Besides the four scheduled dinners/brunches, residents in each language section also participate in weekly Conversation Hour activities that help improve linguistic and cultural fluency.

In addition to the target language/culture-centered dinners and weekly Conversation Hour activities, regular inter-section and house-wide programs are aimed at nurturing intellectual and social interests shared across the languages, fostering friendshp between sections, and promoting a stronger sense of community among all program participants.

Each language section is encouraged to take a trip once during the year to a major metropolitan area for cultural immersion purposes (theater performance, museum visit, noted speakers, etc.) or a more distant destination for a team research project.

Each language section is encouraged to take a trip once during the year to a major metropolitan area for cultural immersion purposes (theater performance, museum visit, noted speakers, etc.) or a more distant destination for a team research project.

Residents have often chosen an excursion in New York City, Washington D.C., or Montreal for these trips. For their Fall ’07 overnight trip to New York City, for example, the Japanese section visited Japan Society’s OHNY (openhousenewyork) exhibit which displayed the Japan Society’s building design by Junzo Yoshimura, New York’s first Japanese contemporary architect. They also visited Japanese bookstores, tasted ethnic foods, speaking Japanese all the time and enjoying a great bonding experience early in the year.

Interests in a variety of cultural and intellectual subjects have also taken our residents to destinations afar. In Spring of 2007, for instance, the German and Arabic sections traveled to Germany and Jordan respectively, each with their own research agendas.

The Arabic section embarked upon another ambitious trip Spring of 2008, this time to Dubai to study the “Emiratization” in the UAE. During their 9 day visit, residents interviewed students, professors, entrepreneurs, and workers. They also visited schools, universities, and local sites of cultural significance.

The Mandarin section’s research interest in ethnographically informed perspectives on the impact of the Olympics Games in China took the residents to Beijing in Spring of 2008. Trip participants designed a survey on the impact of infrastructure building, transportation, environment, and Olympics publicity. They conducted survey and interview research with a total of 62 Beijing University students and local residents visiting Olympics sites. They also visited sites of historical and cultural significance, and of course, savored a variety of “authentic” Chinese food.

In the same spring, the French section decided upon a trip to New Orleans. Their objectives were two-fold, to examine vestiges of French culture in the city’s language, food, and architecture; and secondly, to participate in the relief work being undertaken in the Lower 9th Ward: the neighborhood where the levies broke in 2005. Besides their work at the Low 9th Ward, the group also visited the French Quarter, the Garden District, and Tulane University. They interviewed Consul Général de France à la Nouvelle Orléans and chatted with locals over bignets.

When commenting on the “two worlds” of New Orleans, French section resident Makafui wrote: “These two different worlds provided us with a dual perspective of New Orleans: a place of history, life and vibrancy, as well as a place where the resiliency of the human spirit triumphs.”

Be it excursions, research projects, or volunteer work, the annual cultural trips provide Language House residents an opportunity to feel, touch, and be touched by life (and lives) near and far.