Menghan Liu, an international doctoral student, explains how the qualities of bamboo are used on traditional Chinese plates to represent humanity.
Thumbtacked to the wall, next to the bed covered with her pink and yellow flowered comforter, hang posted snapshots of Menghan Liu’s parents, friends and husband back in China.
Among them is a photograph of herself, clad in her white lab coat, doing what she came to MSU for — research. A doctoral student from Beijing, Liu is starting her second year at MSU studying plant genetics and breeding.
Missing her relatives, husband and food from home is the hardest part of living in the United States, Liu said.
Every day, she wakes up at 6:15 a.m. to talk to her husband in Beijing on the computer for an hour.
Next, she starts cooking shrimp, fish, beets, melon or whatever she picked up at the Oriental Market, Great China Market or Meijer so she has something to eat when she comes home. Cooking Chinese food is one thing she said she continues to do, despite how far from home she is.
“Now, it’s just routine,” Liu said. “In the beginning, in the Netherlands, I was always like ‘this tastes just like my mom’s.’”
Liu has been living away from home since 1996, when she started her undergraduate studies in China. She then moved to the Netherlands to get her master’s degree.
When she first moved to the U.S., Liu said it was difficult because she couldn’t understand English well and didn’t have a car. Since the buses were difficult to navigate, she said the area she had access to was limited.
“If I can’t go to a Chinese shop, I can’t buy what I like to eat,” Liu said.
But since she got her car, it’s been easier, she said.
She still misses spending traditional holidays, like Spring Festival and Dragon Boat Festival, with her family.
“All my relatives still go to my parents’ house and I talk to them on camera, one by one,” she said. “But it’s hard when you can’t touch. You can’t connect.”
Liu said she and some friends made mooncake but couldn’t really celebrate because of their studies.
For other students, joining organizations of students with similar backgrounds helped them retain some of their culture when they come to school and also learn about people different from them.
Fahana Ulloagaddi, a member of the Coalition of Indian Undergraduate Students and supply chain management junior, said it has become a support system for her.
“It’s a home away from home,” Ulloagaddi said. “It definitely did help to keep in touch with my roots and everything with all of the events.”
The coalition has made it possible for her to celebrate holidays such as Diwali, a sort of Hindu festival of lights, she said.
“It’s really hard when you don’t have any guidance,” she said. “It’s nice to have other people’s experience.”
Mutual appreciation for salsa, merengue and reggaeton music is what drew psychology sophomore Diana Perilla to join Culturas de las Razas Unidas. Her aunt is a coordinator, and through her encouragement, Perilla said she now works at the Multicultural Center, located in the Union.
The Coalition of Racial Ethnic Students groups — including the Asian Pacific American Student Organization, Black Student Alliance and North American Indian Student Organization — also are located in the center.
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“I’m with my same kind of people, my nationality,” Perilla said. “It’s just a fun environment to just hang out here and meet people and learn from their nationality.”
