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Tag: Asia

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By Shannon Fitzpatrick

It’s a beautiful thing to bring happiness to others through doing what I love. During my past few months in China, I have found that despite the major changes that come about from living in a different environment, the things in life that have always made me happy, continue to do so. I have discovered that the flame of a true passion is not easily put out- it may flicker and change with changes occurring around it, but passion runs deep enough that regardless of the circumstances, it perseveres.

As mentioned in my previous post, I have been volunteering at V Yoga Studio in Shanghai- helping out around the studio and teaching English lessons to the yoga teachers who speak Chinese. In my case, my passion for yoga has allowed me to connect with a specific community that shares my same passion. With this, I have been lucky enough to contribute to the studio’s community in sharing my perspective and knowledge of yoga, and have learned so much from the warm and welcoming women around me in exchange. In our time spent together, it is clear that we enjoy eachothers’ company. With different things to learn from, teach to, and share with one another, we constantly empower one another and have thought-provoking interactions.

One of the most interesting aspects of my time spent at the studio is that every interaction feels so meaningful and thought-provoking, even when no words are exchanged. With a large language barrier between myself and some of the women who speak only Chinese, our interactions are often oriented in gestures and involve translation apps. Nonetheless, we still find ways of understanding each other and learning from one another.

The studio describes itself as a family and welcomes anyone into its doors to practice. Employees are constantly looking for new ways to share their passion for yoga with the community around them. In an effort to expand and achieve their goals, the studio manager has decided to create an outdoor cafe space on the roof of the studio where people can enjoy the positive atmosphere of the studio, without feeling obligated to practice yoga. I have been fortunate enough to be able to contribute to this action of passion sharing- helping to renovate the studio space for the new cafe. I definitely didn’t feel qualified when I was asked to help paint the walls of the new cafe, but had a blast doing so anyways.

I am so excited to watch the community of V Yoga grow and transform, and will continue to use my passion to help fuel the community’s fire.

Partner yoga sesh!

 

Cafe painting quickly transformed to face painting

 

Just a little V-Cafe advertising

 

The V-Yoga family’s newest edition coming soon!

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By tanvibanerjee

One of my friends who went on an exchange program once told me, “Nothing lasts forever, especially, study abroad.” And how true have her words been! It feels like it was just yesterday when I landed in Changi on a hot and humid January morning (something, I never thought I would be able to say in the same sentence). Now, I am expected to pack up and fly back to New Delhi on a hot and humid May morning. Even though I have been prepared to go back home, I am whiplashed by how quickly the semester went by. More importantly, though, I am amazed at how much I have learned and changed over the last few months.

So, what have I learned from study abroad?

1. It is okay to feel like a fish out of water

In some aspects, coming to Singapore has not been a culture shock to me simply because the Indian culture is an important part of Singaporean culture itself. However, I have still felt like a fish out of water many times here and especially during my travels through Southeast Asia.

One of the first times that I felt completely out of sync was when I tried to order my first cup of tea at a local hawker center. I was extremely confused by local names such as ‘Teh, Tea O, Tea C etc.’ and ended up ordering iced milk tea, instead of the hot one that I wanted.

The first final that I took in Singapore, also baffled me. First and foremost, it was held in a huge sports hall. Even though my class was small with only 10 students, we took our exams with nearly 400 other students in the same space. The local students put away their bags in the corner of the huge hall and walked to their assigned seat numbers with complete ease. One of my local friends had to actually guide me through the entire process. ...continue reading "Lessons and Letters: My final blog on Singapore"

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By shellytakessingapore

It was a sunny day when my plane was descending from an eight hour flight from Doha International Airport into Singapore's Changi International Airport. As I looked out the left window, I could see the famous boat like structure on top of Marina Bay Sands, the Singapore Flyer Ferris Wheel, and even the Supertrees. When the plane finally touched the ground and came to a stop, my first thought was "This is it. I'm actually here".

