Tag: study abroad

[13-22] Then going into Christmas break was pretty good. Then January term I didn’t take any engineering classes. I went abroad and that was one of the highlights of my life. It was amazing. It just so happened that two of my fellow engineering students, junior engineering students, were also on that trip. And we got to talk to engineers about their hopes and dreams for that country. So, it was really interesting to be able to apply some of the engineering stuff that I learned abroad. We didn’t get to do a whole lot. Also, in their culture was that women are not allowed to do these kinds of role, engineering type of roles. So, I wasn’t allowed to do much but I was still able to watch. It was pretty interesting.

[209-221] In their culture, when the youngest son gets married, his wife moves in and she is in charge of taking care of the in-laws, hand and foot type, bowing to them sometimes, until they pass away. And that takes out a number of the women, which means they cannot do anything. But I mean they’re literally just cooking and taking care of children all the time. Of course, they have many children in their families usually, so that’s not all the women. But in general, women do all of the cooking and cleaning and housework, but at the same time they don’t mean it to be demeaning. They just think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. You’re not required to wear skirts or anything like that, but one of their other cultural things is the youngest woman is in charge of pouring the tea for everyone. And they drink a lot of tea and their meals lasts for four hours. And so if you have meal prep of one to two hours and then a meal that lasts three to four hours and you do that two times a day, that basically fills up all of your time. So, there’s not as much room for women to pursue careers aside from taking care of their household.

[222-227] But they were impressed, I guess they were impressed that I was an engineer. Then again, they think and most of the children specifically don’t really understand that America is just a country. They kind of feel like it’s this magical place. And I showed them pictures, so I’m like, “Literally your city looks like my city. Your city actually looks cooler than my city I live in. I don’t even live in a big city.” So, they were kind of confused when I would talk about the things that I would make with my male engineering cohorts.

[228-247] However, I think I found a couple women who are in computer science, but I didn’t find any studying engineering. They talked about learning programming in their high school. But when I talked to them about what they were going to do after that they’re like, “Oh well I’m going to be a parent and I’m going to do…” Which I mean, I plan on being a parent too, so I understand that. But they didn’t really think about technology at all in their future. They think that you just go to school, you get this degree for honor, for respect, and then you don’t really do anything with it.

I didn’t meet anyone who has graduated from college, any women in technology. Most of the college students I was talking with couldn’t speak super well. So it’s hard to have deeper conversations about about how they felt their role was as a woman in their culture. Because it’s such an honor, shame culture. They don’t feel any shame about the way they’re being treated. And honestly it didn’t feel degrading at all. It’s like you are praised for doing the stuff that you do. Just like the guys are praised for being mechanics and all of that. It’s a very loving place. They like their roles and they don’t really want to change. While I was abroad, they said, “Hey just make sure you’re aware. Do not try to do any manual labor because you are not allowed.” And I was coming in with a fight or flight instinct. “I’m going to prove that I’m capable.” And then I get there, it didn’t feel mean at all. They were thrilled that I could pour tea or they were thrilled that I could do anything.

[248-256] Also, I talked to some male engineers and they were […]. I guess women don’t usually talk to men, you’re not supposed to make eye contact otherwise it’s considered flirty. I had to be careful with that, because when I would talk to male engineering students, they were getting the wrong idea about, because there was one of the three engineers was a guy. So, the other two of us were women. And so both of us we are trying to have to kind of balance that with having conversations while not conveying the wrong idea. This is purely a technical conversation, this is not meant to be, I’m flirting with you or something like that. But they didn’t seem ashamed of the fact that we were engineers. They were mostly just impressed because it was unheard of.