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The feature story I wrote and edited for The Linfield Reivew last week is Layers of culture, Layers of learning. Edited my own story was kind of weird and afraid of seeing all the copy editing changes, but being a reporter and an editor at the same time let me realize that I still had a lot to say in the story. I felt bad I didn’t because of the deadline and missed one person to interview.
The idea of writing a story about students, who already had multicultural background before they studied abroad, has been came up long time ago. I was curious about their experiences so much. Even though I am an international student at Linfield College, the American culture is only my second “layer,” and they were experiencing the third one.
I was glad I got different answers from them during the interviews. I was glad they all learned from the experiences, as they were not simple and easy although they were already “multicultural.” And I was glad I felt their changes as similar as what happened on me before.
But I can tell the difference between us. They rather had as much fun as they can in a short period of time. It’s like those typical movies that emphasizes romance and exoticism. Well, one of the examples is Eat Pray Love, even though I really enjoyed watching this movie.
For me, the reality is more than that — how to survive in a foreign country. And I am still experiencing it. Plus the language barrier.
Twitter @JaffyXiao
