Travel Trinket Tales
Culture, PhotographyPlanes, trains, and automobiles – spring break means travel. But as we return to the comfort of our campus we might forget that, for some, university in The United States is exotic adventure within itself. We wanted to take a moment to highlight those who have traveled far and wide to attend the College – William and Mary’s international community.
We asked three international students to share the stories of their culture through the trinkets they brought with them as reminders of home. Scroll down to see what students from Kazakhstan, China, and Mexico brought and the stories they shared.
MEXICo, Sebastian Duran de Huerta
“Life moves slower in Mexico and we spend more time on the simple things, for example it is completely normal to spend hours eating dinner with our families. American people work to pay the bills, constantly following so many rules. I think they forget to enjoy life.”
Kazakhstan, Leila Seitmuratova
“Because of our Soviet past and it’s immense influence my country, we don’t really share our culture with others – we kind of lost it. Since our independence we have tried going back to our roots – more and more people are speaking our native language now.”
CHINA, ZHUOWEI HUANG
“Red stands for liveliness, tied to the ideas of fire and warmth. We have something in Chinese culture called ren chi (人氣) – the dynamic energy that an individual brings. We are always trying to amplify our ren chi, I think that is why you see the color everywhere.”
