以下是引用cfc在2006-8-8 6:53:00的发言：This discussion brought up the concern mainstream society. I was going to post it on Businessweek MBA Blog, but it's a little sensitive, so I'll just post it here.
One of the everlasting topics discussed by immigrants is probably “get into the mainstream society”. But what is mainstream? Can we really get into the mainstream? Here’s my observation.
The 220 incoming Marshall MBA students are evenly divided into 3 cores, core A, B, and C. I’m in core C. To demonstrate their unique characters and spirits, each core chose a theme and wrapped itself up around it. Core C chose “pirates” as our theme. So we put on makeup as if it was a costume party. We made a 14-foot pirate ship, a banner, a treasure chest, and a princess’ chair. Each person wore an eye patch, some also wore beards, hooks, or wielded swords. Of course there were theme music and cheer songs. The whole thing was so much fun and I enjoyed it a lot. But here comes the subtleness: the Americans dominated the whole process. They came up with the choices of themes, they picked the costumes and other stuff, they edited the theme music, and they composed the cheer song. Naturally they took charge of organizing the whole thing. As I sat in the room, listening to the discussion, I clearly felt that this was not my turn. It was American culture, and I would feel lucky to be able to understand and participate in it. And then it comes the leadership style. In a situation like this that there are no designated leaders, there are always some Americans bold enough and loud enough to jump out and become the leaders. On the contrary, we Asians are just simply not this style. Then it was this black girl. She was so good at rhythm and cheerleading that she virtually became our spiritual leader. It was hard to believe that she was the same quiet girl sat next to me the other day, yet that’s American, ready to show off their talents at any time.
So this is the hardcore American culture, spirit, style, or whatever. The question is, can I become one of these people someday? My answer is: never. It’s just not my thing. I can act like Americans in many ways, sometimes I can even be more proactive than most Americans, but it’s not in my blood, I’m just “behaving like ” an American, but not “being” an American. And in terms of the culture thing, probably the best I can ever achieve is to understand it, but never expect to make it an integral part of my system.
Let’s go back to the issue of mainstream. As far as I understand, most people mean mid to upper class white society when they refer to the mainstream society. In this sense, I can surely say I will never truly get into the mainstream. Is it a bad thing? I would say no. The most important thing is knowing who you are and where is your best place in the structure, because that’s your competitive advantage over the others. And probably the most valuable thing an MBA can offer you is the many opportunities to realize who you are and where you should be.
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发表于 2006-8-12 14:26:00
