Collegiate Times

Newman Hall, just like any other dorm, contains barren brown hallways lined with decorated doorways leading to small, and frequently messy, rooms. Each door, like its counterparts in Lee or West A.J., has the typical dry-erase board with pictures of inhabitants and scribbled messages often displaying obscenities from the person who lives down the hall. Walking through Newman, each room indeed contains these typical college decorations, but instead of "Rob and Jon" on half-ripped paper footballs, names like "Rohan and Adhvith" are taped alongside the doorframe.

Newman Hall, similar to Hillcrest Hall, is program-oriented. Newman is designed for students, both international and non-international, to experience living in a cross-cultural setting. Imagine leaving home and traveling across the world to further your education. Friends and family are left behind and becoming accustomed to a familiar but different culture is a must. The food makes your stomach churn, and all you want is a home-cooked meal, but there?s a 10-hour time difference, so while you?re washing your face and getting ready for bed, your mom is sleepily turning on her hot shower, getting ready to start her day. Of course most students miss mom?s home cooking. For those of us who live in the United States, turkey and stuffing are only a car ride away. But for international students, a home cooked meal is a 20-hour plane ride away, with customs, visas and all the other restrictions governments are eager to put up between you and your family. Adhvith Dhuddu, a sophomore industrial systems engineering major originally from India, came to the U.S. in fall 2004, his freshman year.

"I came to the United States because I thought that the undergraduate program here is much more structured than it is in India. The amount of learning that takes place in the undergraduate program here, and the amount that we get grilled is much better than in India," he said.

Dhuddu, and roommate Rohan Mathur, a sophomore industrial systems engineering major whose family resides in Kuwait, continually offered refreshments and a very comfortable place to sit. Their courteous hospitality is extremely rare on a college campus. Extending warm hands and firm handshakes ? was this a business meeting? Oh wait, they?re practicing common courtesy, something our mothers taught us to do at a very early age.

Their room was very neat, displaying flags of their homelands. Dhuddu and Mathur came to the U.S. on five-year student visas. This type of visa allows them to earn their undergraduate degree and have one extra year to find a job before having to apply for a completely new and different visa.

Communicating with their families is not such a hardship as it has been in the past. Thanks to cell phones, e-mail and global communications, Mathur is able to talk to his parents every day. With a 10-hour time difference, this might seem like an impossible task, but in fact it works out for the best.

"(The time difference is) really good for me because when I?m done with my work, they are just getting up. Otherwise if we were on U.S. time our schedules would clash," Mathur said. Leaving family and friends was difficult, but it was something they were both willing to sacrifice. Both with siblings at home, they admitted that their younger brother and sister were eating up their absences, taking over their rooms and loving all of the parental attention.

"It was tough (leaving) but you have to let go of something if you want to gain something," Dhuddu said. Both Dhuddu and Mathur learned English as their first language. Their accents come from the way they learned to speak the language, similar to the southern twang found around campus. They find the different accents spoken by Americans one of the hardest things to become accustomed to.

They also admit that getting used to the food has been a bit difficult as well. While breadsticks and personal pan pizzas from Hokie Grill are a fine delicacy for most, for Dhuddu this is not the case. He is a vegetarian, and while Tech does offer numerous vegetarian options, it?s not quite the same as home.

"It?s a drastic change, because the vegetarian food we eat in India is very spicy and tasty, and here it?s pretty bland. It?s not that I don?t like the food, I love the food here, I really enjoy the change. I have some Indian food that?s packed in preservatives. If I miss the food we just go out to India Garden or to Roanoke to other Indian restaurants with some other good friends," Dhuddu said.

Dhuddu, wearing a black Nike hat, is from Bangalore, India, known as the "Silicon Valley of southeast Asia." Adjusting to a new culture was slightly difficult, but society is not much different there than it is here. Mathur, wearing a comfortable Gap hooded sweatshirt, expressed similar feelings.

"Kuwait is like typical America. Cut, copy, paste. It has the same stores, so for me it was not at all a difference," he said.

Ingrid Ngai, a freshman university studies major from Hong Kong, had a similar story. Her books were neatly stacked upon her desk, from biggest to smallest, the top appearing the size of a pocket dictionary. Ngai?s side of the room was spotless, with a neatly-made bed. Across the very distinguishable line that separated her side of the room from her roommate?s, was a very unkempt and chaotic Mt. Everest pile of items ranging from jeans to textbooks. This not-so-subtle hint gave away that Ngai?s roommate was obviously American. With a friendly hello, a very unexpected accent flew out of her mouth. Her appearance didn?t lend itself to being a Spice Girl, but her accent seemed almost British.

This August was the first time Ngai had ever been to the U.S., let alone Virginia Tech. She came overseas to earn a degree in industrial systems engineering. While her parents expect her to work hard, Ngai has her own agenda, too. "I really expect good grades for myself. I feel like this is what I should do, and as a student this is really the only thing you can do. A student should study and should get good grades. For their sake and my own sake I should study hard," she said.

The U.S. and Virginia Tech were a bit hard for Ngai to become accustomed to at first. Though Hong Kong has American restaurants like Ruby Tuesday?s, which she often frequented with her mom, Ngai isn?t used to the fattiness that makes American food American.

Keeping in touch with friends over MSN messenger and using web cams to see each other, Nagai giggled as she revealed that her friends seemed to notice a difference in the food she was eating.

"I thought I was going to be ok with food here, but I?ve found the food to be oily. I have contacts with friends on MSN and we talk on our web cams, they said ?Oh, you?ve seemed to gain some weight? and I said oh no!" In reality, Ngai is extremely slender, carrying a body many American women strive for.

She wears the clothes she brought over from Hong Kong, preferring them to clothing here. Thankful to have a family friend nearby, Ngai had quite the experience when purchasing a cell phone. She doesn?t have a car; in fact, she doesn?t even know how to drive. A friend took her to a cell phone store where she was confronted with a series of contracts that are foreign even to the savviest Americans.

"A plan, what is a plan? I had to sign all of these contracts and I recently found out we signed two years of contract. Oh my gosh, I still don?t know what?s going on," she explained.

Ngai admits that she is enjoying Tech and the U.S., but the first thing she?ll do when she goes home is get a perm. A perm? The huge frizzy hair often seen in music videos from the ?80s and early ?90s ? that perm? She explained most Asians have very hard, thick and straight hair. The perm in which Ngai is talking about is not like the ?80s nightmare we all know and love, this perm creates subtle, yet elegant ringlets throughout her hair. Americans must undergo extreme levels of heat and construction for their hair to appear like this. She said she merely went to a salon with her mom back in Hong Kong, pointed to a photograph in a magazine, said "I want my hair to look like this," and it was done.

Different cultures are fascinating to learn about and as technology advances, we can experience these cultures at a whole new level.

The Newman Hall world program is a great way to meet different people and become aware of their unique cultures. Students from Italy, India and Mexico can all be found living in this dorm. Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from these diligent and disciplined students ? it would certainly make our parents happier.