Cross cultural education in the context of globalization is a huge topic and I don`t think I am able to address this issue from a very macro level. I will leave this tough job to the two presidents when they make their remarks. Here I am just going to share some of my thoughts from my personal experiences here at PKU teaching a course which can be considered part of cross cultural education.

I am currently teaching a course entitled `Introduction to Chinese Economy` in the PKU-Yale Joint Undergraduate Program. I often ask myself the question, what is the difference between I teaching Chinese Economy at PKU and a Yale professor teaching the same course to the Yale students back in New Haven? Or, in other words, what can the Yale students gain by taking a course like this at Peking University? After all, there is only one science called the economic science. Should there be any difference? If so, what is it?

As I moved along, I realized that the course contents I am teaching probably are not that different from what a Yale professor would teach. Of course, I believe there must be many Yale professors who are more knowledgeable and more experienced than I and can do a better job delivering the economic ideas. But just concerning the contents, maybe the difference would be small.

Then what is the key difference for the students? I think the answer probably is not about WHAT the students learn, but HOW they learn. As a discipline under the general category of social sciences, economics ultimately is about human behaviors. In particular, we study people or organizations` optimal choices under economic and social constraints. Studying at PKU, or more generally in China, allows the students to see, hear and feel by themselves the power of economic principles at work in a vibrant environment of economic growth. Comparative advantage, incentives mechanisms, uneven income distribution, foreign direct investment...all these abstract concepts become real when the students can see what`s going on in China through their own eyes every day and through their interactions with Chinese students and other Chinese citizens they met. Such experiences make a difference. Therefore, I think the key advantage of cross cultural education is the format itself.

However, education cross culture is not without challenges. Probably the most obvious challenge lies in language barriers. Although all courses, except the Chinese language course, in our joint program are currently taught in English, knowledge of Chinese is still essential to have a real understanding of the implications of some of the course materials, especially when students need to access materials or data that are only available in Chinese texts. Also, for Chinese students to grasp the economic ideas in English can be a challenge as well. Great efforts have to be exerted by both groups of students to realize the benefits of cross cultural education.

Another challenge is the mixed cultural background of the student body. While a mixed student body is a key feature and an advantage of cross cultural education, it does impose some practical difficulties to both the instructors and the students. This means that for some particular issues, students from different culture would have very different levels of understanding and this is especially true for subjects in social sciences and humanities. This requires the instructors to be creative in and outside of the classroom to accommodate the students` different needs. One example is the discussion of the reform of Chinese state-owned enterprises in my class. While many Chinese students have been exposed to this topic either in courses that they previously took or from public media which covers this issue a lot, most American students are not familiar with the idea of SOEs. How to teach this topic in a way that is interesting to both the Chinese and the American students is a question. Therefore, I decided that discussions among the students themselves, between the Chinese and the American students, probably should play a bigger role in the teaching process. Also, references to relevant American examples that are related to the issues under discussion will help the American students to understand the economic concepts while at the same time deepening Chinese students’ understanding of the same issue. I believe other professors in this program have also encountered this issue, for example, in the course of western arts.

A third challenge of cross cultural education is that students and faculty of our two universities are from two countries with very different institutions. Many things in China do not work in the same way as they do in the United States. Students may feel frustrated when things are not as what they expected. Such frustration may discourage their educational pursuit in China.

At the same time, we should recognize that institutions are also endogenous. They are the result of a historical and social evolution that has lasted for decades or even centuries. To lead the students to think about these differences in institutions and their implications can be an important aspect of this educational process. This means that cross cultural education is not limited to the classroom. We also need to help the students turn their daily experiences to valuable learning experiences.

I am very glad a current student of mine decided to take the topic of Chinese College Entrance Examination, or called Gao Kao in China, as the topic for her final paper in this course. Gao Kao is a special type of institution in China that is closely related to higher education. I am glad that this student is able to identify a very interesting topic from her interactions with her Chinese roommate and then pursue it from an economic perspective by evaluating the efficiency implications of such an institution. And I am looking forward to reading her results.

To sum up, cross cultural education is valuable as well as full of challenges. However, these challenges should not stop us from pursuing it. As a matter of fact, to some extent, it is the challenges that would make the educational process interesting and valuable. And overcoming such challenges will contribute positively to the progress of globalization.