UniSIG: Dealing with Chinese and Southeast Asian clients in academia

Our speaker, Kenneth Quek, is an ethnic Chinese Singaporean who resides in Helsinki. He is fully bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese and speaks the Teochew and Hokkien topolects fluently. Kenneth works as a freelance academic revisor for the Language Centre of the University of Helsinki, and as a freelance editor and copywriter in the corporate sector. He specialises in the humanities, medicine, and LaTeX.

He says: "China has been a rising global force for decades and has staked out an important place for itself in academia. Southeast Asia retains immense potential with its large, diverse and dynamic population, which includes a thriving and influential Chinese diaspora. It is therefore crucial for European institutions and individuals to understand how best to engage with clients from these cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
In this talk, I’ll seek to uncover and explain some of the ways in which differences between Asia and Europe (including the Anglosphere) can lead to difficulties in the provider-client relationship, and offer some strategies to manage and ultimately resolve those difficulties. Along the way, we’ll explore some peculiarities of regional history and geopolitics as well, particularly the colonial and postcolonial trajectories of various nations and how these can still shape interactions between individuals."

Persons who have registered for this online meeting will be emailed the Zoom link to the meeting. Please contact me if you wish to acquire a PE point for attending the meeting.

Joy Burrough-Boenisch

UniSIG convener