On December 13th, Doctor Andrea Scibetta from Università per Stranieri di Siena, paid a visit to CFL of NKU and made a lively cross-cultural speech titled “The Chinese living in Italy---Stereotypes and Prejudices”. The teachers and students of the Italian major participated in the lecture with the students from other majors who had an interest in Italian.
Doctor Scibetta introduced the stereotypes and prejudices Italians had on the Chinese living in Italy.He pointed out that some of those impressions on Chinese were disappearing like “Chinese people is immortal”; but some prejudices still existed such as “Chinese community is enclosed” and “Chinese people steal their jobs”. Doctor Scibetta thought that the one-sided reports of China by Italian medias also partly led to the prejudices besides the lack of understanding of Chinese. He pointed out that media, books and education can be used to “deconstruct” those prejudices. Yang Lin, who is responsible for Italian major, believed that academics is also an important way to break the prejudices, because we could make the truth clear through scientific ways, systematic research and accurate data, which would make people change their fixed thoughts.
At last, Doctor Scibetta presented his understanding of “integration”. He pointed out that “integration” was not the same as “assimilation” . “Assimilation” asked Italian Chinese to live as Italian, while “integration” meant “interaction”, which put two sides at a equal position. As a result, on one hand, Italian Chinese should actively adapt and integrate themselves to the local life; on the other hand, Italians also should learn to know more about Chinese language and cultures and understand Chinese people.
Doctor Scibetta delivered the whole lecture in a lively and vivid way from a unique perspective. He presented the theme by asking questions and introduced the number, proportion of gender and age and occupations of Italian Chinese in detail through many charts and data; he also gave a thorough analysis of the main reasons why Chinese overseas students increased quickly , which made us have a better understanding of the situation about study in Italy.
After the lecture, Doctor Scibetta had a warm discussion with teachers and students about the possible problems overseas students would meet in Italy and how to better integrate into the Italian society, which made the students of the Italian major realize the importance of cultural communication in a more direct way. Al last, Doctor Scibetta encouraged students to learn the Italian language and its culture well and study in Italy so that they could become the emissary between Italy and China in all fields.
It is known that the Italian major is newly opened and begins to recruit students from this year, so CFL combines the way of “delivering lectures” and expanding international exchanges by actively inviting experts and scholars of the Italian major at home and abroad with the way of “going out to learn the language” through short -term and long-term international exchange programs with the well-known universities in Italy, which offered students the opportunities to learn the Italian, understand the Italian culture and experience the frontier.
