Culture Corner 20.0

Mini Report

Culture Corner is back! The much-awaited popular student activity has returned for this semester, continuing efforts of internationalization at home and social interaction through cultural activities.

Assoc. Prof Dr Mohd Ariffin Abu Hassan, the Manager (Student Experience), commenced the evening’s activities with the usual ice-breaking session over a cuppa. Students had a little chat before grouping for selfies to be posted on social media with the hashtags #utmculturecorner and #utmawesome. Regulars and newcomers turned up in full force, amounting to over 240 students from more than 24 countries! The students were divided into 12 different groups comprising students from different nationalities and degrees, and were tasked to choose a folktale from one country and write one word related to it from the many languages of the group members. It was an interesting and challenging task that coincided with this week’s theme: Fairy Tales. The activity provided an open platform for group members to communicate with one another and share stories from their various backgrounds., thus generating a fun and inclusive atmosphere as per the objectives of Culture Corner. Afterwards, Dr Ariffin selected a few groups at random to do a short presentation of their group’s fairy tale and associated word.

The evening was brought to the next level with performances from the representatives from Afghanistan, China, Indonesia, Somalia, and Sudan, where they exhibited their unique fairy tales titled “Katawazi”, “The Great Revival”, “Sangkuriang”, “The Story of Elephant and Silver Dik Dik”, and “The Hasty King”, respectively. The Malaysian team performance served as the climax of the evening. with an enchanting performance of “Puteri Sentubong & Puteri Sejinjang”. The performances were informative, engaging and carried valuable lessons that the students can take away and later apply in their daily lives.

To reward students who put in their utmost concentration and attentiveness, a session of Kahoot!, was then played. Always the adrenaline-inducing activity, students battled it out in a multiple choice quiz game online and the three best-scoring students are rewarded with gifts.

We even had a surprise performance by visitors from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education (HCMUTE), Vietnam where they performed a Vietnamese song "Green Urban by the Saigon River" which is about the history of Ho Chi Minh city.

The evening would be incomplete without a sing-along session with this week’s song being “Let It Go”, lead by Ms. Fasihah Jaslan, the Manager (Mobility) and a special appearance from Culture Corner vocalist Dr. Norzie.

A group photo marked the end of Culture Corner 20.0. As always, we wish that the bonds formed during the activity will last beyond the evening and we sincerely hope that the students gained a monumental experience from interacting with each other during sessions.

Self Reflection

Overall from the culture corner 20.0 experience, I've gained the the ability to adapt within a group with various ethnicity backgrounds and also enhanced the skills to communicate as a global citizen. Not only that, the activities were also great and I learned a lot of cultures of people from other parts of the world.