MSA E-Newsletter: E-Newsletter NO.01

Cover People -- Renny
Hi, Renny, where are you from?
I am from the beautiful island of Taiwan (AKA Formosa). I live in Chai-Yi County and there are lots of amazing mountains including the famous Ali Mountain.

How long have you been here in the US?
I have been here about 1 1/2 year. I am working towards my MBA degree. I will go back to Taiwan to continue my family business and globalize it.

Tell us about what has been the most difficult challenge while being the US??
The most difficult challenge has been the language. International students are not comfortable with speaking in English with Americans because they feel that their English is not as good. I had to overcome this problem, I made and effort to make new friends, ask questions and speak up. If you come here do not be afraid to ask questions just speak up. YOU CAN DO IT!

Tell us about OCU:
The professors here are friendly, nice, and dedicated towards their students.
However, the teaching methods between US and Taiwan are vastly different. This made a little bit difficult for me. In Taiwan students do not ask so many questions in classes and the relationship student/professor is not as active. When I came here the professors made me feel welcome and allow me to participate in my classes. I made many new friends from different countries.
I was honor to be the President of the Taiwanese Student Association (TSA). We have big traditional festivals, parties, and many events to make the students feel at home. It was a great success to have in our events many people from various back grounds not only Taiwanese.

Renny, Are you single?
Yes, I am single. But I know I will find my Mr. Right soon.

Who is Mr. Right??
(Someone called just as we asked the question and we asked here who it was- she didn’t want tell us. Perhaps, Mr. Right???)

Thank you Renny for your time, we wish you the best of luck in the future!
No… no... Thank you guys for giving me this opportunity! It was a great experience for me, I had fun!

Jai Jan (再見) - bye, bye…

**************************************************

Being part of MSA

Hello, I am Yoko Hirakawa, from Tokyo Japan. I have been studying at OCU for three years and this is my senior year, I am graduating on December. After I came to OCU, time passed by so quickly! Especially as a part of MSA, there are many fun things that I have done; I would like to tell you about what I have done with MSA.

MSA has such a fun events each semester and I remember first MSA event I attended was Faces. Faces is one of the big events MSA hold, it is a international students show case that they perform dancing, singing, reading poem, pretty much everything from their own culture. It is really neat that you get to see world’s traditional entertainment on one night!

I was sophomore and I decided participating Faces as I wanted represent Japan. I performed Japanese Drum with my friend Ai, who is also Japanese, and we practiced every night before the event, it was so much fun to talk about how we should perform on the stage, and practice was just enjoyable even though we had busy schedule with classes and tests! Almost every night Ai and I practiced until midnight. And here comes the day! I never had performed in front of many people. And I was so nervous, but that night was special because I got to see my foreign friends perform as well, and my friend came to see and support me, it is just amazingly fun time! If you haven’t been to the FACES, you should go for the next time! And, you should really think about being on the stage! You don’t have to be professional as I just practiced the drum in two weeks and performed fine, and enjoying the participation is important!!!!

MSA gave me a chance to experience presenting my own culture, and I loved it.
I will save the other stories for the next time!

Have a wonderful Spring break!!!
Yoko Hirakawa

**************************************************

PEOPLE EVERYWHERE

Your MSA President, Jose Andrade, asked me to write about my experiences living abroad. To be quite honest, I have struggled trying to pick a single topic to write about, because there is so much that could be said. But after about a week, I finally have chosen one.
I have now lived in Thailand for almost seven months. I have also traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia, as well as several different areas of Thailand. I have had to adjust to a completely different way of life—a new language, new food, new mindsets, new cultural rules... And it’s hard! Everything is so strange and surreal and new. You have to learn how to do so many things differently. Some days, it feels like everything has to be done differently. And yet, some things are the same—namely, people.

Despite the fact that I have had to get used to--giving a wai to people older than me, dressing in skirts and not wearing sleeveless shirts, eating spicy food that used to make me cry, not speaking in loud tones, stopping at 8AM and 6PM to show respect to the King, etc.—people are still the same as they are anywhere else. They all want to be looked at in the eyes. They all want to be respected. They all want people to listen to what they have to say. They all want to matter. And the most common characteristic--they all want to be loved.

People everywhere are the same. Now, I know this is a blatant generalization that dismisses some hugely obvious differences, but I feel that it’s important. Why? Because no matter where we are, we should always strive to find that which is the same in all of us.
So, try to do that at OCU (and everywhere else!) by reaching out to others who are seemingly very different than you, but in reality, just like you.

Christina Graves
OCU Graduate
MSA Former President

**************************************************

The most precious gift I have received

All of a sudden, my eyes were awaken.

I thought I apparently slept, anyway. I opened my cell-phone up that I laid by my head last night and checked what time it was as usual. It was about 3 a.m. I guess I had slept for about three hours. Unconsciously I found myself going into the memory that I had back home for about a month.

Well, this was the first time that I had been back home to my home country since I had been in the United States. For this time, I actually did not let my family know that I would come back home for a vacation, because I wanted to surprise all of them as I suddenly would appear in person. During four weeks back in Korea, my home country, many things which were very precious to me happened. These were a pleasant conversation that I had with my family, the most valuable gift I have ever received from God, and the confabulation that I had with some unceremonious friends of mine who always greet me with cheers, and the refreshing walking that I used to do with a smiling face in the park near my place, and other more good things. But, above all, if one best thing has to be selected among all these things above, I would definitely choose the first thing I mentioned without any hesitation. That is because I had an unforgettable four weeks with every single person in my family.

Even though I had a memorable time with them, I personally do not focus on something big itself that I do with them. I rather focus on what I am when we are all together in the same space itself. That is what I put a greater value on, because I think that the time I had spent with my family for about a month was so unforgettable even if it was a short period of time.

Just like an oasis in the dessert, and a shelter in hardship, they are to be the biggest blessing for me and the most beautiful gift for my life.

I really love them so much beyond description, and truly I am happy because they are in my heart all the time. I have one thing that I want to say to them right now. “You all have made me what I am. In God I love you all.”

Kay IM
MSA secretary

**************************************************

2008 Chinese New Year in OCU

Chinese New Year is a big day for Chinese. However, it does not haveholiday in America. So, OCU school students changed the day to makedinner to celebrate our Chinese New Year(Feb 11th). This year OCUTaiwanese Students Association made the event with UCO students. Thatis great, and it let us to make friends. Besides Taiwanese students, Japanese, Indonesia, Thai students also participated the event. Eatingtogether is the way that we celebrate Chinese New Year. When we wereeating dinner, some people were singing karaoke. Singing is a kind ofpopular event for us. Besides, "red envelope" is an important thing.Taiwanese Student Association prepared many red envelops. There are $1or $5 inside. The biggest prize is a iPhone.

WeiChung Wu
MSA Treasure

**************************************************

MSA Executive Members