OELP Reflections (Yinn Yi)

OELP Reflections:

I chose to go on this trip as I knew that I would go through many new experiences during these short 8 days. In the past 2 or more months of CID lessons, it had helped me build up knowledge on Anhui’s different culture and their way of living. I knew the differences between Singapore’s and Anhui’s culture but I wanted to first handedly experience it myself. I wanted to try to experience their culture and would thus have more knowledge on the country itself. Learning about the education system in china made me want to learn more about it, and experience having lessons in Chinese. Through this trip, I hope my Chinese would improve and I would be able to speak more fluently in the future. As in Singapore we use English terms to teach math and science, experiencing these terms in Chinese would also be something new for me. I hoped to make more overseas friends and know more about their everyday lives, and would share about my stories and our history to them as well. I decided that I had to be more open and step out of my comfort zone and learn about the differences in our culture and their daily lives in contrast to ours. I hope to learn about the different cultures Anhui has and their history in contrast to ours. I expected that I was going to learn about their unique food and the education system in Anhui. We were going to different companies to learn about how they started up their business and learning from how they succeeded could change my views and attitudes on studying as well.

The first day when we were supposed to go into class to listen to a lesson, I was nervous as I knew that people were going to judge us. I expected total silence and judgmental eyes just staring at us when we walked in but instead there was warm applause that made me feel really welcomed. They had left 5 empty seats in the middle of the class just for us, and our CID group all awkwardly sat down and stared at the worksheet in front of us. The classroom was getting stuffy and the fans were not on for some reason. We were having Chinese lesson in that period and there was a passage on the late Confucius and his sayings. We had no idea what the passage meant, moreover there were so many words that we didn’t even know how to read. We were all lost and confused. The teacher introduced himself and the lesson soon begun. The teacher led the whole class in reading the paragraph once and we tried taking down the pronunciation of words we didn’t know. As there were many paragraphs in the passage, the teacher divided us into different teams and each team was in charge of explaining one paragraph. When we got into groups, two girls came up to me, and started talking to me. Firstly, they introduced themselves and one of them was the Chinese rep of the class. She explained to me that the sentence meant that “you will respect friends after long periods of communication with them” our group only had one sentence to explain, and thus I introduced myself and we started talking soon after. In Singapore when I was in primary school, a lot of overseas schools would visit our primary school and we were often supposed to bring them around and let them experience, after a few times, we were all tired of looking after them and some of us even left the students in the canteen and went to play. I thought that that would happen to me as well in their school. However they approached me and started talking to me immediately and I felt that this school had a warm atmosphere. There was this one girl called WeiQi who moved her chair to sit beside me and guided me throughout the whole Chinese lesson. She explained the terms that she thinks would be hard for me to understand. She helped me throughout the lesson and I was really grateful for that. Without her, I would still be lost during the lesson and would have embarrassed myself in front of the whole class when asked to reply a question. I liked her open personality and quickly we became friends. I felt warm and welcomed, and immediately liked this school. The class ended quickly and after we bowed to the teacher, many people came up to us and gave us different postcards with their contact numbers on it, and asked for mine in return. I didn’t know any one of them, but this simple gesture of wanting to make friends with me showed their openness to other that I once didn’t have. I realized that this was a point that I needed to learn from them. That Chinese class including WeiQi has taught me more than Chinese and Confucius. It taught me a whole new set of values and made me realize that openness and diversity should be one point that I need to impart in my life. On the second day, the first lesson we had was a science chemistry practice. They were using potassium permanganate to test for the presence of vitamin C and different bottled drinks they brought. I learnt later that this was the first time they were having a chemistry lab lesson. I didn’t want to take their chances of having a lab practical and let them do their own practices. WeiQi sat beside me also during this time and automatically let me do the tests but I refused and insisted that they should do it themselves. After class we all gathered outside the multimedia room and took photos, while classmates gave me even more postcards and the class chairperson even gave us bracelets on behalf of the class. I later also learnt that they didn’t want to turn on the fans in class as the fan would make noisy sounds when it is turned on and was afraid that the fan would drop on us. They had their first chemistry practice was also only because we were there.   I felt really touched and sad that it would be my last day in this school. I would miss all the warm smiles that I got and the unconditionally welcoming I got from them. I felt really touched and I wanted to spent more time in the in that school. After the house visit, WeiQi was actually waiting for me at the school gate and passed me China’s 文房四宝 （笔，墨，纸，砚）I tried to refuse and wanted to use the excuse that our teacher previously taught us: Our luggage has not much space left but WeiQi insisted that I should take it and said that she would be sad if I did not bring it home. I was so touched at the moment that I didn’t know what to do. I feel that I have a lot to learn from them about hospitality and I need to be more open to students that visit our school in order for both parties to have a good time.

I think this trip changed my point of view on emersion programmes between different schools. I feel that Singaporeans need to have this hospitality in welcoming foreign guests and introducing Singapore’s culture and knowledge to them. We should be well equipped with this knowledge and be prepared to let foreign guests know about our surroundings, people culture. I myself also need to be more hospitable and be more open in welcoming foreigners regardless of their nationality or religion.  I hope that RV would have more foreign students coming to visit us in the future and that we can show them what Singapore is really like. From the performance in school, I was a little disappointed about our performance. During practice and rehearsals, we all sang loudly and wanted to put on a good show. However when we reached there I think we were all scared of the large amount of audience (even though teachers already told us about it) and I don’t think I gave it my best either. I feel that the hospitality and their openness to us really moved all of us that went to their school and I think that I really need to learn from them in this aspect. Coming back from this trip, it not only taught me about culture and history of Anhui, but on how to be a better person in general, to be more proactive and engage more in activities held by the school. I will be more open in school when receiving exchange students and I hope that they will also have a good time and leave a good impression on Singapore next time. During this trip, the guide also showed us a picture of the word 孝. it made me realize that when my parents have always been there for me whenever I need their help, and that they would want me to study hard and have a good future as well. At that time, I realized that I have not showed my gratitude towards my parents, and intend to thank them after I came back from this trip.