TILIP plans international symposium in Hong Kong next year

Despite a lingering threat of SARS, the Tufts Institute for Leadership and International Prospective (TILIP), will continue its Chinese cultural exchange.

Now in its sixth year, the TILIP program intensively explores multidisciplinary international issues from a Chinese perspective.

Stage one of the program typically takes place in China, where 26 students, 13 from Tufts and 13 from China, take internships in Hong Kong for six weeks. Stage two occurs during wintertime, when Chinese students travel to the United States for three days of lecture and debate held at Tufts.

The 2003-2004 TILIP participants were announced in February, around the time when the SARS epidemic began to cast "a shadow of a doubt" on the program's security, program director Sherman Teichman said.

"In March... the threat was more eminent" says Vera Yip, Director of the Hong Kong TILIP program at Hong Kong University. "At HKU, classes were suspended, cyberspace learning was set up. Students were allowed to remain in the dormitory if they chose to. All the buildings were sanitized with diluted chlorine at least three times a day."

After careful consideration, Tufts staff decided to relocate the summer program to New York City and host the winter events in Hong Kong.

There were some concerns about the effect of the move.

"The Tufts students would miss out on the culture exchange of the work environment and community. Though the exchange with the Chinese students would remain the same, the cost to operate the program would increase, [and the difficulty of] securing enough internships for the students," said Yip.

"We had to be cautious, but wanted not to do what many other institutions did, which was turn off the lights" said Teichman. "Though under duress, it was exhilarating after a while. We like scoring on busted plays. We like making things happen."

The threat of SARS still remains, but the winter symposium has been timed to try to avoid the cycle of the disease. The upcoming event "is predicated on SARS," says Teichman, "But uncertainty is the nature of life".

"We were kind of bummed out that we didn't get to go to Hong Kong," says Raja Taunk, a senior who participated in this summer's internship exchange. "You missed out on immersing yourself in the culture. But it actually worked out quite well."

"The Chinese students were so much more excited [than we were] about mundane parts of American culture," recalls Angela Lee, another senior and 2003 TILIP participant. "They stopped and were mesmerized by street performers and baseball games."

Lee interned with the Asia Society, an organization that works to educate Americans about Asian cultures. With her Chinese partner, Lee worked on a proposal to establish international urban high schools with an interdisciplinary Asian focus.

Taunk worked for American Express in the global business partnerships area, benchmarking and developing a screensaver for use inside the company. "Very few of the internships were actually Asian-related," says Lee, "but you were paired with an Asian partner that you worked with in a business setting, getting a different perspective on how they see the world."

The TILIP students also hosted a speaker series which included Tufts alumnus and real estate entrepreneur Charles S. Cohen and Dr. Abiodun Williams, Director for Strategic Planning in the UN Office of the Secretary General.

"Our perceptions of events taking place in China, largely created by the US media, were many times contradictory to the opinion of the Chinese students," TILIP senior Meena Sharma said. "The Chinese perception of America and reactions to what they saw and heard while here was also interesting."

The 26 TILIP students are preparing for the international symposium to be held in Hong Kong, a collaborative effort to develop the questions of debate and discussion of China's role in the world.

The continuing connection with their Chinese peers "went beyond work-related stuff," said Taunk. "We knew what's going on in each others' lives."

"Students are participating, not only in cross-cultural exchange, but are building relationships," Assistant Director of TILIP Heather Barry said. "We're seeing future international leaders."