SEALNet Project Malaysia ended on 6/8, and I left for Kuala Lumpur again on 6/9. I booked myself a cheap hostel room in order to save money, and to my delight, the hostel is located in Bukit Bintang--one of the must-go sites of KL. There is a amazing Chinese food street full of open-air restaurants and the typical bustling ambiance of an overseas Chinese community. At the same time, Bukit Bintang offers high-end shopping malls, Indian supermarkets, and the Arab Street. Lebanese and Syrian immigrants (illegal or not) roam the streets, reminding me its a Muslim country after all. I even bargained with an Indian shop keeper on the price of a Chelsea FC jersey (Frank Lampard, to be precise); it was tough...
One place you have to visit in Malaysia is Malacca, where you realize why they call Malaysia "truly Asia." I took a morning bus there and literally ran through the ancient city due to the lack of time. I visited the Dutch governor's house, the British graveyard, and the Portuguese ship. I ate Malay fried fish as well as the ever-famous chicken rice balls. I even bought gifts for my newly-wed friends in Texas and mailed them at the local post office. Malacca is like Los Angeles in its diversity, but with a much richer history and greater depth. In addition to missionaries and natives, Malacca had kings, merchants from all over the world, and a trading culture that flourished for ten centuries.
On 6/12, I left Malaysia. I flew from KL to Singapore then to Hong Kong. To many of you who don't know me all that well, Hong Kong is actually my favorite city. But this time I only stayed there for 30 minutes; I had a bigger destination: China mainland. I arrived in the southern city of Shenzhen.
Shenzhen embodies China's unprecedented growth in the past decades. In 1978, Shenzhen was a fishing village. Also in 1978, China came out of the Cultural Revolution and new leaders, under the leadership of vice chairman Deng Xiaoping--the so-called modern China's architect, had ambitious goals. They set Shenzhen apart as a Special Economic Zone. Its strategic location right next to Hong Kong made sure of its astronomical growth. In two decades, Shenzhen's population reached 5 million. Today it stands at 7 million, most of which are comprised of migrants from outside Guangdong/Canton province (where Shenzhen is). I came to the city expecting some Cantonese-learning opportunities, and, to my dismay, I found none.
China is my homeland. Last time I visited my homeland was this past winter, when I flew to Shanghai for a weekend from Hong Kong, where I was doing an MIT externship. Nevertheless, China never fails to surprise me. In other words, I receive a "cultural shock" every single time I visit the country. This time is no different.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
I'm in China! ...sitting in an office with no AC on a Saturday night...
Hey all! As I am aimlessly waiting for an advertisement company to finish making a poster so that I can forward it to my supervisors for approval (even makes me fall asleep when i'm typing this...ZZZ), I'd like to ...um...talk about my current lifestyle in Asia and what's going through my mind. Most importantly, i'm making full use of this blogspot, am i not?
On 5/20, right after my final, I flew back to LA--my american home. I stayed there for 9 hours--i only got to see my two lovely cats for 9 freakin hours!! My parents and I then took a trip to malaysia. Or M'sia, truly asia, as they advertise it. We travelled to the northern city of Penang and the capital Kuala Lumpur (KL). KL is a metropolis of 2 million people of different ethinicities, modern architecture (wow, the petronas towers), and a sense of developed nation. For me, Penang felt better. It's like a mini Singapore in that it is heavily Chinese influenced; over 50% of the population(around 25% in the country) are of Chinese descent, mostly Hokkien and Cantonese. The traditional family halls with bronze plaques commemorizing everyone in the family that has gotten a college degree are...soooo Chinese. That's all I can say. But the architecture and the splendid carving on the building posts are rare even in China.
Kota Kinabalu is where the shit happens. I was there as a leader of the SEALNet (Southeast Asian Service Leadership Network) Project Malaysia 2008. Shorthand: PM 08. Tuan Huynh, Kai Qiu (both of them are from MIT and are, coincidentally, my frat brothers), and I literally prepared for the project for nine months. the theme was "environmental awareness in action". Kota Kinabalu is the capital of Sabah, on the island part of Malaysia. A touristy city of half a million, KK is facing many problems including illegal immigration and...environmental issues. We collaborated with KK Wetlands Centre (KKWC).
The team is composed of college students from MIT (Kellie, Tendelle, Hank, Tian, Wei jian, and the three leaders), Harvard, UPenn, NYU, and elsewhere in the U.S. The HS participants of our project were 20 high school students from all over KK and several from KL. Throughout the 12 days we had lessons, a couple of field trips, and project planning sessions. One lesson that achieved quite a lot of success was the Maze. We blindfolded the kids and herded them into a maze with no exits. We asked them to find their way out, but if they get stuck and raise their hands, we will help and get them out. In the middle, we interject with made-up remarks such as "Congratulations to the first person to get out!" Many of them were so stubborn that they didn't raise their hands until the very last minute, even after we told them "just raise your freakin hands!" The idea is to make them realize that it's not embarassing--but necessary--to ask for help.
One of the field trips was to the beach. We had an hour-long trash pick-up session. we divided into teams and picked different types of trash and recorded the pieces we collected. It was only an hour, and the kids saw SUCh a difference. Even the passers-by stopped their cars and asked us what we were doing. After knowing that we were volunteering to clean up the beach, two guys even piled the trash bags onto their pick-up trucks and transported them to the landfills and recycling plants for us--all free of charge! Most importantly, the students saw that their efforts materialized into something tangible, something almost immediately affecting the community.
