I’m Kezia from Bangalore, India! When I heard about this program I jumped at it, a chance to get to know more people from completely different backgrounds, cultures and values? YES of course, there was no way I was missing out on some socializing during the lockdown in India. I went expecting at least 1 more Indian but happened to be the first and only one. I got special attention Ooof! that was even cooler. All that aside, it was a really lovely experience and I got to meet people from all over!

There were people from Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Hong Kong. We were around 30 people overall and each of us had small groups that we’d meet in breakout rooms. In my group I had a facilitator and 5 girls who were from Korea, Japan and Indonesia, all of whom were really cute, sweet, excited, smart people.

It was so refreshing to see people so happy and excited about the littlest things like how I have 2 dogs or small things about the Indian culture. They were not the only people surprised at some things…I found out that Koreans have a different age system and I found that quite fascinating for some reason, among other things like how tea is a huge part of the Japanese culture and they have tea clubs that teach them all the etiquette and what not, which excited me so much because I absolutely love tea! I also saw some beautiful places in Indonesia and the schools in Korea through the vlogs that we all made during the program, each week we watched the vlogs of two people on any topic based on their culture eg. Food, School, Covid rules, Home Life, Hot Spots etc. 

I got to see a lot of East Asia and their culture and I loved it! I desperately want to go visit all these places and meet all these lovely people and hopefully one day I will! This is something I would definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys being with people and learning about things outside of your own culture. I got to see how similar and yet polar opposite some of our cultures are. I’m honored to have had the opportunity to be a part of this and would definitely want to go again!