1999: Kazakhstan stay broadens horizons

Views: 34,762 views. Comments: No Comment.
Tags: Arts, education, winter-2009

Dr Rowan Michael in Kazakhstan

Rowan Michael, BA/BEd (hons), PhD

After graduating from UQ in arts and education with first-class honours in 2001, Dr Rowan Michael embarked on a PhD and travelled out of his cultural comfort zone to Kazakhstan.

“It was a lot of fun, we spent the first four-and-a-half months with a host family, sleeping on a fold-out couch in their living room. It was more normal than it would be in Australia,” he said.

“The family consisted of two parents with three children. Only two of the children were still at home, the oldest son, who was 28, and their youngest daughter, who was 20.”

The small Muslim family knew little English when Dr Michael first went to stay with them after being appointed Director of Studies for a nearby language school, and he knew little Kazakh.

“It was quite an incredible experience. We started out with zero language, but towards the end we were able to tell our host mother how our day was, or tell her little stories,” he said.

The cultural differences were also significant.

“It was the first time I’d really lived in a Muslim culture. You hear a lot in the media about Islam, but after staying with the family I have a better understanding of Muslim culture,” Dr Michael said.

“Culturally, the people in Kazakhstan are very hospitable. The host cooks for anyone, regardless of whether they are invited or not, or what time they arrive, because the person arriving is the most important part. It doesn’t matter that they were invited for dinner and turned up at 9pm.

“The host mother always cooks for visitors, and always has bread, fruit, nuts and sometimes cake on the table in addition to the main dishes; they always put out a lot of food.”

But the food wasn’t quite what Dr Michael was accustomed to in Australia.

“There was a lot of food I really liked. There was one dish, shashlyk, that was like a shish-kebab with chunks of meat three by four centimetres on sticks, and another, pilov, that was like fried rice except it had carrot and lamb in it. My favourite though was the Kazakh national dish beshbamak, roast lamb on large flat noodles,” he said.

“But the worst meal we had was boiled lamb offal. Our host boiled up the heart and intestines into a soup, and the smell filled the whole house.”

Dr Michael also made some field trips to nearby China to complete his PhD research about developing Northwest China through distance education, incorporating government policy and foundation-level practice.

Dr Michael said his time at UQ prepared him for settling into Kazakh culture.

“Someone in my first year said to me that having a language is like having a key to a whole new world,” he said.

“They were right, each language, each culture is a whole new world, and I recommend everyone to learn at least one new language.”

By Amanda Sproule

• Home
• Graduate Contact
• Alumni Profiles
• Global Education: Divining world trends