Day 5 // 8 Jan

While I was happy to return to Singapore in less than a day, back into my comfort zone with faces and surroundings I am familiar with, I miss being immersed in a foreign land, hearing people communicate in a foreign language, I miss the feeling of not knowing what to expect every day. And most importantly, I miss the feeling of waking up and knowing that I will be spending the rest of the day with a group of friends – one that have grown to be very close from the short 5 days trip.

In the afternoon, we had the opportunity to take part in an amazing race, which aims to highlight the issue of leadership. Which I felt was achieved.

I understood how it was really important to step out of our comfort zone and take the initiative to lead. Through the amazing race, I saw how each and every one of us are skilled in a certain aspect – navigation, communication, supporter etc. Yet, the reflection time after the program revealed how most of us were actually not confident in the role we had. We weren’t confident we could communicate with the locals and ask for directions correctly. We weren’t confident we can hype the moral and mood in the group. Yet, through trying, we saw how being good at it was merely a secondary concern. As a USP student, it is important to welcome new experiences and challenges. And I felt this leadership program was able to provide a platform where we could step up to lead, even in an area we weren’t exactly comfortable in.

Today was also the first time I watched a ladyboy cabaret show. One that struck me in awe as I admired their songs and dance. While some may feel this is out of their league, I found this trip to be one filled with learning experience. It triggered me to think about how normal such a show would be in Chiang Mai, and how the ladyboys were fully integrated in and accepted by the Thai society, even in the countryside which were usually supposed to be more traditional and conservative. Yet in Singapore, a developed country, the issue of transgender is still a sensitive topic, not accepted by many Singaporeans. Why is it such that an educated society like Singapore is unable to accept the issue with regards to transgender when we are supposed to be more educated and open-minded and accepting, whereas a traditional and developing country like Chiang Mai can accept them, and even use them as a selling point to attract tourism dollars?