University life can be a life-changing experience for students – a time for new experiences, learning new ideas and making new, and often life-long, friendships.
At HKU, these friendships are often formed with other HKUers who come from very different cultural backgrounds. With over 6,700 non-local undergraduates and over 25,000 non-local students at all levels hailing from countries all around the world, the HKU campus is rich with cultural diversity.
To foster meaningful connections and greater cross-cultural understanding amongst students, the University’s Centre of Development and Resources for Students has created GLOCAL Connect, a programme that brings non-local and local students together to help them navigate university life and form lasting friendships.
The programme provides students from different backgrounds with the opportunity to join activities and events where they can experience first-hand various cultural traditions and rituals that they may have never encountered before.
For example, this year’s Chinese New Year was the perfect opportunity for students to dive into the local festivities held to mark the start of spring – taking in the energy, sights and sounds of Hong Kong’s largest Chinese New Year flower market at Victoria Park.
Perhaps not surprisingly, cultural exchanges often involve food. To welcome the Year of the Horse, GLOCALConnect hosted a special Chinese New Year Dessert Workshop, where students learnt not only how to make the sweets, but also the cultural meanings behind them – for example, why certain colours and ingredients are associated with luck and happiness.
The programme isn’t just about Hong Kong students acting as tourist guides for their non-local peers either. The student mix can be more complex, dynamic and enriching. Take the case of Ms Phyo Thiri Lwin, who is a third-year Bachelor of Arts and Sciences in Global Health and Development student from Myanmar. She signed up to be a ‘GLOCAL Connect student host’ – serving as a local connector and helping new students from different backgrounds transition smoothly into university life.
“Hosting these workshops reminded me that building a welcoming campus starts with simple human moments – sharing stories, traditions, and laughter,” she said. “Seeing non-local students connect with Hong Kong culture while sharing their own made me proud to be part of the HKU community.”
“As a host, I realised cultural exchange isn’t one way,” she added. “Every session opened my eyes to new perspectives from around the world. It showed me how diversity enriches all of us, and how students can create a campus where learning truly goes both ways.”
Mr Akbar Mahmudzade, a second-year Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering student from Azerbaijan, concurs. “GLOCAL Connect helped me build real connections in a place that once felt unfamiliar,” he said. “Each activity brought together students from different cultures, and somehow, those differences became the starting point of community. It made HKU feel like home.”
GLOCAL Connect is now creating ways to extend that sense of community-as-home beyond the campus and even Hong Kong. The team has already organised four study tours to Greater Bay Area cities and Hangzhou, which played a key role in building cultural engagement and supporting the retention of local and international talent. Building on this momentum, the programme team is organising a short ‘craft and legacy’ tour to Foshan and Dongguan on the Chinese Mainland to help students experience Lingnan culture. Akbar observes, “Initiatives like these help build a far-reaching sense of community, where diversity is celebrated through mutual learning and genuine connections.”
And as the University continues to strive to realise its vision of becoming ‘a world-leading university transforming humanity’s future’, programmes like GLOCAL Connect are important and have extensive long-term benefits – nurturing within the next generation of problem-solvers and visionary leaders an appreciation of cultural diversity and the positive impact it can bring to their learning, their careers and their lives.
