such as finances and urbanization, Yuan said he hopes the topics addressed in the conference will influence participants in their future careers.

The visitors will also interact with Harvard students through meals, tours of various Harvard buildings and museums, and campus events such as a hockey game and ballroom dance lessons.

Delegates will also have several opportunities to tour Boston, including a visit to Chinatown, the Boston Globe, and the Federal Reserve. These events “are meant for more than tourism,” said Yuan, “and will allow the [students] an opportunity to compare their culture to our own.”

According to HCAP Public Relations Director Sarah D. Rea ’06, the Boston Globe tour is an example of this mission, since it will allow students to focus on freedom of the press in the two cultures.

On Sunday night, the Asian delegates and HCAP members laughed together and bonded over icebreakers in the Kirkland Junior Common Room.

“The students at the conference are really fascinating people. For many of them, this is their first time in America, and they are just really excited to explore the culture,” said HCAP member Cheng Gao ’08.

Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby, one of HCAP’s faculty advisors, will be meeting with the Harvard and Asian students next week. He said he shares HCAP’s mission and commends the project for being ahead of its time. The students involved “are talented young people who have the prospect of working more closely together, even before the same can be said for their governments,” Kirby wrote in an e-mail.

The conference is endorsed by several University administrators and groups beyond those directly involved with HCAP, including University President Lawrence H. Summers’ office, the Harvard University Asia Center, and the Office of International Programs.

Yuan attributed the widespread support for the group in part to the curricular review’s new initiative to promote international experiences for undergraduates. According to Yuan, HCAP fills a void in the University’s new programs for international exchange.

“Most international University programs are for students who already have experience with Asia or who are concentrating in East Asian Studies,” Yuan said, “but HCAP is intended to provide an opportunity for students who have never been there and who don’t speak the language.”

Rea, who went to Asia with HCAP for the first time last spring, said the exchange program had already sparked a greater interest in studying Asia.

“Some students who went to the conference were inspired to further their knowledge of Asian culture and enrolled in Chinese language classes or are planning to spend a year abroad there,” Rea said.

The organizers of this week’s conference said they hope to inspire the same response in the visiting students.

“By the end of the week, we hope that these students will have learned and experienced more than they ever could have about Harvard and America, and will be able to make more accurate evaluations of their earlier American preconceptions,” Gao said.