Place of birth: Chennai, formerly Madras, India
Chinese zodiac: Dragon
Greek zodiac: Libra
Favorite Quote: “You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.”—Gandhi
Favorite Book: “Portrait of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde
Favorite musicians: R.E.M., Karmacy, M.I.A
Favorite film: Slumdog Millionnaire
Hobbies: reading, writing, painting, traveling, camping, and people watching. I also like watching sports such as baseball, football, basketball, and tennis.
The best experience of my life: Spending time with my two wonderful children who are back in the U.S.
Q: Since you have already been in
Beijing for a while, how do you feel about the city? About the new teaching
life in ICB?
A: You could not find a more excited
person!! I have been teaching about globalization and cultural differences
particularly with respect to India and China for some 12 years now. To be in
Beijing and see these abstractions come to realization is indeed being part of
a dream. I will say more about the tensions that surround globalization later.
Suffice it to say that I feel honored to be part of ICB. I have met so many
interesting people and feel lucky to be part of such a community of kindred
spirits.
Q: How do you engage students in communication during class,
particularly in a course for non-major students?
A: The key is to motivate them to take pride
in their own tremendous capacities to communicate. I encourage my students to
be active, agents if you will, rather than passive subjects. While it is a
curve of sorts, I am confident that I am getting there.
Q: What do you think are
the most important attributes (top three attributes) of a professor who is teaching
in the intercultural context?
A: I have taught and researched intercultural
communication for the entirety of my graduate school years and subsequent to
that my life as an assistant professor and associate professor. Sensitivity,
empathy, and cultural literacy/competence are certainly three attributes that
come to mind.
Q: You had a lot of study and working experiences in several famous
universities in the United States. How do your experiences there compare to a Chinese
university? What differences you have found between the American and Chinese
campus?
A: American students are goal and
task-oriented as are American professors. Chinese students seem very
relational. They talk a lot amongst themselves which demonstrates that they are
engaged with one another and care about each other’s sensibilities. Beyond that
I find some patterns that are intriguing. Let me elaborate on my observations
because I do not want to make simplistic and essentialist statements about
different cultures. I taught at a private Catholic university as an assistant
professor. Students were go-getters, driven by the fact that their education
was not cheap. They had high expectations and would not settle for anything
less than an A. They kept me on my toes! I won an Outstanding New Teacher Award
and therefore felt I was doing something
right. J Then I taught at a public university where I earned tenure.
Students worked 2-3 jobs, some had families, all of this while doing everything
that was humanly possible to get a degree so that they could advance in their
careers. Ironically the students at this university were like students at ICB,
deferential. Yet they needed me to assign them many tasks, perhaps an extension
of the culture of productivity that has been so instrumental in shaping them.
Across the board my expectations remain consistent, that students gain a voice
and become eloquent communicators across vast expanses of difference.
Q: From your books and published articles, it seems that you are very
attracted by Asian culture. And you are teaching some communication courses
about diversity now. What is culture diversity in your mind? And how do you
express those culture similarities and differences in class?
A: Not a day goes by when I do not emphasize
difference and diversity. A world renowned postcolonial scholar makes a distinction
between cultural difference and diversity. I am exercising interpretive
license. Cultural differences is what we inherit, it is the air we breathe.
Cultural diversity is what we transmit. It is the spaces we construct around
this air. In other words, embracing and celebrating cultural differences along
the political axis of identity such as race, class, gender, sexuality, nationhood,
religion, and language, age, to name a few is the project of cultural
diversity. In my class on citizenship and social justice students are currently
in the process of interviewing different ways to be an effective citizen in
Beijing which will lead to a project on global citizenship. In my diversity
class students are interviewing members of different cultures/countries. This
is a very exciting time for me and I hope for my students as well.
Q: What one thing do you want your students to take away from their
educational experience?
A: Speak, speak, speak!
Q: What is your current research agenda? Have you involved your teaching
experience at ICB in your research?
A: Yes, very much so. I am conducting a research project on
the influence of globalization on youth identity from a postcolonial feminist
perspective. Is it pressure or pleasure? That is my research question. My
students filled out an inventory of the signs and symbols of Westernization in
their lives and the information is valuable. I also asked them to convey their
personal impressions and the impressions of their families. The answers are a
treasure-trove of insights.
Q: What does this practical experience in China provide for you in your later
research? How does it benefit your perspectives of Asian culture and
communication theory?
A: I am a
great believer in the power of India and China to bring a transformative energy
to the globe. I feel we can extract key ideas such as global guangxie and karma
if only in a sense of political consequence. Both India and China are in the
midst of some amazing transformations. Yet there are cautionary lessons to be
learned in terms of poverty, illiteracy,disease, violence, and environmental
degradation. If we can harness communication between these two countries
through our students, I am confident we can create global spaces of equity and
equilibrium.