Sharing by Alison Lee
October 10th, 2009
2008, that was the year I decided to take a chance with my inept Chinese. I headed to China to obtain my bachelor’s degree and at the same time complete my NYAA Gold Award. I must say that it was an extremely challenging past year for me. Firstly, the language barrier was a great obstacle. Religion restrictions, restricted speech and the lack of sambal kangkong further compounded the problem. Having to meet and live with all kinds of people in the one and only 23-storey dorm for foreign students was an experience that both taught me amazing things and tapped on the tolerance I cultivated with NYAA’s multi cultural programs.
That is the unrecognizable me on the far right
To elaborate, in school we are not allowed to speak about religion or politics. The threat is well enforced by the presence of communist party members in the student population. Furthermore the Internet is also heavily censored in China. Sites such as FaceBook, You tube and BlogSpot to name a few are blocked. As Singaporeans, we come from a less difficult environment. Thus it is extremely easy to think that the only system that we were brought up with is the right one. However, judging others based on what we know and ignoring all that we do not is too easy and against all that NYAA enforces in its programs.
The Singapore booth at a mini world expo organized by my university
I had an opportunity to attend an award camp in Russia called “Trust the World”. From it I learnt the very important lesson of tolerance and the need to understand the background and rationale of why different countries and types of people do things differently, that helped greatly in China. It was much easier to simply write off everything that disagrees with my comfort zone as ridiculous. However when understood and taken in context, given the history of China and how just 41 years ago, the country was still in the midst of great turmoil during the cultural revolution, it is amazing that I even have the opportunity to study there, much less watch Grey’s Anatomy on a Chinese video streaming site.
The graduation party I organized under the Singapore association for the class of 2005 themed – Old Shanghai
NYAA’s skills and service program have also helped in motivating me to leave the comfort of my 23-storied air-conditioned international dorm to immerse myself in China and its culture. For my skills program, I picked up Peking Opera and actually succeeded in performing for a few nerve struck minutes during the Christmas program. This newly acquired skill helped to smooth conversations with my Chinese friends and taught me a multitude of classic songs that every Chinese knows. As the popular songs of each generation act as good guides to the flavor of the respective ages, the practice of Peking Opera has led to a deeper understanding of Chinese culture. For service, I went out to the slums to teach children originally from the countryside English and math. That opened up my eyes immensely to the life of a blue collared worker in China. The one and a half-year commitment is quite a long one for a restless soul like me. However it is exactly the thing I need to guide me towards perseverance and following through with my activities. In short, the NYAA has been an immense motivation to stretch my boundaries (and vocal cords) to really experience china.
One benefit I did not expect to reap from NYAA but managed to, is a stronger bond to home. Completing my NYAA program constantly keeps me thinking of Singapore and reminds me of my duty to it. Therefore I have actually joined the Singaporean Students Association in Shanghai as external affairs officer to both raise awareness of Singapore and aid Singaporeans students with their life in Shanghai. The leadership skills and training I have received with the Singapore Young Photographer’s Convention and other opportunities that NYAA has provided has helped me immensely in my role.
I seem to be talking about all the pros of the NYAA program. Therefore I must add a con. NYAA’s Gold Award program has kept me so busy always trying to do something new or addressing my duties that between NYAA and my studies I have hardly any time for Grey’s Anatomy.
For those that have managed to read to the bottom, I offer a quote. Josh Billings a famous writer in the eighteen hundreds once said “There is nothing so easy to learn as experience and nothing so hard to apply.” The NYAA program offers us experience. However, we have to take the next step ourselves and apply it.
Alison Lee Jiaying
NYAA Gold Participant
Beijing, China
Entry Filed under: Feature: GAHA Member
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