As a rule I try not to think about the university on a Saturday. But this week was different. I drove in at 7 p.m. and drove home again shortly before midnight, after one of the best evenings of the year. During the evening I spoke to people from Brunei, Bulgaria, China, Germany, Jordan, Pakistan, Somalia, South Africa and many other places. I watched performers from Mexico, the Caribbean, East Africa, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Malaysia, Romania, Greece, Cyprus, Sriu Lanka and India, among others. At one point during the evening an academic colleague enthused to me that this was the first time he had ever been to the event, and that it ought to be a 'must attend' for everyone.
In fact the International Students' Cultural Evening is one of the hidden gems of the university calendar. This was perhaps my sixth attendance but in that time I have not seen more than a handful of colleagues from academic departments present, a slightly larger number from professional services (principally Student Services) and only a couple of other colleageus from UEB (the Vice-Chancellor goes when he can, but he is currently in China). I strongly recommend the evening for those who have never been.
What it consist of is a series of performances by various national societies from around the university - performances mostly of dance but with some short plays, a little singing, and a great deal of exuberance. There is a competitive element in that there are judges (I did not stay for the announcement, which usually doesn't happen until well after midnight). Most of the societies are principally composed of students from the relevant countries, but there are a good number of others involved - indeed the Japanese Society, in perfoming a Japanese fishermen's dance, appeared to be almost entirely composed of Europeans.
I believe very strongly in the power of shared education to bring people from diverse backgrounds together, and one of the great privileges of working in a university is watching this happen - and in some ways facilitating it. I can think of no other job where I could get to shake the hands of people from every continent in the course of an hour - as I do when presiding at some of our degree ceremonies. Tonight I watched 16 teams of student performers from all round the world demonstrating something of their traditional culture - generally with adaptations to bring it up to date (hip hop music now seems to permeate everywhere to some extent). The poise, the self-confidence, the attitude and the skill of many of the hundreds of performers must surely be valuable attributes for them for their futures. But tonight was fun, enlivening, and uplifting. How some of the students bring their costumes from home beats me - the dresses of the Kazakh and Mexican dancers must each fill a suitcase for example.
As a social scientist I have touched on issues of identity in my research. One reflection on the evening is to wonder what a group of English students, called on to contribute a similar cultural experience in a foreign university, would choose to do. Morris dancing? We in England (I'm using that term very deliberately) have a very confused idea of our identity. I remember attending a conference in Vienna in the 1980s shortly before the end of communism in Eastern Europe (and because Austria's neutrality was guaranteed by the four powers colleagues from behind the Iron Curtain were allowed to join the meeting). We were taken one evening for a meal and social in a Gasthaus in Heiligenstadt and our Austrian hosts called on those from each country present to sing a song. It all went smoothly (and at high quality) until it came to the English. There was no song that we all knew the words for more than one verse - we considered the Blaydon Races, On Ilkely Moor Bar't Hat, John Peel and a host of others and ended up singin the Beatles' 'Yesterday' (which is a bit of a dirge sung in unison and unaccompanied.
There was no shortage of national identity on display at the International Cultural Evening, but within a very inclusive internationalist ambience. And I think we should rejoice in one difference between this year's event and that of 40 years ago is that the world has become geopolitically so much smaller. Forty years ago there would have been no Chinese, Kazakhs, Bulgarians, Romanians or many others present. And one role of higher education must be to foster international friendships, such as those on display tonight, but enabling individuals to retain and celebrate their own local identities as well.
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