international

Cathy Sun, an undeclared freshman at the Whitman School of Management, was born in Guangzhou, China, and moved to Shanghai when she was 3 years old. But Sun wasn’t exactly raised in the Chinese culture. She spent most of her life growing up in northern Germany, where the family relocated because of her father’s job.

When Sun thinks of home, she remembers both China and Germany. Shanghai is home to her family, her friends and her mother’s home-cooked meals. She remembers China for the people, she says, but Germany was her childhood.

Ioana Emy Matesan’s first US experience didn’t prepare her for her second one. From the big city of San Francisco, to the country town of Monmouth, Ill., Matesan was shocked when she arrived for her freshman year of college at Monmouth College.

“It was like a farm town. The college was in the middle of nowhere. I was only used to the big cities in the US. That was the biggest culture shock,” Matesan said.

Before coming to college, Rose Aschebrock’s only experience in the United States was a layover on her flight to England.

During the few hours Aschebrock spent stranded in LAX, the teenage New Zealander quickly noticed American sporting culture ­­— a spirited phenomenon unfamiliar to her native country.

Aschebrock had all but forgotten the competitive sports rivalries she’d witnessed on TV, in apparel and during conversations in America, until she began thinking about a secondary education.

“Are there more males or more females in the world today?” New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof polls the audience at the beginning of his lecture. “Males?” A few tentative hands go up. “Females?” Most of the attendees in a packed-to-the-ceiling Hendricks Chapel raise their hands.

The answer is men. But Kristof’s answer to the world’s troubles is women.