I didn't think that these past five months would have gone by as quickly as they did. There were certainly dull times throughout the semester where the days went by and all I had done was stay in my room and do some work. However, as I have to come to learn, studying abroad doesn't necessarily mean doing something new every moment. Often times people studying abroad say they have been enlightened or have changed as a person. While I can't necessarily say that I have changed, I have learned a lot more about the world through the lens of the locals in Singapore and the countries I have visited. I have enjoyed having meaningful conversations with my fellow exchangers about their home countries and how their culture is similar and different from my own.

Looking back on my semester, I don't have many, if any, regrets. There are some things that I wish I had known before coming to Singapore. These things include basic things like sunscreen (it costs so much here!), an umbrella (despite all of the sun, it rains at any given moment in Singapore), and also general assumptions such as spending. While the food in Singapore is cheap, I have found myself being constantly low in cash. Singapore is mostly a cash based economy. The country is moving towards being cashless by encouraging people to pay with NETS, the Network for Electronic Transfers. NETs is a national electronic payment system that is owned by banks in Singapore including DBS, OCBC, and UOB.

...continue reading "It’s not a goodbye, it’s a see you later"

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Some things I've learned about Shanghai so far:
———
Life here can seem like one huge contradiction.
  1. Society runs at its own pace. Lateness is accepted and rather common in some facets of life. Nevertheless, public transit arrival and departure times are always right on the dot and I've never been to a more punctual, streamlined hospital than the one I go to in Shanghai.
  2. Bikes. Are. Everywhere. So much so that massive bicycle graveyards stretch on for miles and miles, piled up with broken bikes and overproduction, but at the same time, bike sharing is generally a very time efficient and cost effective way to travel around the city.
  3. City street cleaners work almost entirely by hand with a broom made of leaves and a shovel, which seems extremely unproductive and inefficient, but the majority of streets—even in less-populated areas—remain relatively clean.
  4. Traffic culture is chaos. Move it or lose it. On top of that, everyone honks at everyone for no apparent reason. However, there seem to be very few accidents—at least none that I've seen.
  5. There is absolutely zero rhyme or rhythm to the way people walk in the streets. You cannot get around anyone. I think people walk at about negative 0.5 mph, but when it comes to catching the bus or metro, everyone runs like they're being chased by a chainsaw murderer down a dark alley at 3am.
But hey … at least you know you've got something really good going on in your home away from home when the only things you truly miss from home are blue skies and fresh air.

...continue reading "Shanghai is…"

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By sheldonwongg

One of the really unique aspects about doing an SIT Program is that they all have a one month attached independent study project (ISP) to culminate the end of the semester. During the ISP, you are allowed to travel to anywhere that is relevant to the program focus and given free range to research any topic of your interest. I only have one week left of my ISP time, but it has been one of the most eye opening and educational experiences of my life. I decided to go to Dharamsala, the “capital” of Tibetans in exile. I’ve spent the last three weeks apprenticing a local small business clothing company to learn more about how emerging Tibetan designers use traditional clothing as inspiration for their contemporary designs. I’ve been going into the workshop and working with the tailors to make clothes. I even got to design a few garments. I set out to gain some perspective on what Tibetan clothing means for a group of people that have evolve in exile, and I’m walking away from a deeper understanding of how nuanced this idea of fashion, especially in the context of identity, can be. This experience has given me so much first-hand knowledge about the livelihoods of those who seek to creative and to do so with integrity to their identity.

 

Getting to do an ISP in India is also really cool because it is like I get to study abroad in two countries. Despite being in majority Tibetan communities in Nepal and India, Dharamsala has been really unique from my experience in Nepal. In my few weeks here, I’ve reunited myself with a variety of food that doesn’t include dal bhat, explored little Israel, and walked a lot of hills. I even met the Dalai Lama and got to attend a teaching by him. It’s my last week in Dharamsala before I head back to Nepal for the final week of study abroad, so I’m trying to soak up all of the beauty in Dharamsala before I leave.

