Peace Fire Nina Fors

Reviving this baby of a podcast for the 5th episode, Peace Fire hosts Batt and Nina invite classmate and friend Arielle Teplitzky who is American-adopted Bhutanese/Nepalese to discuss their recent collective intercultural communication paper about the media's role in cultural appropriation and appreciation. Arielle, a frequent traveler pre-Covid times and someone who has lived in the US, Israel and Thailand amongst many places, knows a lot about culture. She really is the epitome of being international and we invite her expertise to shine light on what is okay and what isn't. Who is allowed to wear Chinese traditional costumes? Who can wear cornrows and dreads? Are we too sensitive these days? What really is the difference between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation and when does the latter turn into racism?

For episode 4, Batt and Nina gather together again to reignite ‘’Peace Fire’’, this time with Nina taking charge of the conversation to discuss something very current in the world: Asian stereotypes and intercultural competence, or incompetence. In a world where you need to ‘’stay woke’’, it’s not easy trying to orient yourself. Nina, self-proclaimed expert on racism against Asians, explains to Batt, a naive ‘citizen of the world’ what the dangers of intercultural incompetence can do and why it is so important to understand different cultures, referring to the recent unprovoked attacks on Asian people and the Atlanta spa shootings.

In the first episode of their podcast ''Peace Fire'', friends Batt and Nina talk about their different experiences being a freshman and sophomore at Rangsit University International College in Bangkok, Thailand. Batt, having lived the 'typical' American college dream filled with partying and Nina, starting her first year online from Sweden during summer classes and having to go through quarantine and COVID-19 regulations, discuss how their different approaches to the first year of university abroad has been like for two people with very different mindsets and personalities.