Around the World at KPU

From Chinese Acupuncture to Bhangra Dancing, KPU offers a wide variety of multicultural classes

There’s a whole wide world outside of the Lower Mainland—a fact which can be easily forgotten by university students enrolled here full-time. Spending five days a week staring at white boards, computer screens, textbooks, and notepads could make anyone want to escape to somewhere distant and foreign. Luckily, KPU’s international courses can help them get there.

Or, at least, they can help students get away in spirit. Classes under the Language and Cultures and Asian Studies faculty, among others, encourage students who enroll in them to learn about ways of life from all over the globe.

Take B.C.’s first ever public school of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which will open at KPU this fall. The school will offer an acupuncture diploma program taught by John Yang, who has years of experience in traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, specifically.

“In the course, after learning the theory and technique from the lectures in classrooms, the student will be assigned into the acupuncture lab to practice with each other first. Then, as soon as they get the skills and master the technique, in semester three, they will be sent to actual acupuncture clinics to do the practical work,” says Yang.

He summarizes the curriculum composition as foundational Chinese and Western medicine theory paired with hands-on work.

“This program will offer KPU students a different angle to view human health and sickness, provide opportunities and alternative ways to looking at the solutions,” says Yang. “I believe it will increase KPU’s diverse disciplines and programs.”

Yang encourages students to enrol in the course as it will help them understand their own health and bodies while providing an opportunity for a lucrative career in acupuncture.

Tru Freeman, Dean of the Faculty of Health, has helped implement the program and believes that it will succeed in a province where people “are looking for an alternative to their Western wellness and health.”

“We are obviously trying to encourage international students coming, but besides that, we are looking at the globalization of our curriculum, really trying to increase a different kind of cultural awareness and diversity into our programming, and I think this offers a really unique blend for students.”

The newfound Traditional Chinese Medicine program isn’t the only course adding a splash of colour and cultural multiplicity into KPU’s framework. In Asian studies, there are more than enough courses to keep a curious mind at bay. The Religions of India, Folklore of China and Japan, Sikh Gurus and their Teachings, Gender in South Asia, and Introduction to Chinese and Japanese Cinema are just a few.

Kamala Elizabeth Nayar, who teaches “a bit of religion and a bit of culture” in the faculty, says that she is passionate about her work for two main reasons.

“My academic interests are looking at issues related to India, and what appealed to me in terms of Kwantlen is the demographic of the Lower Mainland,” she says.

Due to the diverse population on and around KPU campuses, Nayar has seen a combination of Canadian-born and international students show intrigue in the classes she teaches. Some of them were even born into the cultures that she educates on and simply want to know more.

“I used to be a nurse before I did my PhD, and so I see the relevance of developing cultural competency skills, just so there’s an understanding when you’re working in the community,” says Nayar. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s law, or nursing, or teaching. It helps enhance knowledge and understanding.”

As proof, Nayar recalls a student of hers who says she got hired as a pharmacist partially due to what she learned in her courses.

Although they rarely get attention for their cultural significance, the language courses at KPU are equally as crucial for soon-to-be worldly graduates. French language instructor Olivier Clarinval is excited to be teaching Francophone Culture Through Cinema in the fall of 2017, the curriculum for which he designed himself. While creating it, Clarnival took care to base the course on student-led classroom discussion rather than textbook work.

“Basically, it will explore aspects of French culture and we will watch movies and see how culture is presented in movies,” he says. “What are some fundamental differences and similarities between Francophone culture and what we are used to in North America?”

Clarnival goes on to explain why he feels his job as a French instructor, particularly one in Canada, is essential at KPU.

“We live in a very multicultural city, and while that’s wonderful, we often lack intercultural skills. We lack an understanding of how other cultures work, and I think it would be of great benefit to learn the inner workings of different cultures, regardless of which culture it is.”

Kwantlen Polytechnic University students can also learn to speak Punjabi, Japanese, Mandarin, and Spanish at school, if they so wish.

Another exciting, new program that has garnered noticeable attention is Introduction to Bhagra Dance: Modern and Traditional. The class “will give students the opportunity to learn about the popular Indian dance form, Bhangra, and all of its exquisite movements” to the soundtrack of Punjabi music, according to posters around the Surrey campus.

“Emphasis will be on North American-style modern Bhangra, trends, variations, charisma, facial expression, and lyrical dance. Students will present projects that demonstrate the use of traditional and modern Bhangra movements in their own sequences and participate in a large group performance with the class,” reads the online course description.

The class will be coming to the Surrey campus this fall, taught by Gurpreet Sian and Rayman Bhullar from South Asian Arts, who were unable to be reached for comment.

In a similar vein, Bhangra Movements and Identity focuses more on the influence, origins, and development of Bhangra, and will also be available in the fall.

For scholars searching for a more traditional way of learning, there will always be history classes. If you want to know every recorded detail of what happened in Europe between the year 1450 to 2000, you can do that! Getting to know the past of East Asia, South Asia, Canada, Africa, and Russia is equally as accessible, as is being enlightened about the history of Gandhi, the ancient world, and world civilizations.

Somewhere in between the classic university course and the atypical, applied learning is Consuming Passions: A Global History of Food, which examines how what we eat has changed the path of humankind. Students can expand their knowledge of Chinese sages, drugs in Asia, or even terrorism in today’s world. Scrolling through the list of history course descriptions, it does seem like nearly everything is within reach, no matter how particular or obscure.

Then again, sitting in a classroom will never truly replace globetrotting. For students who cringe at the idea of spending another year behind a desk, consider taking off on an exchange program! KPU can send you to Vienna, Swinburne, Rio de Janeiro, Lancashire, or Tokyo, to name a few. The only requirements are completing 30 university credits, having a GPA of 2.67, and being willing to return to school after the exchange for at least 9 credits worth of courses—all for a price, of course.

While slogging through a university degree, it’s healthy to know about the global community outside of the confines of Surrey, Langley, Cloverdale and Richmond. It can work wonders for the bored, anxious, and unstimulated, and can dispel the toxicity of cultural ignorance. Disposing of those attributes doesn’t have to mean crossing borders, but it may mean taking classes that allow you to become versed in societies far from your own.

Right now at KPU, that’s possible.