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By maxleo43

It’s funny; I remember thinking about China before I left and wondering what the society would be like. Would the communist government’s rule of law keep everyone in check? Would I have to be worried about accidentally committing a crime because of obtuse laws?

I arrived and found nothing of the sort. While China, and Shanghai, have many of the same laws as the U.S. that govern day to day life, there is still a lot of freedom and lee-way. For example, it is pretty much acceptable to ride a bicycle anywhere. The bike lane, sidewalk, and even a busy road are all allowable places to ride a bicycle. While this may seem rather minimal, there is something pretty fantastic about riding a bike down a main road in Shanghai and passing luxury sports cars.

This sense of freedom has pretty fully inhabited my life while here in Shanghai. I have class three days a week, Tuesday through Thursday, but I get out of class at noon on Wednesday and don’t start until 1:30 on Thursday. This leaves me with a four-day weekend and a lot of time to explore. On any given day, I can wake up, ride an OFO bike to the metro, hop on and end up in any part of the city. I can spend the day searching for the best dumplings in Shanghai, studying at a café in the French Concession, exploring the location where the Chinese Communist Party was founded, or getting my hair dyed blonde (I did this yesterday). ...continue reading "Freedom"

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I'm not gonna front, before I came to Nepal, I was worried about what it meant to experience poverty. I came with a lot of misconceptions of what it means to live in a country that was deemed poor by outsiders. And sure enough, the first day was a shocking experience. I came off the plane with hundreds of people swarming luggage claim and taxi drivers trying to get anyone to get into their car. But my time in Nepal has taught me that poverty is only a concept. Just because someone makes a certain amount of money, we label them in categories to describe their happiness and self-worth. In reality, poverty is only what we make of it. Yes, my host families in Nepal and India may be, by a definition, poor, but that does not mean that they are deprived of something. In fact, they are happier than most people I know back home. Just from the glimpse of their lives that they have shared with me, their lives are never packing anything. There's always three square meals, things to do, and lots of love to be distributed. So many times in my life, I've equated money and the amount of material things I have ownership over to happiness. Somehow the less I had meant I would be less happy.

It’s been eye opening to see how people across the world live their lives. One that is filled with joy and love and not lacking in any sense. Humans are incredibly resilient, they make due with they lives, and find ways to live abundantly with whatever they have. It really puts things into perspective. I have been thinking a lot about my return to the United States, the life I live and the meaning of the things I own. This experience has helped me realize how my life is lived in measurements of what I need rather than what I have. It’s hard to unlearn what I have been socialized to prioritize, but it’s a lesson that I’m grateful to have learned.

 

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I have always been fascinated by education. In America, it is not only looked upon as a necessary service, it is required by law. American Children must be educated, at least until they are 16 (around 10 or 11 years of required schooling). The majority of millennials or younger have or will receive a high school diploma, and around 40% will continue on to receive a bachelor’s diploma. In many communities, it is the norm to continue on to college after high school. Since being in China, I have realized that education is not looked upon in the same way.

While it is compulsory in China to go to school for 9 years (only 1 or 2 less years than in America), traditional education is very different than western education. The Chinese education system is very much based on memorization. Critical thinking skills are widely skipped over in favor of regurgitation of facts. Students in China will all partake in this type of education up until high school, at which point they have to choose to either attempt to go to college in China or choose to attempt to go internationally. If they choose China, then they will spend 3 years studying for the Gaokao, the Chinese university entrance exam. The test is extremely difficult and almost completely determines which colleges you get into. If they choose to go internationally, then they will either go to a private school or the international version of a public school. These schools will have either AP or IB curriculum and teach students in a similar way to the American education system. This past week, I got to visit several of these international public and private schools to meet students.

