A Culture Mirror

Catalan people’s pride towards their culture is far more passionate than I imagined. The 3-day orientation at UPC Campus Nord is a perfect demonstration for their pride. The orientation was like a Catalan 101 with total of 6 hours of Catalan language and 4 hours of culture background.  I haven’t seen any school doing such organized event for the foreign students. UPC turned a boring welcoming event into a meaningful culture exchange. Throughout the lecture our professor Roger did a fantastic job introducing Catalan traditions. Perhaps this is something Taiwanese could learn from since the preservation of our very own culture is fading away from generation to generation. During September 11th, their National Holiday, people show their pride and perform tradition dance ‘Ball de Bastons’ and the world-wide famous human tower ‘castell’.

For people to accept your culture, you need to recognize it yourself first.