Met Students From Many Pacific Countries

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30629, 21 December 1964, Page 2

Met Students From Many Pacific Countries

In a period of study at the East-West Centre of the University of Hawaii Miss Lois Tucker, of Christchurch, gained a master’s degree in zoology and made friends with students who came from other Pacific countries.

Cultural exchange was as important as academic work at the centre, Miss Tucker said yesterday. The students had to balance the time put into their studies and the cultural exchange activities organised for groups from various countries.

The East-West Centre was established by the American Congress in co-operation with the University of Hawaii, to promote mutual understanding among the peoples of Asia, the Pacific and the United States. It now has about 600 students representing 27 different countries.

“It loses its whole significance if it is just treated as a boarding house," said Miss Tucker. Some students, particularly those who had language problems to overcome, spent more time on the academic side, but on the whole students made the best of their opportunities for getting to know other ethnic groups. “It's a wonderful place. Every day, just in the course

of ordinary conversation with Mother students, you can learn [something new, because they icome from so many different [countries,” she said. i There were Americans [learning Asian countries, and [Asians about America and [Asians were learning about [other Asians.

Representative Group • Students W’ere grouped into ! living units of 10, with as

many countries as possible represented in each group. Many were already graduates. Study was done primarily at the University of Hawaii, but extra-curricular activities such as field study tours either to America for Asians, or to Asia for Americans, and study seminars, were arranged by the centre. Miss Tucker, who studied marine biology, was able to visit 15 universities and laboratories in the United States. She is one of the first three of the nine New Zealanders who have gone to study at the centre. She left home almost two years ago. Miss Tucker hopes to eventually do medical research in the biochemical field. Asian Tour

Leaving Hawaii in midOctober, Miss Tucker visited the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia on her way home.

In every country she found friends with whom she had studied in Hawaii. “That is what is so good about the centre. I could never have seen all I did, or lived with and got to know the people, if I had not had friends among them,” she said.

She was able to travel to places tourists would never find alone, and using local transportation with her friends, she was right among the people. From her memories of the Philippines she recalled the town fiestas to which she was taken. Each town had a patron saint, and the fiesta day of each of these was an occasion for gathering and feasting, she said.

She also saw the ancient rice terraces of Benaue, in the northern Philippines, which were constructed by hand.

In Thailand she stayed in the old capital of Chengmai, in the north, near the Burmese border. There in the surrounding villages she was able to see the traditional skills of silk weaving and the making of lacquer work. In Chengmai she witnessed the “Loy Krathong”—the festival of lights. Thousands of small banana-leaf boats, each carrying a lighted candle, an incense stick and some kind of offering, were set afloat down the river as well as candle-lit floats that had previously been taken in procession through the city.