The world contains more than 7 billion people and roughly 6,500 spoken languages. This diversity has always captured my curiosity but it wasn’t until this summer, that I actually experienced how complicated yet fascinating it can be.

For the first time in my life, I traveled to Hong Kong for a summer program to discuss Sino-Japanese relations. This was because I wanted to explore the world outside of my comfort zone and encounter people with a completely different background from my own.

The most intriguing experience in this program was sharing history textbooks with mainland Chinese and Hong Kong teenagers. It was interesting how Chinese textbooks were separated into political, economic, and cultural histories, and Japanese textbooks, in comparison, had more pictures.

On the other hand, I was shocked how Chinese history textbooks focused so much attention on recent history, such as Hong Kong textbooks starting from the 20th century. The Japanese army was presented in a negative light and it hit me how sensitive and complicated foreign relations can be. Although I knew about these incidents, I had acknowledged them as the past, not as a matter still so close to us.

Despite this realization, I formed superb friendships and now I understand how valuable they are. Our bonding demonstrates the way we have overcome our ancestors’ frequent pain and anger. The young generation, including myself, creates the future, and our action to step closer to each other is an effective way to dissolve our complicated deep emotions and issues.

Consequently, I believe stepping outside of our circle of family and friends, away　from our original country and culture to encounter other countries’ customs and perspectives is vital. Especially after coming back from Hong Kong, I realized how I was only communicating with limited people in my daily life. Our knowledge can be biased and limited so it is always important to keep an open mind. Expansion of one’s perspective and consciousness will definitely lead to peaceful relationships with foreign countries. Today, in a world where connection overseas is convenient due to the spread of the Internet and the rapid increase of globalization, we should learn to respect and accept each other.

To conclude, an ordinary textbook made me realize the complications of diversity in the world. Nevertheless, I also forged friendly relationships over the border; thus, I believe experiences abroad hold extensive possibilities to create better relationships around the world.