Spot On: International Flair

Yoko Kawakami 
Senior; Fukuoka, Japan
Bachelor's in business administration
 

Everything's bigger in Texas, Baylor and the United States in general for Yoko Kawakami. 
Her life in Fukuoka, Japan's eighth largest city (population: 1.3 million), meant getting used to tight spaces, none of the open spaces of Waco (population: 0.113 million).
"Japan was so small. Texas is so huge," Kawakami says.
Even beverages are bigger. 
"In Japan the drinks are so small. The small size here is large."
The only problem: "I cannot see one mountain." Mountains and oceans surround Kawakami's hometown, 
and both are conspicuously absent from Waco.
Kawakami discovered Baylor through her university's exchange program. A friend told her, "Baylor is famous for its business school."
She arrived in August 2005, returned home in May 2006, and hopes to work for an international company.
Kawakami says employment in Japan has more to do with the person than the education.
"Majors are not so important in Japan," Kawakami says. "Personality is important."
People in the United States are "very aggressive," she says. "Everyone talks in class, but no one talks in Japan."
Her friend from the exchange program told her of another Baylor student quality: friendliness.
Polite smiles and conversations surprised her, because, with the exception of rural areas, people address only friends in Japan.
"People in the United States are very friendly. Everyone gives me smiles."
 

Isaac Casal 
Graduate student;
Panama City, Panama
Master's in cello performance
 

Isaac Casal misses everything about his native Panama.
"I miss my city, my flowers, my house, my river. It's who I am," Casal says.
Yet his longing for home doesn't keep him from appreciating travel and the beauty in other cultures. As a cellist who has traveled the world with orchestras and other performers, he enjoys his journeys and cultural discoveries. He laments that not all appreciate what lies beyond their borders.
"Someone said they didn't need to see the Great Wall of China. How can you say something like that? It's so beautiful," Casal says. "It's hard to step out ... and see what's outside."
Casal likes to use his music to promote unity and cross-cultural understanding.
He was a member of the orchestra at a concert in Peru, as hundreds of people waited outside because there was no more room in the building. The orchestra played again for those who had waited.
"We saw hundreds of people, and by the end they were crying because they had never heard anyone play with so much love," Casal says. "We play for hope, to bring happiness."
Casal came to Baylor because of Gary Hardie, an instrumental studies professor, who had coached his cello section at a concert in Costa Rica. Years after the concert, the professor ran into Casal at an orchestra performance in College Station and invited him to study at Baylor.
Now Casal continues his cello performance career by playing in a duet with a fellow Panamanian on piano.
In the summers, when Casal is not touring with orchestras in the United States, he is offering free cello workshops and performing at festivals in Panama, all to give the opportunity of learning music to those who could not otherwise afford it.
"I promised I would go to help my country," Casal says. "Some of my talent is there to be given back. The more I perform, the more I can help."
 

Yilin "Elaine" Pan
Junior; Beijing, China
Bachelor's in English
 

Yilin "Elaine" Pan has been immersed in novelty ever since she arrived at Baylor.
For example, she has been collecting Lariat newspapers as examples of campus media for her student-newspaper staff in Beijing, China's, Tsinghua University, and she constantly takes pictures to show online to her family.
"I had several choices such as Heidelberg in Germany, Copenhagen in Denmark and several universities in Hong Kong, and I happened to know a girl who came to Baylor University two years ago. She showed me her scrapbook about life in the United States, and I made my decision that moment to go to Baylor."
Pan, who returned to China in May, learned from exposure as much about the English language (she took classes in political science, history and English) as she did about American culture.
American manners, for instance, have impressed her.
"'Ladies first' is something special to me," Pan says, "In China, it's always the elderly first."
Pan recalled going to a Chinese restaurant in the United States with an American professor and his family. The professor opened the door for Pan, but Pan didn't want to go in before him. Although the professor suggested that their location in the United States made it appropriate for her to enter first, Pan refused; it was a Chinese restaurant, after all.
And although Pan has clarified misconceptions regarding communism for people in the United States (she says government practices are generally accepted in China, and that no one has ever abducted her neighbors as some believe commonly happens), she has also cleared up some of her own misconceptions. 
"I love watching 'Friends' and I thought that's how the United States is," Pan says.
She thought the United States would be too individualistic.
"Why did I come to the conclusion that family members in the U.S. are not so intimate after hearing that Americans usually move out of the family [home] after they are 18? When I came here I saw that they just love their families in different ways," she says.
Her friendships in the United States, in China and in groups of other international students have encouraged her to believe that "people are more alike than different; we just express ourselves in different ways."
 

David Sikolia 
Graduate student; Nairobi, Kenya
Master's in information systems
 

David Sikolia believes that "in the future, all economies will be based on technology." 
That's why he wants to return to his native country after earning a doctorate, so he can teach what he learns.
"I like technology and playing around with technical stuff," Sikolia says. "I also feel the need in Africa for people who are specialized in that area."
His family members, all of whom live in Kenya, are technologically savvy as well. Sikolia communicates with his mother on the phone, his brother through e-mail and his sister through text messaging. He also hears of news from home by reading two Kenyan newspapers online.
Sikolia, who graduated in August, chose Baylor mostly for its religious heritage. A missionary friend who taught at a school in Nairobi recommended Baylor when he learned that Sikolia was "interested in doing graduate work, not at any school, but a Christian school."
Baylor has maintained its identity as a Christian university, Sikolia says. "I wanted that experience."
Among the things that Sikolia loves about Baylor is its locale, which provides a familiar climate.
"...I'm from Africa where it's...not freezing cold, so that was very attractive," Sikolia says.
But Kenya isn't too hot.
"People assume [Kenya] is on the equator. They think it must be 150 degrees," Sikolia says. "I have to explain to people that it's not that hot."
Sikolia also enjoys the religious climate of the South as well.
"I also had heard about this being the Bible Belt," Sikolia says. "And I wanted to be in an environment where Christianity is respected."