I’ve written about my cultural exchange experiences in Beijing and at Minzu University before, but recently, I added something new to my roster: introducing my own culture to others. Recently, Minzu hosted a cultural exchange festival, where international students from around the world were invited to hold booths and present their own culture to the Chinese students. We had students from almost everywhere, with presentations all the way from Mexico to Nepal, France, the Ivory Coast, and much more. We have an amazingly diverse student body and it was amazing to see in action how different everyone’s cultures are. Being from America, I definitely felt out of place with such old and interesting cultures around me, but it takes all kinds, from thousands of years of history to about 250.
Unfortunately, I didn’t actually get to see much of the festival itself. Beyond the individual booths where students presented their cultures, gave out university-provided passport stamps and sold food, there were also plenty of cultural performances. Singing, sports, and dances anywhere from traditional to various modern pop styles were all performed. Sadly, or maybe happily though, the students were very interested in American culture, and I spent a full seven hours at my booth interacting with people. I do wish I’d gotten to see more, but I also think it was a valuable experience to get to meet so many of Minzu’s Chinese students and talk to them about the United States. I took photos (a LOT of photos), stamped passports, signed a lot of well wishes into said passport books, and much more. I also got the privilege of working with Canada since respectively, Canada and America only had one student each studying at Minzu, so we introduced North American culture together. We also ran a quiz for prizes on American and Canadian culture and history, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much everyone knew, and by how excited they were to know our silly little trivia questions.
While I didn’t personally get to experience much of the festival, I did get to ask some good friends about their experiences. Most people had a pretty similar experience to mine — lots of work, mostly, though some people also got to perform and explore. I had friends who sang, danced, or played instruments on stage: notably, there was even a group of Japanese students who performed some J-pop on their own side stage, costumes and all. The Turkish booth was as also incredibly popular, with students making shawarma and Turkish ice cream on-site. The Mexican booth was also popular, as well as the various African countries; Southern/Central American culture and African culture aren’t particularly popular or well-represented in China a lot in my experience, which thankfully meant there were actually a lot of Chinese students interested in further exploring those cultures and their histories. The French, Egyptian, and Saudi Arabian booths were also very popular for photo taking both for international students and Chinese students. Primarily, I think the best part of the experience was that everyone there felt appreciated for their culture in ways we often don’t. Everyone got to introduce a very integral part of themselves to a big audience who was respectful and genuinely curious and excited to meet them and learn about their background, and it made the event fun for everyone involved.
By Jane Turner, Spring 2026
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