Late nights and illumination in Hong Kong
by Michele Nardelli
The
R&B strains of Lionel Richie’s All Night Long will always have a special
connotation for UniSA exchange students Simon Bonnett and Joshua
Carmichael.
When they took on a five month study abroad experience at The Chinese University of Hong Kong they were not quite prepared for the study and relaxation habits of their fellow students.
Bonnett says it has taken a while to get used to blocking out the sound of room mates cooking a main meal at 2am or crowds of students deciding to play hide and seek at midnight. All of this along with some unusual high jinks – such as 1am battles of college war cries – is fitted in with a punishing study program for the local students.
But the sheer excitement with which he talks about his first three months in Hong Kong is a strong indicator that the inconvenience has been far outweighed by his delight in soaking up everything new.
"If I wasn’t challenged by any of this I would be worried,” Bonnett says. “It has taught me to look at everything from a broader viewpoint, to question my norms and think about the world and my place in it.”
At 28-years-old Bonnett is one of the more mature students doing an
undergraduate qualification in his group that includes 300 exchange students
from Europe and the United States. Carmichael at 19-years-old is possibly
one of the youngest.
For Carmichael the real wonder of his exchange experience is the access to
the world through the student population.
“You can sit around the student café and talk in great big international groups about world politics, music, cultural differences and similarities and you just learn so much and then leave that environment with a million more questions that you want to explore,” he says. “It is challenging and it is fantastic.”
They both agree that the academic program is probably only half of the learning experience.
“The interaction with people from other countries and cultures makes you really think about your own country a lot more,” Carmichael says.
“It makes you value some things more, but it also gives you a fresh and objective perspective about some other aspects of our society – so that you can look to improve or broaden your ideas.”