nothing on campus but attend class and study. While researching Eastern, he says, he kept coming across the term “college town,” which brought to mind the quiet Saudi campus that was virtually unoccupied once classes ended for the day. Why would he want to live in such a place? “When I came here, I discovered a college town is totally
different than I thought,” he says with a grin. “My whole life I could spend at the campus. If I’m bored, I just get out and go to campus. I can always find something to do here.” “Something to do” is on Mortazh’s mind a lot
these days. His time in the United States has broadened his horizons and prompted him to think globally. He admires the organization Doctors Without Borders, and the fact that it was established by ordinary people. “They are helping
people all over the world,” he says. “I started thinking, why can’t I establish an organization in the future? I’m dreaming of starting an organization to help people regardless of their religion or culture or country. They’re people. They deserve to be helped.” Back home, he says, he had no
experience with people of different races or religions, so being exposed to a variety of cultures in the U.S. has made him think. “It made me like to explore that nobody is evil,” he says, “and that we are not the only right people in the whole world.”
Embracing English and Independence: Hiroki Tanabe Hiroki Tanabe is a 27-year-old EMU graduate student from
Osaka, Japan. He began studying English in first grade and took it right through high school, which sounds like good preparation for studying in the U.S. “It was horrible. I hated it,” he remembers. “After I graduated
high school, I could barely speak English at all.” He has since remedied that, thanks in part to a study-abroad
year in British Columbia. “I had to study English to survive in Canada,” he says with a laugh. While there, Hiroki took a year of ESL classes, mastering four
out of six levels by the time he returned to Japan. After studying for two years at Kansai Gaidai University, he came to Eastern as part of an exchange program, and is now at the opposite end of the English spectrum: he earned his undergraduate degree in linguistics, with a minor in TESOL – Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Since then, he’s been teaching English at the Japanese School of Detroit, where his own experience with the complexities of English language and culture undoubtedly benefits his students. “When I came here, I
knew, ‘How are you?’ ‘I’m fine.’ ‘How are you?’” he says. “But here there are so many expressions. ‘How’s it going?’ ‘What’s up?’ ‘What up, dog?’ It made me confused at first. Also, people say, ‘How are you?’ but they don’t care
about the answer.” Unlike some
international students, Hiroki was familiar with American
fast food chains and Starbucks, both ubiquitous in Japan. But 24-hour
commerce was new. “I was surprised Meijer is 24 hours,” he says.
“Who is coming to Meijer at 2 or 3 a.m.? They should close.” Social behavior was surprising at first, too. “On campus, there are so many couples
and they are kissing or hugging or holding hands in public,” he says. “I want to say ‘Get a room’ to them. In
30 Eastern | WINTER 2016
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