By Christine Lee & Emma Remy

​We were interested in Bamboo Bistro as the only representative of Asian cuisine in the Swarthmore borough. Christine had eaten at Bamboo before, while Emma had yet to. We were expecting to find some Asian community that congregated at Bamboo, either comprising Asian students of Swarthmore College or residents of Swarthmore town. However, we discovered that, as a result of the demographics and expectations of the Swarthmore community, Bamboo is incredibly Americanized.
 
When we first approached Bamboo, the restaurant was empty because it was a mid-afternoon on a Sunday. Several employees were sitting near the entrance, on their phones or chatting in (presumably) Mandarin. After asking for an interview, two of the employees squabbled over whose English was better until Tim agreed to his voice being recorded. We were surprised to discover that, while the employees of Bamboo were from the Philadelphia Chinatown area, the restaurant was intended to present Americanized-Asian food and atmosphere.

By Jamie A. Thomas

By Jamie A. Thomas

Where Was She? - 10:30pm
I shifted into my designed-to-be-uncomfortable seat at the airport. There were a few other folks still around, though they had mostly cleared out. I didn't know anyone, but the airport's one coffeeshop, a Starbucks, was still open. I reached into my wallet and pulled out Emirati Dirhams to get what I sensed was a $5 bottle of airport water. 

​Little did I know that the friendliest people I would meet that first night in Dubai would be a group of women from Malaysia.

Stuck in an Airport - 12:25am
Darn. My iPhone was starting to die. But thanks to Whatsapp and friendly airport wifi, I had already begun to realize I might be in for a long wait. Her last text intimated she had gone to the wrong airport, my friend. Or the wrong terminal, to be exact. It could be another hour before she found me.

I had come in from Jordan. Specifically, from Amman, where I had just completed about 5 months of glorious, challenging, thrilling fieldwork. In this work, sometimes the greatest challenge comes from striking up friendships with people you think yourself the least likely to befriend and engage. "Why shouldn't I learn from them?", you ask yourself. And then you go about trying to learn from them by participating with them in the things they care about, sharing a meal with them. A day with them.

​Plugging in my Phone - 12:32am
But in the airport terminal that night, there wasn't anyone I thought I had anything overtly in common with. Getting up to plug my phone into the nearest wall outlet, I did a cursory scan of the waiting area. Across the way, a group of some nine women sat together patiently chatting. Their headscarves were tightly pinned at the neckline with brooches. The fluorescent lights of the terminal dulled the shine of their brooches, but not the bright colors of their scarves. A ​songkok distinguished the head of the only man in their group, an elder. Like me, they also seemed to be waiting on a local contact to fetch them.

We caught each others' eyes as they looked around the waiting area, too. Suddenly, I was so much reminded of friends from my time in Malaysia years ago. I like to think that my time with the U.S. Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship program propelled me on my path in cultural empathy, field research, and people-intensive collaboration, because I saw such value in our countless moments of intercultural learning.

Her name: Lubna.  I sat down with one of conversation partners working with the program for American students at the University of Jordan. She's nothing short of amazing! With her vivacious spirit, she shared how spending time with American students had truly become a unique opportunity of exchange. 

The Arabic word for exchange, تبادل (tebaadl), has at its center, the word for change, بدل (badala). This in mind, the idea of exchange is to reciprocate between parties, and impact each other. Communication presents increased opportunities for the exchange of ideas, where language learning empowers participants and maximizes intercultural learning. 

As part of my 2014 fieldwork in Amman, Jordan, I spent time with Jordanians involved in teaching Arabic, and their students, learners from U.S. colleges and universities. On campus at the University of Jordan, and in coffee shops and afterschool hangouts, I observed American students working together with Jordanian conversation partners for a full semester. 

American students were picking up new words from their local counterparts, and so was I. With more words under our belt, our afterschool exchanges moved from coffee shops to restaurants and bars. Language was becoming a vehicle of more than grammar and vocabulary. We were learning about Jordanian life, eating mansaf (the national dish!), taking part in concerts, and local volunteer organizations. Using Jordanian Arabic