Students present ideas for multicultural communities

About 60 university students from 15 countries are in the city this week to present their research findings on how to create a better multi-cultural neighborhood in Shanghai.

About 60 university students from 15 countries are in the city this week to present their research findings on how to create a better multi-cultural neighborhood in Shanghai. It's part of the 2014 Youth Innovation Competition on Global Governance, a joint project of Fudan University and the United Nations Development Program since 2007. 

The 14 teams of students come from all over the world - big countries like the United States, Japan, and Australia, and smaller ones like Rumania, Estonia and Albania. Their challenge was to imagine that they were living in a multi-cultural neighborhood and answer the question - what would do you to make this neighborhood a lively community?

Peng Bo and his teammates are sophomores at Fudan University. The team decided to focus on food, which the members say can help make inter-cultural communication more efficient. The team created a website called "Food Wiki" that uses geographical ways of showing the appetites of countries and regions, as well as ranking food imports and exports.

"Our statistics are mainly based on the website of the United Nations' World Food Program. We also turned to various translation tools. There remain problems - the clash of global mass culture like Coca-Cola and McDonald's may subvert other kinds of food culture. So we hope that our website can do some favors." Peng Bo, Student of Fudan Uni. said.

Another team from Australia was trying to re-create a definition of culture that was much more focused on individuals, experiences and identity. One member says the idea was based on the team members' own experiences.

"For example, what the Oxford Dictionary has to say about communication and what other sources have to say and why maybe that didn't seem like it explains enough." Gabrielle Davis, Student of University of Queensland, said, "We both have a lot of experiences. You can't understand the culture behind that person. And you can still yet manage to communicate, and it's about an individual basis rather than what group you're from."

"How curious are the students to look for change that's possible when we talk about culture? Culture is nothing static. Culture is something that is being molded, that changes over the course of history, and also when people interact. This is what the students are supposed to do. They shall actually stimulate thinking and answers." Sebastian Bersick, competition judge said.

This week, judges are hearing the students' presentations, and the top two proposals will become the main issues in a world cafe-style discussion. The final result will be announced on July 11th.

Organizers say the event is aimed at encouraging future cooperation in tackling regional economic and environmental problems, as well as the imbalance between the countryside and cities.