On the final day, I gave a speech( it was preeetty good :) ) in front of the Sabah minister of culture, tourism, and the environment as well as Shell company chiefs (Yes, Shell is our kind sponsor). Everything resulted into something great: the final mangrove tree planting session, which the Minister participated himself! In addition to planting the mangroves for KKWC, our students renovated the herb garden, created new advertisement campaign, built a new website, revamped the library database, and designed final day fundraising events. Most importantly, they divided into three teams and planned three long-term projects that are rocking the community today (one of the reasons prompting me to write something today is because a student sent me pictures of her group's beach cleaning event; they managed to get over 70 kids to come to the beach for a day, plus the leadership activities they themselves taught afterwards!).
There were tears, there were smiles. There were inpirational songs. Oh, Mariah Carey... Anyway, I left Sabah, carrying with me good memories and long stories to tell. I stayed another two days in KL, visited the Chinatown, Bukit Bintang, and the famous city of Malacca/Melaka. Malacca is such an epitomy of Malaysian diversity: malay, chinese, indian, portuguese, dutch, english, and a mixture culture called baba&nyonya (chinese-malay descendants). Malaysian food was ..um, how should i call it, AMAZING.
Second part of this blog entry will continue...I just got the poster from the advertisement company and am able to go home!!! Yayyyyy.
On 5/20, right after my final, I flew back to LA--my american home. I stayed there for 9 hours--i only got to see my two lovely cats for 9 freakin hours!! My parents and I then took a trip to malaysia. Or M'sia, truly asia, as they advertise it. We travelled to the northern city of Penang and the capital Kuala Lumpur (KL). KL is a metropolis of 2 million people of different ethinicities, modern architecture (wow, the petronas towers), and a sense of developed nation. For me, Penang felt better. It's like a mini Singapore in that it is heavily Chinese influenced; over 50% of the population(around 25% in the country) are of Chinese descent, mostly Hokkien and Cantonese. The traditional family halls with bronze plaques commemorizing everyone in the family that has gotten a college degree are...soooo Chinese. That's all I can say. But the architecture and the splendid carving on the building posts are rare even in China.
Kota Kinabalu is where the shit happens. I was there as a leader of the SEALNet (Southeast Asian Service Leadership Network) Project Malaysia 2008. Shorthand: PM 08. Tuan Huynh, Kai Qiu (both of them are from MIT and are, coincidentally, my frat brothers), and I literally prepared for the project for nine months. the theme was "environmental awareness in action". Kota Kinabalu is the capital of Sabah, on the island part of Malaysia. A touristy city of half a million, KK is facing many problems including illegal immigration and...environmental issues. We collaborated with KK Wetlands Centre (KKWC).
The team is composed of college students from MIT (Kellie, Tendelle, Hank, Tian, Wei jian, and the three leaders), Harvard, UPenn, NYU, and elsewhere in the U.S. The HS participants of our project were 20 high school students from all over KK and several from KL. Throughout the 12 days we had lessons, a couple of field trips, and project planning sessions. One lesson that achieved quite a lot of success was the Maze. We blindfolded the kids and herded them into a maze with no exits. We asked them to find their way out, but if they get stuck and raise their hands, we will help and get them out. In the middle, we interject with made-up remarks such as "Congratulations to the first person to get out!" Many of them were so stubborn that they didn't raise their hands until the very last minute, even after we told them "just raise your freakin hands!" The idea is to make them realize that it's not embarassing--but necessary--to ask for help.
One of the field trips was to the beach. We had an hour-long trash pick-up session. we divided into teams and picked different types of trash and recorded the pieces we collected. It was only an hour, and the kids saw SUCh a difference. Even the passers-by stopped their cars and asked us what we were doing. After knowing that we were volunteering to clean up the beach, two guys even piled the trash bags onto their pick-up trucks and transported them to the landfills and recycling plants for us--all free of charge! Most importantly, the students saw that their efforts materialized into something tangible, something almost immediately affecting the community.
On the final day, I gave a speech( it was preeetty good :) ) in front of the Sabah minister of culture, tourism, and the environment as well as Shell company chiefs (Yes, Shell is our kind sponsor). Everything resulted into something great: the final mangrove tree planting session, which the Minister participated himself! In addition to planting the mangroves for KKWC, our students renovated the herb garden, created new advertisement campaign, built a new website, revamped the library database, and designed final day fundraising events. Most importantly, they divided into three teams and planned three long-term projects that are rocking the community today (one of the reasons prompting me to write something today is because a student sent me pictures of her group's beach cleaning event; they managed to get over 70 kids to come to the beach for a day, plus the leadership activities they themselves taught afterwards!).
There were tears, there were smiles. There were inpirational songs. Oh, Mariah Carey... Anyway, I left Sabah, carrying with me good memories and long stories to tell. I stayed another two days in KL, visited the Chinatown, Bukit Bintang, and the famous city of Malacca/Melaka. Malacca is such an epitomy of Malaysian diversity: malay, chinese, indian, portuguese, dutch, english, and a mixture culture called baba&nyonya (chinese-malay descendants). Malaysian food was ..um, how should i call it, AMAZING.
Second part of this blog entry will continue...I just got the poster from the advertisement company and am able to go home!!! Yayyyyy.
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