Post -trip reflections

Post -trip reflections

Fay, Fuyang Shen

 

My December holidays have been extremely taxing. I interned for one full month at a company and gave many tuition classes during my limited free time. I was exhausted. I was a bit unwilling to go on the trip because I was not physically well-prepared for this trip. However, the tiredness and unwillingness disappeared as soon as I arrived at Chiang Mai. The trip, though short, has etched indelible memories on my mind and allowed me to gain a multitude of new discoveries, about a different country as well as the familiar self.

 

Surely, this trip is both a memorable and meaningful one. I may not have fulfilled all my pre-trip expectations, but in some ways, I feel that what I have gained from this experience exceeded my previous projections. Allow me to elaborate.

 

“I foresee this trip to be an excellent platform for me to pick up a variety of useful skills” (quoted from my pre-trip projections). As I was going through the list of skills that I hoped to hone during the trip, I realized some of the skills were picked up by me naturally, instead of intentionally, as our research ensued.

 

I appreciate how I have effectively communicated and coordinated with my group mates when it comes dividing tasks based on different individual’s’ diverse talents and strengths. This is evident in how Jin Hu and I, able to articulate our thoughts well and react fast, were in charge of all the interviews and FGDs. Additionally, Darren, Eliza and Crystal, who demonstrated keen interest and substantial skills in handling media equipment, arranged among themselves to take on the roles of videographer, photographer and transcriber. That is not to say, though, that we concentrated solely on our relatively stronger area and dismissed the opportunity to learn new skills completely. Jin Hu and I took some video footages of Thai young women’s dressing and hairstyles using our phones, trying to contribute to the pool of videos we had already shot. Eliza and Crystal also conducted some street interviews when Jin Hu and I were busy doing FGDs. Basically, everyone from my group tried his or her best to contribute to the group should the opportunity arose. I witnessed how we put our hearts and minds together to carry out our research project throughout the trip with sheer elation.

 

We also analysed the situation carefully and cheered each other on when what happened on the field went against our original plans. This happened at the very first day of our trip. We were very confident in our research topic and felt that we would be able to draw a causal connection between the consumption of foreign entertainment media and changing perceptions of female empowerment among Thai youths. However, this pompous assumption received many doubts from Prof. Chirada during our discussion with her at Mae Fah Luang University. All of us were very upset and thought that we had no choice but to change our topic. We also had another interview with Prof. Yuki there. However, she seemed to be rather unfamiliar with our topic and could not give us sufficient insights into the issue we were looking at. The excitement to interview a supposedly knowledgeable Gender Studies Professor transformed to magnified disappointment that we, to put it plainly, had wasted a day collecting disappointing feedback instead of useful research data.  We had a group meeting at night and, after thinking all matters through, realized that the last thing we should ever do was to give up at the first hurdle.

 

Even the best-laid plans can backfire. What we faced were merely some objections and concerns from one or two individuals. However, it did not mean that we were destined to fail. It only made the journey more challenging, and at the same time, more interesting.  We decided to go with our original plan regardless and believed that as we got to interact with more Thai people, we would understand our research better. Even if our assumptions were wrong, it would not stop us from learning things. At the end of the day, our ultimate goal for this research is to become more informed and knowledgeable about our chosen topic. A researcher should aim for depth instead of certainty.

 

I had some research experience before but never had the chance to gather primary data by myself. I feel that this trip really opened my eyes to a different arena and changed my formal research style. In my past research experience, I always look for conclusions, which may be just a set of numerical figures or a few statements taken from secondary sources. However, this time round, when I was gathering data and interviewing people in the field, I cared more about the learning process. When an interviewee make a claim, I want to know the reasons behind it. When looking at the survey results, I actually want to know whether they have more personal insights to offer. When people offer differing views, I also delightfully listen to them.  All these motivations were reflected in how I always tried to dig deep into interviewees’ responses, regardless of whether their answers justify our assumptions.

