Pre-trip Projections

Amongst the many opportunities available to USP students, the freshmen overseas learning journey is considered a highlight to me. Going to Chiang Mai will prove that the USP is more than just a fancy title for a cohort of students taking exclusive classes across the liberal arts curriculum. Like many other Singaporean students, a large part of my formal education thus far has been confined to the classroom. Barring my personal travels overseas, most of what I knew of foreign cultures was derived from secondary sources, especially from foreign shows and books. Furthermore, my knowledge of foreign cultures gleaned from holidays is superficial for the most part. Hence, this trip would be unlike most others since the main objective is research rather than recreation.

Embarking on this trip excites me nonetheless because it would compel me to develop as a student, scholar and researcher. I strongly believe that all three roles require one to be open-minded. This translates to having a readiness and flexibility to accept not just different modes of learning, in this case experiential learning, but also cultural norms that may differ starkly from my own. It is not going to be easy since I can be rather obstinate and insistent on the validity of my viewpoints. However, I would have to adapt accordingly in order to procure meaningful results and gain a meaningful experience.

In the context of my research topic, it would mean dispelling preconceived notions of what female empowerment means to people from different backgrounds. For me, female empowerment is a daily fact of life rather than a nascent societal trend which has to be advocated for. At home, my mother is the more educated parent. In school, my female peers tended to perform better academically and were given opportunities commensurate with their merit. As a result, I grew up associating a conservative and patriarchal societal mind-set as not just backward but alien.

It is probably not the same for the Thai youths where what constitutes female empowerment may be far narrower than what I am accustomed to. Sing to the Dawn, a story about how a young village Thai girl struggled to convince those around her to allow her to take up a scholarship to study in the city, imparted to me such an impression. In it, Dawan constantly faced opposition and oppression from her father and brother. The book may have been assigned as compulsory reading in my literature classes back in Secondary 1 but it has continued to serve as an inspiration since. Forty years have passed since the book was first published and many things can change in that time. This trip will allow me to see first-hand if the discrimination which Ho Minfong described still holds true today.

I understand that what I have seen and will see have been coloured by my values. My values in turn have shaped by my environment, not least my exposure to the media as a pliable youth. The story may be fictional but the way in which Sing to the Dawn has nevertheless shaped my views on gender equality in Thai society is a case in point. Often enough, these influences are subconscious and may not be easily apparent to oneself. As a result, I fear that I may inadvertently impose my values on my research subjects and inject bias to the documentation. How does one achieve true objectivity then? Or is that an ideal which is not possible to achieve in reality? I would like to investigate that on this trip.

As I roam around Chiang Mai with my group, we will interact with and interview youths from different walks of life. From university students to monks, it seems likely that we would obtain a wide range of responses. In spite of that, I wonder if there would still be a common thread that can be spun through their responses. For it is in this common thread where one uncovers how the youth collectively perceive female empowerment and this aspect constitutes part of their culture as well. On a personal level, I would like to see if I could draw parallels between my experiences and values with those of the Thai youth in Chiang Mai. It could be anything, from a penchant for pad thai to a deep-seated desire to explore the world. What is it like to be young regardless of where you were born and bred?

Ultimately, our role in this trip is to record and later analyse our observations. As USP scholars, we are privileged to have the resources to embark on such a trip. However I believe that research should not be just a self-perpetuating academic exercise. It should be a means to an end rather than just an end itself. In this regard, I look forward to working with my peers to produce work which can, even in the smallest of ways, shed more light and perhaps even contribute to female empowerment in Thai society.

Dawan would be proud.