Campus hosts cultural activities for International Women's Week

By THERESA HOGUE

Gazette-Times reporter

Tomomi Kurosaki took up her calligraphy brush with a practiced and delicate hand, tracing the Japanese characters with smooth precision across a thin sheet of white paper.

Her calligraphy demonstration was one of the cultural activities available in the Memorial Union Lounge at Oregon State University on Friday as part of a celebration of International Women's Week.

Kurosaki has been a student in interior design at OSU for six months, after transferring from a university in Hawaii. Hawaii was Kurosaki's first taste of the United States.

"I thought this was America," she said of Hawaii. But when she moved to the mainland, she realized what she thought she knew about the United States was very different from what she'd experienced.

Her friend Koharu Okuya is also new to OSU, and is taking part in a one-year exchange program from her home university in Japan. Both women said they've found OSU to be a welcoming place, and that students are genuinely interested in learning about Japan. Through the OSU Japanese Student Association, the two have been able to share some of their culture with American students, through activities such as the ones at International Women's Day.

They've also had the opportunity to shatter some stereotypes Americans hold about Japan.

"They think we are so shy and conservative," Kurosaki said. "But we are not."

"Some students," Okuya laughed, "ask if there are still samurai in Japan."

Breaking through barriers of language, culture and preconceived notions is all part of celebrating International Women's Day. The event was co-sponsored by the President's Commission on the Status of Women at OSU, the OSU Women's Center, and the Office of International Education and Programs.

"We celebrate the achievements, social, political and otherwise, of women around the world," said Jackie Bangs of the Office of International Education. The purpose of Friday's event was to build a community of greater awareness around issues that face women across the world, Bangs said.

Several OSU students who had participated in study abroad programs spoke about their experiences living within another culture. Katie Allen, an OSU senior, spent a term in Italy, living with a host family and improving her Italian.

Not only did she learn about the importance of the family unit in Italian culture, but during her time studying, she made friends from around the world, who bonded over their shared struggles learning Italian.

"I have friends from Russia, Costa Rica and Poland," she said. "That was a great experience."

For more information on International Women's Week and the campus effort at creating dialogue around women's issues internationally, go to www.oregonstate.edu/groups/pcosw