Day 1

In my pre-trip reflections, I wrote about wanting to be a global citizen, seeing myself and the people around me as all part of a larger global community. I found that I came to Chiang Mai really viewing the place and the people around with new eyes, wanting to relate to them on a deeper level. I was thinking more about the people I met, trying to understand how life is for them.

This made me realise how apathetic I have been back home, toward the people I meet in my daily life. I saw people just for their functions. I saw the bus driver as just a bus driver, the waitress just a waitress; my perception of people was limited to their occupation, and I thought nothing more of them. This realisation really struck me.

The community in Singapore seems like a rather cold one, compared to western communities where it is a norm for people to strike up conversations with strangers and so on. I fear that apathy will become characteristic of our community.

In some of my encounters, I feel like I am seeing through a lens of sympathy. I read Huishi’s pre-trip projections, where she wrote about not wanting to have a “Saviour Mentality”. She wrote about going to Chiang Mai as “first a fellow human being”. I really admired her goal and wanted to do this as well. However, it was sometimes difficult to step into the shoes of the people I meet.

To me, sympathy means having compassion and feeling sorry for someone, while empathy means feeling what the person is feeling, both the joy and the pain. Having compassion is not a bad thing. However, I feel I want to do more than have sympathy. Though it is the easiest way, I don’t want to feel bad for others from afar and then go on with my life. People are so distant in modern society, and I am of the opinion that we are now more empowered than ever to bridge this distance. I guess I have a romanticised view of view of how humanity should be.

Today, I saw a man with his rickshaw standing outside the hotel, waiting for business, and I felt a sense of compassion for this man, but not empathy. How do I empathise with someone when our circumstances are so different? I felt compassion for this man, but I was unable to step into his shoes and fully understand the struggle he goes through.

Perhaps empathy is sometimes beyond our reach.