On Monday, I visited three schools for Chinese national students. All three offered an international curriculum, either AP, IB or both, and were preparing to send students abroad for their college education. Many of the teachers were American or Canadian and instruction was completely in English (with the exception of language classes). Despite this international curriculum with a focus on critical thinking and creativity, there was still a big push for STEM and memorization heavy subjects. For example, one of the college counselors was telling me about a parent who had told her that her daughter was interesting in studying art in college. Instead of encouraging this, the college counselor suggested that she study engineering and go into the artificial intelligence field. Despite the excellent education that students at this school were receiving, they are still only given a limited number options when it comes to choosing a field of study in college.

...continue reading "Education in China"

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As a rising senior, I am about to embark on the wild journey that is apartment hunting. However, for many Singaporean residents, apartment hunting does not begin until after their marriage or in their late 20s. Due to scarce land and an ever declining birth date, the Singaporean government has taken several measures that make single people under the age of 35 to go through a lot of difficulties to get their own house. Furthermore, families are given preferences for housing over unmarried buyers. So, how has housing changed in Singapore? What does it look like now? Has it impacted the average Singaporean!? This blog tries to answer these questions.

History of Housing in Singapore

After World World War II, most residents of Singapore lived in Kampongs i.e. villages. Extended families lived under the same roof and most houses were traditional “Attap houses” made of Attap palm. However, these houses were very prone to fire. When the People’s Action Party came to power in the 1950s, they began to modernize Singapore. Urbanization and modernization became even more important once Singapore became independent. Without no natural resources and limited land, the pragmatic state had to start relying on developing Singapore’s manufacturing and services sector! It had another important work to do, inculcate nationalism amongst its diverse yet fragmented population, which had been segregated from each other on the basis of ethnicity, religion, clan associations etc. One way to do so was through housing!

Today, a majority of the Singaporeans live in tall high rises. The shifting of people from kampongs to urban planned townships began in the 1960s and continued into the late 1980s and early 1990s.

I visited the housing estate in the quaint Tiong Bahru area, which was built in the 1920s and 30s and is characterized by its unique architecture, a change from modern Singapore's high rise apartments.   ...continue reading "Housing in Singapore!"

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It's that time of the semester again. After four months of doing the bare minimum amount of work, students hustle to cram four months of knowledge in their brains during finals seasons. This universally dreaded season, that lasts from April 28th to May 12th this year, is not too much different at NUS as it is at GW. One key similarity is that every study space is jam packed with students reading class textbooks for the first time or reviewing online lectures for classes they barely attended.

To find out your exam date, you have to go to NUS's equivalent of Blackboard called IVLE. Each course has its final exam date listed in the course page. It's really helpful to know when your final exam dates are so you can plan trips and the flight back home easier. This semester, my exams are on April 30th, May 2nd, and May 9th. Additionally, I recently had an unofficial final exam for my Public Health in Action class. Perhaps its just my classes, but I have found that a lot of classes at NUS offer open note exams. I was allowed any soft copy material for my public health exam and will be allowed any hard copy materials for my Global Economic Dimensions of Singapore class. The exam formats are very similar to those at GW: open response essays, multiple choice, and short answer. However, some exams are conducted online on an application called Examplify. Moreover, the exams are worth a greater percentage of the overall grade for the class. With 40% of the grade being class participation, my public health exam is worth an outstanding 60% of my grade!

Like GW, NUS also has a designated reading period for students; however, NUS's reading period is one week long whereas GW's reading period lasts one or two days. While most local students spend that time preparing and reviewing for exams, exchange students use it to make their last few trips to other countries. Many of my friends are going to China, Taiwan, Vietnam, India, Thailand, and even the UK! I, myself, will be spending three days in Bali, Indonesia. While many of my friends are spending the entire week abroad (while abroad), I have decided to actually use some of the reading week for its actual purpose. I also hope to make a solo trip around Singapore itself during one the reading days. ...continue reading "Finals, Family, and Feelings"

Unless otherwise indicated, the content and opinions expressed on this web site are those of the author(s). They are not endorsed by and do not necessarily reflect the views of the George Washington University.
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