Descripción de los casos de prueba para cada CU del sistema:

The globalizing university campus represents a politically-charged space where international students are made aware of, and learn to negotiate existing power relations with regards to their home countries. For Wenjie, a Malaysian Chinese undergraduate student in NUS, as he traverses between Singapore and Malaysia in the course of his study, he became more aware of the demarcating boundaries drawn in each country, which in turn determines how he picks and chooses the identities he takes on. As a Malaysian Chinese, he questions his identity as an ethnic Chinese in light of the sensitive racial politics in Singapore and Malaysia. The fluid characteristics of these identities, and the play of political power, are exemplified in Wenjie’s dilemmatic response,

‘Back in Malaysia I’m more Chinese than Malaysian, over here I’m more Malaysian than Chinese because there are boundaries being drawn…I think there’s always the “other”’ (Wenjie, Malaysia, NUS, undergraduate)

When asked to quote an experience in NUS when he felt marginalized, he revealed that in his recent application for an overseas exchange programme, though he had better results than his Singaporean classmate, he lost the opportunity to him. Despite being unhappy with the outcome, he responded with being resigned and ‘used to it’, because ‘I’ve lived in that kind of environment’, drawing parallels to the Bumiputra policy in Malaysia,

‘We know there’s a quota system, we’ve come to accept it, we are not happy but learnt to live with it and get by, survive in that kind of environment’

(Wenjie, NUS, Malaysia, undergraduate)

In spite of these realizations of boundaries drawn by racial and national politics, he is optimistic that studying in Singapore, and being in the contact zone has helped him to be more adaptive to the harsh realities of surviving in an international environment,

‘All the boundaries drawn, inside and outside, as Malaysians (Chinese)--we’re used to being outside anyway, we’re always the other…but I think it actually helped me to adapt to Singapore…not just Singapore but in an international community or just anywhere…I’ve gotten used to it, be more accepting, don’t get too caught up, learn to live on despite the circumstances’ (Wenjie, Malaysia, NUS, undergraduate)

On the other hand, encountering the politics of the contact zone did not sit well for Mihika, a Sri Lankan graduate student in NUS. She was appalled by the deep-seated divide of Sinhala-Tamil relations that she experienced even on the NUS campus.

‘During orientation, I boarded the shuttle bus and some South Indian students smiled (at me)… so I said ‘hi’ and thought at least someone was friendly enough… they asked me ‘are you from India Chennai?’ and I said ‘no, I’m from Sri Lanka’…they asked again ‘so you’re Tamil?’, I said ‘no I’m Sinhala’. When I turned around, all of them were gone! That was the biggest cultural shock for me because I had taken for granted my Sinhala identity, and suddenly I realized I am a minority in a Tamil majority country. It has its

impacts (here) so I think I became more nervous about my identity when interacting with South Indians here’ (Mihika, Sri Lanka, NUS, MA)

Here, the contact zone is not only limited local-international interactions, but also include encounters among international students whose countries have histories of conflicts. In Mihika’s case, the Sinhala-Tamil conflict has been transplanted from Sri Lanka to the Singapore context. She becomes more sensitive to the space she inhabits, avoiding unnecessary contact with Tamil-speaking Indians when she can,

‘If I’m lost, I’d ask directions from a Chinese (as opposed to Indians). I’ve had bad experiences (with Indians)… (they would say) ‘oh you’re from Sri Lanka’

*sneering tone*… People even think I am lying because I look very South Indian, even in Sri Lanka, people sometimes mistake me, but this is one place where I really felt it and it has worked to the negative, it was a huge shock for me’. (Mihika, Sri Lanka, NUS, MA)

In Mihika’s case, interacting with South Indians in Singapore can be a fearful encounter that she would rather avoid. While she struggles with asserting her Sinhala-Sri Lankan identity in Singapore, Wei Zheng, a mainland Chinese student in Todai prefers to capitalize on the “oriental” physical similarities and masquerade as a Japanese, in order to avoid a potential direct confrontation. He is aware that his identity as a Chinese student in Todai is situated in the context of long-standing Sino-Japanese tensions.

‘During orientation, some politically-affiliated student associations approached and invited me to join them…they passionately talked about Sino-Japanese relations…like the Nanking Massacre…of course those were the extremists… I even received a brochure on this…though I wasn’t angry, at that moment, I felt that if I told them I’m Chinese maybe it’s not that wise, so I just politely walked away’ (Wei Zheng, China, Todai, undergraduate)

From Mihika and Wei Zheng’s experiences in NUS and Todai, it is evident that within the globalising Asian university context, contact zones reflect ongoing socio-political tensions that force students to rethink about their home countries. Ethno-physical similarities among Asian students become a double-edged sword in that for Wei Zheng, he effectively uses it to subvert a potential conflict situation, while

Mihika struggles with asserting her Sinhala-Sri Lankan identity in a Tamil majority Singapore. However, in the midst of emotional identity struggles in the contact zone, many respondents in this research seize the opportunity in an international campus environment to promote a positive image of their countries from ‘ground up’.