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"I serve you so that I may learn from you. You accept my service so that you can teach me."

Tuesday, November 20, 2007
What we have learnt... 9:16 AM

Funny how we’re all members of the same human race, but dealt such different cards at birth.

Although the name of this trip –OCIP Jinan– seems to suggest that we’re there for community work, it has been much more than that for me. For one, I’m grateful for this chance to get closer to the culture and people of a nation at ground level, something a family holiday would be unable to offer. I daresay I have received much more than I have given, in intangible little ways like the broadening of mindset.

There have been many once-in-a-lifetime experiences like constructing a basketball court, (gosh how many citykids can claim they have mixed cement with a shovel before?), teaching English to an overwhemingly enthusiastic class of 70 students and visiting the unassuming home of the village chief. Along the way, we all gained in knowledge beyond what academic books can offer, and probably grew a little wiser somehow, in someway, though we may not be conscious of it.

I went into this trip with preconceived notions of many things, embarassingly. I always thought the mannerisms of the Chinese as brash, uncouth and hostile. Incessant honking by drivers on the roads only compounded that mental label I had. It is only upon getting to know the people at ground level that I realised it is merely a way of life they’re been brought up with, that they can be a warm and civilised people too, if we learn to understand and accept the differences in culture. Just like how some races eat with their hands and others with cutlery but are both civilised people, it is merely a matter of how we define and perceive things.

When time has past and memories become faint, I think what I will remember will not be the program of our trip but random little things like the endless mantous we ate, grit and zeal for learning of the Chinese students, along with the peals of laughter from a bunch of strangers turned friends on this trip. There have been tiring moments, amusing ones, heartwarming ones — in short, memories to last a lifetime.

Meijiao


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