What we could learn from cultural exchanges

Japanese university students at a recent cultural exchange program held in Sri Lanka

Japan is a country that is well known for its cultural habit of respect. This is the explanation given for the country boasting the cleanest public toilets in the world, often resembling or bettering washrooms in 5-star hotels in other countries. It is a nation known for an education sector that specialises in teaching smallest of children to take responsibility for their actions and perfecting each and every task they set about to do. This is seen in how this country has no caretakers for the canteens of most education centres, where the maintaining of the classrooms and schools are done entirely by the students.  

The children are taught though play activity authentic values of respect and most importantly learn to transform it to action in practical ways in their general life. It is a country where each second matters – where teams clean out trains in minutes with a perfection and speed which is astonishing at a global level. It is a country where one finds zero garbage – not even a scrap of paper in public roads and no garbage dumps. It is a nation where policy makers work for their voters and where creativity and innovation are excessively encouraged and often put to very practical use everywhere – where simple and unique solutions are found to make life a better experience. It is a country where knowledge and values are transformed into practice. 

Garbage dump transformation 

This writer was recently researching on Japanese contacts who may be interested in investing in garbage dump transformation in Sri Lanka. Meethotamulla and the large garbage dump in front of the Vavuniya University are two main points that need immediate attention in Sri Lanka, alongside many, many other spots right across the country, including the dump en route to Vaddukodai in Jaffna. While in the midst of researching the garbage disposal and recycling expertise of Japan, it was learnt that there was a team of university youth from Japan from academic streams such as economics who would be hosted at the Peradeniya University through its Social Reconciliation Centre (SRC). 

The visiting students and faculty were from the Kyoto Sangyo University (KSU) in Japan where the focus was on a general cultural exchange when they arrived in Kandy on 25 August. The Japanese students gave some very concise and impressionable presentations on the Q & A model relating to Japanese food and diverse other cultural details, including martial arts. A martial arts demonstration followed. 

The Sri Lankan student representatives of Peradeniya University went on at length about the cultural aspects of Sri Lanka and its recent and ancient history, alongside some lighter moments like a Bharatanatyam informal dance which ended up with all of the youth and even academics trying to copy some of the postures and movements, with much camaraderie and laughter. While this certainly helped to bring some humane connection and is important in cultural exchanges it would have been very useful if Sri Lankan academics and university students looked at asking some meaningful questions from the Japanese team as to their intense culture of cleanliness where one cannot find even a shred of plastic, let alone mounds of roadside garbage like in Sri Lanka. 

If the mission of universities in organising cultural exchange is to learn from each other and grow, it would need for Sri Lanka, which is literally drowning in garbage and repulsive nature of public washrooms (all of which are considered the norm), to really look at how young students have inculcated and internalised a totally different norm where each individual takes great pains not to harm another person by leaving clutter and an unhygienic condition in their use of public places.

It is interesting that even public officials in Sri Lanka whose job is to keep the city clean – do not research how other nations who have normalised ultra-cleanliness in cities manage it. A brief recent discussion with the Mayor of one of the touristic districts in Sri Lanka where no public washrooms are usable for anyone remotely valuing hygiene – showed an intriguing apathy shrouded in blaming all other officials except himself for the sorry condition of the city. 

What a cultural exchange should really mean

This forces us to seriously look at what a cultural exchange should really mean – especially when we have opportunity to meet citizens of a country such as Japan which is renowned at mystifying even Western countries with their pre occupation with spectacular cleanliness based national policies. This could be why countries which have normalised the garbage strewing in their cities do not get many Japanese tourists. And when Japanese nationals do visit, especially as a youth exchange some of the aspects that we could focus on could be to learn how their education system from baby days shapes their mindsets. 

If we do not focus on learning from these countries whenever we have an opportunity – and youth exchange visits are a major opportunity – we will forever be satisfied with surface level cultural exchanges. Of course many a Politician, Professor, Mayor, Governor and Commissioner would have travelled to countries such as Japan, Singapore, China and Korea where we can only sigh about how wonderfully the garbage is disposed and recycled and where cities are spotless.

At an academic level, it is no doubt the duty of all schools and universities to ponder on the practical use of what is being taught in their institutions. If ‘academic’ training is provided to a set of children and youth who are never taught how to responsibly use washrooms and who happily dispose of garbage in schools and universities in an unthinking, reckless and awful manner that no cleaner can respectfully clear them, it merits us to reflect on how countries like Japan mould children, youth and adults into a totally opposite direction. 

These children and youth do not randomly become respectful of others in actions such as cleanliness – they are systematically taught it by the system that is around them. Hence it is to our benefit if Sri Lankan universities organise more exchange visits with students from countries such as Japan, China, Singapore and Korea so that these exchange programmes will be ones we really can learn from and create respectful, hygienic, garbage free cities which is the most dire need of the moment for this country.