 

I also learnt to be more flexible and adapt to changing situations quickly. We actually had a set of prepared questions for our interviews, but on the field, we realized that those guided questions were in fact, limiting us. We decided to put them away and just improvise on the spot. This not only made us feel more natural but also enabled the discussion to flow better.

 

Apart from benefiting from the fieldwork process enormously, I also gained something invaluable during this trip.

 

1. Friendship

Fye was a CMU student attached to my group and my roommate throughout the trip. She was adorable, responsible and extremely helpful. She never said No whenever I asked for a favour. To be honest, I did not expect to bond with her so well during such a short time period. She introduced me to the best Thai food and her cool singer-songwriter boyfriend; she deepened my understanding about Thai society and culture; she followed me to the night market and served as my personal translator and navigator free-of-charge.

 

At first, our interaction was purely work-based, our conversation centred on my research topic and her role as a student translator. However, as we became more familiar with each other, our topics ranged from first crush to impressions on the guys in our group, from Thai lady-boys to complicated Buddhism history and practices. She taught Michelle and me one Thai phrase each day, though my feeble brain only managed to remember half of them. She is my first ever Thai friend, and a lasting good friend. We promised to meet again somewhere on Earth.

 

2. Gratitude

Another thing that I remembered from the trip was the sheer friendliness of Thai local people who were invited to participate in our research project. True indeed, we should be grateful for those strangers who are willing to extend a helping hand to us despite apparent language barriers. They may not really understand what we are doing and they may have little knowledge of who we are, but nevertheless, they sacrifice their own free time to answer our questions, fill up survey forms and so on. I remember vividly that we actually intruded into a group of youths’ afternoon tea gathering to conduct a Focus Group Discussion. However, all of them were extremely friendly and helpful. They shared their own insights into our research question and offered to lend their Go Pro to us when ours ran out of battery. It took them plenty of time but they did not mind at all. This is definitely one of the fond memories that I brought back from Chiang Mai. In the future, if some random students approached me on the street to help them with their surveys and the like, I would happily offer my help as well.

 

3.Cultural awareness

I also learnt to be more culturally aware and sensitive. Two incidents taught me that religion was a very serious issue and must be handled with extra caution. One, a Thai lady asked us to remove photoshoots of a monk holding a piece of paper with the word “Make up” on it. Two, we were scolded when we tried to take a jump shot in the temple in a bid to fulfil one of the general tasks during our leadership amazing race.

 

I am a free-thinker and from a country where most people do not even have faith. I had very little knowledge on religion prior to coming to Singapore. During my five years in Singapore, I have also encountered some situations such that unhappiness arose from religious reasons. For instance, one Muslim classmate left class chalet when she saw some guys brought beer into the room because she could not stay at a place where she knew there was beer. Religion IS complicated, and even more complicated for a person who has none. However, what I have learnt from these experiences was to listen and respect. Yes, it did not make sense to me when the lady asked us to remove the photos when the monk himself did not sense a problem. Yes, the guy who scolded us did not explain why we could not take a jump shot in the temple. However, it is their religion and their culture. The best that I can do is to respect their practices. I do hope, though, that I can gather more religious knowledge in the future and truly understand those religious people and obey their rules.

 

4. Learning and Growing together with USPians

Lastly, I have learnt and grown with my USP peers. Having missed all the USP camps because I was in China that time, I did not know many of my peers. However, this trip allowed me to interact and make good friends with them. We stuck together during field-work as well as down time. We also honed our leadership skills together during the amazing race. I liked how we placed trust and confidence in each other and worked together to achieve our common goals. We were also very understanding of each other, for example, when some of us went for trips in December holidays and missed some of our meetings, the rest of us just worked hard together to complete our tasks online. Never ever did we blame anyone for his or her absence. I believe the strong sense of group spirit will help us go a long way.

 

All in all, I feel blessed to be in the USP family and have this opportunity to challenge and develop myself in the meaningful overseas study trip to Chiang Mai. Now we are in the midst of drafting our research paper and planning media deliverables. I do hope that what we have gathered during the trip can turn into something useful for people to see and learn.