As interns from the SNU Diversity Council, we organized a carefree ‘Diversity Picnic’ event in an effort to bridge the gap and encourage interaction between SNU students from diverse backgrounds and nationalities. The event took place on May 3, 2019 and served as a small springtime celebration to mark the end of mid-term examinations by meeting new friends and exploring new cultures. A total of 14 students from different countries, including Bolivia, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Mongolia, Senegal, Thailand, and South Korea participated in the event.  

The event started off with each participant making a brief introduction about themselves. Then, we moved on to playing an icebreaker game called ‘Human Bingo’, where participants got to know each other better by looking for someone with specific characteristics. After that, we had the opportunity to learn about some fun fact of participants’ countries, through a quiz session with questions such as, “Which countryside is still having a nomad lifestyle?” (Mongolia), “Which country people love typical dances or folklore and have more than 50 different dances and attires for each of them, and it is mandatory to learn and dance in festivals every year in school since first grade?” (Bolivia), “Which country is so small that people can just walk from one end to the other end without a vehicle?” (Maldives), “Which country is a country of hospitality where free food is served when anyone pays a visit?” (Senegal), etc. 

Following up, participants had lunch together and mingled with each other. During the free-talk session, a participant from Senegal told us that in his culture, when you pass by someone, even if they are strangers, you are supposed to greet them. So when he first came to Korea and the person in the elevator did not greet him, he was shocked. Additionally, a participant from Thai told us that it is considered rude to touch a stranger’s head—the heads of a person or statue in Thailand are regarded as the most important part of the body. We capped off our event, with a game called “Sticky Note Shake-it-off”, where participants were asked to write down prejudices, discriminations or biases on sticky notes, and shake off as many as possible in one minute. In a nutshell, we were glad to be able to provide an interactive platform for students to learn more about each other’s cultures, as well as to respect and embrace the differences between them. We look forward to getting more insights and progress on diversity and inclusion.

글: Kong Zhi Teng (사회대)