Beijing, China – It’s a warm spring Sunday morning in Beijing, China and the sun is showing some kindness to the hundreds of students gathered on the basketball court yard of the University of Science and Technology of Beijing.
Report by Alpha Daffae Senkpeni,[email protected]
The shade from the trees branches with blooming leaves dangle over several mini booths spread across the tidy pavement.
Each booth occupied by a group of foreign students from a particular country.
Everyone is ready to exhibit something about their native country at the university’s annual international students’ cultural festival.
Liberian Student, Filmore Wiagbe, smiles as he carefully explains to two young Asian students the recipe of a certain Liberian made snacks.
The two stood quizzically looking at Liberian from across a table. They giggle and then nod in attestation. One of them hesitantly bites what Wiagbe offers; the other looks on.
He gathers the taste with a twisting tongue maneuvering in his jaws, smiles, looks at the other and they burst into loud laughter.
It was a tasty bite and those who came after them got to love it. For the foreigners, it was indeed a rare cuisine.
Wiagbe had convinced the two Chinese students to get a taste of what Liberians call ‘paper kala’ – a certain kind of fried dough made of flour and it’s usually served with chilly paper sauce.
Convincing other non-Liberian students to get a taste of his country was a task he and his fellow Liberian students had taken on.
They wanted to showcase the culture of Africa’s oldest republic to other students from across different parts of the globe.
Just behind them was s sparkling Liberian flag glued on the wall. Another one waves on the side of the mini booth they were tucked in.
The most famous black and white portrait seen in many history books of Liberia’s first president, Joseph Jerkins Roberts, found a decent space next to the flag.
On the right side of the cardboard wall, the portrait of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf glitters.
Inside their cubicle several pictures with images about Liberia were also plastered on the wall. One shows the aerial view of Monrovia; the other shows newly built Boulevard hotel in Sinkor. Other pictures show some Liberian food. Their booth was the only using pictures to exhibit cultural effects.
Wiagbe, and his fellow Liberian students had a challenging task of promoting their culture to hundreds of other foreign students.
They had to make other students know their country’s uniqueness – that it is pretty different from other nationalities. Indeed it was a daunting task.
“The importance of this program is to tell the world that at the university of Science and technology, you have people from various destinations. People from different culture, different back ground,” Wiagbe said loudly, trying to avoid the music sound from the nearby booths from swallowing his voice.
Giving detail about the event, he picks his next words carefully.
“We come together on a particular day to show our country’s culture – the things we do in our respective countries.”
“We take this time to put our country on display for Chinese to see what we do in our country,” the young Liberian studying computer science said.
But all they had were the flag, photos of their presidents, a picture of pigmy hippos mainly found in Liberia and the “pepper-kala’ snacks to serve a guest willing to take a bite.
“When you look around you see the awareness from others, like the presence of artifacts from their country,” he moves his hands upward, keeping them halfway suspended.
“Things to show from their country are available,” he said, this time the frustration in his voice signaled on his face.
About a hundred feet opposite the Liberian booth was a group of ecstatic Mozambican students, displaying traditional masks, bracelets, and several other beautiful relics.
Their loud speakers were also showing superiority to the Liberians’.
Adjacent on the left of the Liberians’ booth, students from Madagascar were dressed in exotic culture attires, dazzling onlookers with their dance stunts. And on the other side, the Pakistanis showcasing some beautifully designed baskets and textiles.
Wiegbe and his comrades, Benjamin John Blamo and Gehnyea Y. Gbeanquoi, relied on their personal stipends to avoid the humiliation of not participating. But not having cultural relics or artifacts to put on display like the other nationals was beyond being their fault.
“So how do these guys get these things,” Wiegbo said pointing at the other booths.
“They get it from their diplomatic missions here in China. But for us it’s not like that, everything you see here today is provided by us,” he said without hesitation.
Flipping his left palm inside-out, Weigbo then points to their booth of pictures, and said – “We make available our own materials, while other foreign students go to their embassy to get artifacts, flags and to get things to show about their country.
For us, it’s like we have to do it on our own because our embassy cannot do it for us.”
Nevertheless, they are desperate to compete, eager to show their counterparts more about Liberia but are perturbed of showing that Liberia got rich history and prospects.
“People that come here might want to do future investment in Liberia and they cannot even read about Liberia – how is our investment climate like, how is our economy like and if people cannot read about it how will they gain interest in your country,” he spoke mildly with his eyes blinking like he was using them to plea.
With optimism, some students are keen on engaging the Liberia Embassy in Beijing to solve the disconnection and empower them become ambassadors of their own culture.
But others say the mission has little interest in these activities and often ignores invitations.
“We feel the embassy should somehow monitor her students, so by not doing it creates that kind of disconnect that divides the embassy from the students,” a bold face Martins Beyan said without a blink.
Beyan is a fan of the cultural festival; he had traveled from his own university campus to team up his compatriots. He’s the coordinator of Liberian students in Beijing and wants to monitor the activity.
He too has lived through this discomfiture for the past two years while studying in China and has become charily pessimistic about the embassy’s involvement.
“Many at times the (Liberian) students community invites the embassy to their meetings and other important programs but the embassy doesn’t show up and this has created a huge reluctance,” he said.
Meanwhile, Weigbo is joined by other Liberian students who have arrived from their respective campuses to help promote the culture exchange festival.
They soon realized the disparity between their booth and the others. They must hold up the mediocrity.
At the same time, the variety of exotic loud music continues making the atmosphere vibrant by the minute – every group inspires to showcase what they have.
The other foreign students knew nothing about the Liberians’ problem. They kept their dance moves intact, some in dissimilar traditional attires – each one representing a country from Africa, Asia or elsewhere in the world.
For them, this was an event to reduce the feeling of nostalgia, but for the Liberian students, it was another day to ponder an age old problem of remaining out-of-touch with the values that bind people together.