Borders Crossing, Learning & Understanding

Ngân Pham K Start Date: Jun 9, 2017 - End Date: Jul 28, 2017
  • Cultural Exchange
  • Educational/Research Trip
  • Intern Abroad

My Travel Story

by: Ngân Pham K Start Date: Jun 9, 2017 - End Date: Jul 28, 2017
  • Cultural Exchange
  • Educational/Research Trip
  • Intern Abroad
My relationship with the notion of "borders" was a learning experience. Growing up I, like many Vietnamese, tried every possible ways to draw the line between Vietnam and China since the North empire had left a lasting imprint on our culture and history . However, as I went on the Internet and explore the "flat world", listening and discussing with thousands of people all over the world, it seems like to me that borders are becoming more obslete and irrelevant. Depite their locations, people are now connected and supposedly more understanding than ever. Yet, with the recent rise in far right and left political views in the West, the reality is showing the opposite. Apparently letting people go online doesn't automatically delete the borders between them. I am both concerned and intrigued by the changing definitions of borders, of physical and non-physical ones, including political, cultural, religious, technological borders. That is also my motivation to travel to Ukraine for the BorderLab summer school. This short course is the opportunity for me to learn and discuss border issues in an academic settings. After that I want to do a 5 month internship, applying the knowledges I have gained and experiencing first-hands cross-cultural interactions.This travel opportunity would mean so much to me to reflect on my study and my career. I am expected to grow personally, gain deep cross-cultural understandings and see whether I should go for a career in cross-cultural communications. Also, it would be interesting to have an Asian traveller from a low-income country going around Europe without a scholarship or a rich family. I wish my experience could show more young Asians, particularly the less wealthy, that they can travel much more than they think and on their own terms. Borders are diminishing, but to cross that the first change need to start from people's mind