Pre-Trip Reflection

The USP vision is to “nurture creative and reflective global citizens devoted to understanding the social, cultural, economic and environmental forces that give shape to our ever-changing world”. TOPS is a great way to realise this vision and it allows us to learn even better by immersing ourselves in intercultural experiences. Being a Fieldwork and Documentation module and having us conduct independent research and interviews will equip me with better interpersonal and social skills that would help me a lot in the future.

Furthermore, interacting with USP peers from different faculties will help broaden my perspectives and practice having an open mind to learn and unlearn things. We each have our varied interests, abilities, knowledge and viewpoints from our own faculties, and I believe collaborating and applying them to a common cause in this trip will result in great outcomes. Being in an intellectually stimulating environment, sharing perspectives and challenging each other’s viewpoints allow us to learn from one another.

Being immersed in a different culture and country can really put things into perspective and provides plentiful opportunities to reflect back on life at home. I have gone for community service trips to Kanchanaburi in the past, and I always left with many learned valuable lessons and gained insights that I continue to reflect back on till this day. Interacting with the community there broadened my perspectives and humbled the way I perceived things. Kanchanaburi is less developed and well to do than other cities of Thailand, and was a very different environment from Singapore. Seeing the community at the village school make do and be content with the little resources they had made me realise how much I had been taking things for granted back home –not just in terms of material possessions, but also with regards to the quality of life and education. I cannot exactly compare Chiang Mai with Kanchanaburi since they are two different cities, albeit of the same country, but nonetheless I believe every place has something new to teach us, and Chiang Mai will be no different!

This intercultural exchange will be slightly different from my past experiences but no less enriching. In Kanchanaburi, communication was limited due to language barriers, and I interacted more with younger children than people of similar age. I learned about the dynamics within the community and their way of life mostly through observation, and could not gather much knowledge about the culture or history of the place. This time, being able to interact with like-minded students from Chiang Mai University will not only enable me to learn more about Chiang Mai itself, but also engage in intellectually stimulating discussions. My group has decided to organize several focus group discussions with the students at the university, and this will be a good chance to not only gain more perspectives and material for our deliverable, but also to form new friendships. Personally, I look forward to establishing invaluable friendships with the new people I will meet, including our CMU student attach!

As a personal takeaway, I would like to learn more about Chiang Mai as a city. I have visited other parts of Thailand, but I would like to experience the culture and way of life in Chiang Mai, which I am sure will be unique and different. Chiang Mai is also known to have its own unique arts scene, which I am curious and excited to discover. We will also have the opportunity to interact with students from the Fine Arts department of Chiang Mai University, and I wish to take this time to learn more about the arts education there.

I am also excited at the prospect of creating the media deliverable. Apart from creating a documentary style informative video, my group has also decided to create an artwork based on our experiences and inspiration we gathered from this trip. Having an arts background, I am very pleased that my group has decided to take on this challenge. The Arts is a strong and effective way of creating an impact or carrying across a certain message to the viewers. Making a documentary style video may be more informative, but art cultivates and stimulates the emotions and thoughts that a video may not be able to. This is the power and appeal of the Arts that may be unbeknownst to many, therefore creating an artwork as our media deliverable will help introduce and showcase this aspect of art to the USP (and perhaps NTU) community.

I believe TOPS will be an enriching and invigorating experience where I can grow and learn alongside my USP peers. I look forward to the adventures we will have!