Students from different Hua Ren (ethnic Chinese) communities congregated together in the C.K. Choi building to participate in open dialogue regarding the topic of “Bringing Democracy Home.”
The inspiration for this event actually stemmed from a Ubyssey article published two years ago.
With a subtitle of “Apathy, hostility, inability and fear: Why Chinese international students aren’t bringing Western politics back home,” the article raised and inspired many issues within and about community. The hosts, UBC Hua Dialogue, thought it would be of value to create a discussion around this.
Participating Chinese international students quickly realized that the question, “What does democracy mean to you?” first had to be answered in order to discuss what bringing it home entailed. But even beyond that, students realized perhaps the statement “Bringing Democracy Home” was flawed itself.
Some acknowledged that small, gradual steps towards the idea of democracy could benefit China and most agreed that this could not be achieved by starting a violent revolution.
Moving past the political spectrum, there was also discussion about the difficulty of forming meaningful friendships with non-Chinese international students.
“According to my own experience, I have several non-Chinese friends, but I can only have a meal and talk a little bit of study life with them,” said Lanita Zhuang, a first-year Sauder student who came to UBC from Shenzhen last September. “Because of different backgrounds, it's hard to share ideas, receive relevant responses and carry on the conversation.”
Some students agreed with the difficulty in breaking down this barrier, but others spoke from experience and said it was possible.
Parts of the event veered a bit off the tracks and delved headfirst into heated debates about the technicalities of politics and in-depth analyses of how the Chinese government was structured with people citing both the positives and the negatives of it. However, the success of UBC Hua Dialogue’s event was evident as a whole.
By 9:40 p.m., the event that was set to end at 9 p.m. still had not come to a full close. Dynamic conversations were still going on between students with something along the lines of, “Hey, I found your opinions really eye-opening, can I add you on Facebook?” interlaced into the exchanges.
Students expressed their appreciation for the event because it allowed for reflection of different conceptions of democracy and how they contributed to imposed assumptions.
As one student has added, “I think bringing democracy home should be about bringing the understanding; towards yourself, your home and your country.”
The importance of “home” was central to the open dialogue. Although whether or not students felt that Canada was also their home did not get discussed in detail, the fact that everyone was able to come together to speak vividly about issues directly related to their motherland was quite a positive feat.