The first meeting with our virtual exchange partners was, as expected, for introductory purposes. However, with introductions being very important (especially with those in both a virtual setting and living abroad), the time was used to highlight the similarities and differences between our homes.
With two of the members in my group being from Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania and Bowie, Maryland respectively there were more similarities than differences, as I have lived in Carlisle, Pennsylvania for 18 years now. However, what may seem extraordinary is that this trend continued between our two virtual exchange partners from Dubai, UAE and Sharjah, UAE.
As we talked, we centered our conversation on the cultural and environmental aspects of our homes.
As described by our exchange partners, life within the emirates of the UAE seemed hardly different to that of the US. Having to choose between the descriptions would be almost impossible, with the only potential giveaway being the lack of rainfall for UAE citizens and the close proximity of neighboring emirates.
This discovery was followed with talk about the diversity and tolerance of our homes. With the US being proud of its wide range of cultures, it was very interesting to hear that the UAE had a very similar mindset with its own people and consisted of a very large population of immigrants despite having a vastly different governmental structure.
The only notable differences between our homes were the government structure and size of the country. With the US being a proud democratic republic, it was interesting to learn that the governmental structure of the UAE, which was created as coalition between each emirate, had created such a large diversity in their population with few democratic principles. It was also very interesting to once again learn how large the United States really is. Compared to the UAE, travelling within the US sounds almost illogical. Given their descriptions, Sharjah and Dubai are quite urban, unlike my home and that of my classmates which were outside of an urban area at most. The traffic within the main population centers in the UAE were comparable to that of major US cities like New York City. Something that only our classmate from Bowie, Maryland had comprehension of being outside Washington DC.
2 responses to “Meeting With Our Friends in Sharjah for the First Time”
Thank you, Ashlan, for interesting blog. I do agree that introductions are very important especially for creating more cooperative and less stressful environments for us students to work together better and finding similarities between each other even increases that less stressful environment and gives us more conversation.
As we continued conversation and kept realizing the similarities between our lives even though we live way far from each other was very nice to learn and I think that shows that despite some differences in location or language we can actually have more things like each other as I also talked about the action of acceptance being important in my blog instead of people just giving up on each other just because they don’t share the same backgrounds.
One of the most surprising things I keep learning about the US is the amount of time people need to be in a car or a plane to reach other states since the longest time I had to be in a car was three hours to drive to a desert in Abu Dhabi from Dubai.
Thanks for the nice comment. Given enough time, I think people slowly understand that there are actually few differences between diverse peoples. Viewing only what’s on the surface does not always allow people to fully understand that we are all people and all share similar interests despite our different cultural backgrounds.