Post-Trip Reflections

“It’s about daring to be different; stumbling but learning to pick yourself up.” – It appears I sounded a little ambitious, I admit, when I penned this down in my pre-trip projections. I may not have achieved anything extraordinary in this trip, but it’s certainly been made extraordinary with the people met and lessons learned.

Firstly, as a research trip, it has certainly taught me a lot about what doing research encompasses. Although I had opportunities to do project work in junior college and secondary school, none can compare to the intensity of this course. The fact that we are given the opportunity to travel to Chiang Mai to do on-the-ground research was also an eye-opening experience. The difference between doing surveys and interviews in Singapore and in Chiang Mai is really the time restraint – learning to make the most we can of the time we have there. This means extensive pre-trip research, planning and ensuring that the research we intend to conduct is sufficient to cover the grounds of our intended research topic. While there were several hiccups here and there throughout the trip, we managed to pull things together and think on the spot of how to rectify issues we could only have discovered during the trip (such as the inadequacies of our survey and interview questions).

While we had almost a year to prepare our research and report for our projects in the past, TOPS spans a mere few months, and is on a far larger scale at that. I initially started the project thinking that I had sufficient knowledge on report writing to understand how to write the essay, but throughout the course of the module, I have learnt so much not only about crafting survey and interview questions, but how to write scholarly articles. Learning so much about elephants really transformed me from someone nonchalant about the ethical issue of using elephants for tourism, into a person who feels that she can make a difference, even if it only means educating just a few more people.

Also, as a very people oriented person, I place a lot of value on my interactions with others. One thing that really struck me about Chiang Mai is the generosity and kindness of the people there. Even though we were tourists and often had difficulty communicating with the locals, we were met with smiles everywhere we went. One such individual who really made me feel touched during the trip was our tuk-tuk driver who spent long periods of time driving us around on a few days. He never seemed to mind when Pro often asked him to stop at several scenic locations for us to take a look around, and he had so many opportunities to take advantage of our naivety when we left our belongings on the vehicle and left – but he never did.

Compare this to Singapore, where you would always meet that impatient commuter who brushes you out of the way, or that grumpy canteen stall auntie who seems to hate all her customers – in a way, I really wish Singapore could be a little friendlier, a little kinder. Of course, that’s not to say that Singaporeans aren’t kind or generous, I feel that we’re just not used to showing it. I wonder if it’s a chicken and egg situation, where an environment that promotes such generosity would naturally breed such people. Similarly, growing up in a more hostile environment naturally makes you more guarded and less open to showing kindness to that stranger down the street. This makes me wonder how tourists view Singaporeans, and whether we will be able to change to be a more compassionate society like in Chiang Mai.

And perhaps most importantly to me, my biggest takeaway from the trip is the friendships forged. From blasting music and singing on the tuk-tuk to star-gazing together, this was the first time I had gone on a trip with friends, and it has turned out nothing short of fun and amazing. There was one night when I fell asleep in our room with just three of us, only to wake up to a room full of people from our group who had fallen asleep together. As someone who didn’t manage to attend the USP camp and had always felt very distant from the rest of the cohort, this trip was especially important to me in making me feel comfortable with them. After this trip, I definitely feel more excited for the remaining of my USP journey with such thought-provoking courses and fun-loving yet down-to-earth classmates.

I can’t say I’ve grown much as a person because in all fairness, it was just a short 5-day trip. However, the lessons learnt and experiences gained has certainly shaped my perspectives of how research should be conducted. Also, the friendships forged will certainly go a long way – for that alone, I dare say this has been my most fulfilling overseas trip. Yet.