Looking Within
Reflecting on My Experience in IIC
By Xiaoyi Zhu, IIC grad student
Graduation date is approaching. It is a good time to look back and reflect upon my
experience at the University of Denver, as I am finishing up my master’s program in
International and Intercultural Communication (IIC).
People often ask me, “So, what is it?” when they first learn about IIC.
I always have a hard time trying to articulate my thoughts into one easy and quick
answer, but now I am confident saying that IIC is a self-discovery journey that I had the
honor to embark on three years ago.
When I took my first class in IIC, I read Peter Adler’s words: “the study of intercultural
communication begins as a journey into another culture and reality and ends as a journey
into one’s own culture.” I remember myself laughing at the idea of coming to the States
and ending up learning about my own culture.
Three years later, I find that I keep coming back to my own culture or culture groups, no
matter if it is in my research focuses, career choices, or personal interests.
At first, I resisted the idea of writing my papers on anything related to China. I wanted to
learn about other countries and culture groups by doing research and building up
arguments. “Isn’t that why I am here in the States, to learn about everything that I am not
familiar with already?” I thought to myself. I tried to write about undocumented
immigrants, women in politics, the transgender community, and the attitude towards
Muslim after 9/11. It almost felt like I made deliberate efforts to avoid writing something
that I thought I knew well or about which I had previous knowledge.
It was not until I wrote an article on feminism in China that I realized much more there
was to learn and discover about my home country—I was amazed. When human rights
issues are taboo in a society, it is surprising to learn about the huge and organized social
movements that are happening nationwide. It was then that I realized that before learning
and trying to connect to other cultures and groups I should understand my own.
At the same time, I became aware of a very strong emotional reaction, which was not the
same when doing research on other cultures and groups. That reaction is deeply rooted in
my belief that social changes need to start from within the community. There is an
emotional charge to writing about topics that I care about deeply and that could impact
me directly.
My journey of studying echoes Peter Alder’s words. It starts with the passion and
curiosity to look into another culture and reality, and ends with the motivation and
desire to understand my culture groups and myself.
(Note: The definition of culture in this article is beyond nationality. It also includes
age, gender, food, music, political views, religion, sexual orientation, and so on.)