Last Day of the Singapore Leg

20 May 2007

Finally, we had come to the last day of the Singapore leg. It was a beautiful Sunday, and a group of UBC students went to explore our downtown and the famous Raffles Hotel, named after the founder of modern Singapore Sir Stamford Raffles. I shall offer a brief description and summary of what we had achieved and learnt in the past week. It is neither comprehensive nor exhaustive, and I try to make it slightly personal by including my own reflections. :)

We found ourselves in hot tropical weather on 13 May 2007, and soon after receiving the UBC contingent at the airport, moved into the NUS dormitories. My roommate was Jerry, and saw cockroaches at the corridors and stairways. I tried my best to allay Jerry's fears, saying that the appearance of these cockroaches was an isolated case that did not speak for Singapore as a whole. Oops! Our reputation as a Garden City was tarnished, well, to a certain extent. Nevertheless, I am sure that we are still a clean and green city.

We welcomed every morning with class lectures and group discussions, and ended the day with a debrief. We visited clan associations, heritage centres, museums, temples and the like, to see the development and evolution of the Chinese community in Singapore amid the sweeping changes in the past decades and centuries. Singapore is not only a cosmopolitan city, but also a multi-ethinc nation. Racial equality is rather well-maintained in the country, and the Chinese in Singapore are lucky in a sense that they do not face discrimination like that suffered by their counterparts in other parts of Southeast Asia. In this way, the contributions made by the Chinese in Singapore in statehood and nation-building is evident and more profound, and they are not overlooked or fall into oblivion. Indeed, Singapore is like a second China, but we do possess and enjoy our independence and sovereignty. And yet, we still strive hard to keep our identity as Chinese overseas, who pledge allegiance to the Republic of Singapore and seek spiritual contentment or fulfilment by foraging for our past and preserving it as part of a shared identity.

~Ying Kit