Breakfast at Tiffany's

2 Journal entries of my YEP trip

29 Sept 2007 (Sat)

Ok so now finally I’ve gotten down to pen down my feelings and experiences I have through these past few days.. Haven’t really got the chance to on my lappie (yeah right! I’m juz lazy!!) except now, cos a student wanted to charge his MP3 player lah. Haha!

Well I’m glad that I’m still surviving.. it is now the 8th day of the trip. Time passes so quickly when u’re enjoying it! My time spent here has been worthwhile, the people here are soooooooooooo polite and friendly! Especially the China students in the school. They will definitely greet you “Ni hao” or “Chi bao le mah?” whenever you walk past them. They love making new friends and are always ready to help make our stay comfortable.

Life is so simple over here.. I feel like I’m living in the 60s! The people here are so carefree.. The food that the local students eat is really quite saddening. Although their bowl has a mountain-full of rice, they only had a simple dish to add on it (sometimes beans, or juz plain soup!). My students were quite affected over it, because they have been complaining about their own cooked food (different teams were allocated to do cooking for different days), which is actually far much better than what these locals have been eating. :( Wah but the amount of rice that they eat is really A LOT. Thanks to the HUGE padi fields over there..

There are a lot of coconut trees and dragonflies in Hainan!! Which reminds me, I hardly see any dragonfly in Singapore nowadays.. And the weather….. Man.. it’s amazing! It is so unpredictable!! One minute it can be a bright, hot sunny day, which most of us will go for a cool bath, and when I come out of the toilet, it is raining like cats & dogs!! Everyday it’s like that! Rain and shine, rain and shine.. Throughout all these, I must say the worst thing is the toilets that we Singaporeans share in our dormitory! Arrgh… it is always choked because some students still throw plastic bags, plenty of toilet paper, disposable underwear, etc. We have a total of 4 toilets, shared among 72 students and 6 teachers. Imagine that! But we have quite a number of students who went through the dirt and energy to help clear the choked bowls. They’re really fantastic, our heros! They put tubes into the bowl and started blowing with all their might until everything was cleared. Really proud of them as they were students from our team. Quite a mature bunch of students and I know they really made the best of themselves out of this YEP.

Oh yah, I must mention about one event which almost made me regret coming for this trip!! Haha.. it was scary man.. but quite fun actually. What happened was I had a real culture shock. When we first reached Diao Luo Shan Village, the Foreign Affairs Official, the local village government officials and school principal took us teachers out for lunch. Jenny, our YEP facilitator course instructor, was right about China’s custom! They warmly welcomed us by drinking!!! Throughout our lunch, they kept wanting to bottoms up! Their rice wine is really HOT man!! During dinner it was just the same! My colleagues and I all broke our personal record, 2 beer bottles! I even fell off the chair at one time!! Hahaha.. kept eating all the fatty ‘te kah’ and ‘pai ku’ to try to stay sober.. After dinner I couldn’t walk straight and had to hold on to my dear colleague when we walk back to our dorm. My students were so worried about me.. hahaa… fell straight asleep when I got on my bed! Really interesting.. hahaa.. I’m expecting another time to come this Tuesday when our directors will arrive to pay a visit! NOT looking forward to that man… Heee..

03 Oct 2007 (Tue)

Alright, now is the continuation of my ‘holiday’. Hee.. We left Diao Luo Shan Village and got back to the city (Haikou) yesterday in the late afternoon. At first it was scheduled that we will come here on tomorrow, but due to unforeseen circumstances (typhoon estimated to come between 2-4 Oct), we had to leave earlier. Scary stuff, I’ve never experienced typhoon before!! And ya, up till now I still haven’t. Haha.. hmm.. But it has been raining heavily over here man! And the winds are very strong!! Carrying an umbrella doesn’t really help very much. Except maybe to bring u to ur destination faster (depends on the wind direction).

It was a rather tearful day yesterday when we left Diao Luo Shan. The villagers, especially the kids sent us off and most of the kids cried… making some of my students cry too. Seeing such an emotional moment also made me tear! Both me and my new found villager friend, Chun Jing, couldn’t control our emotions too when we hugged and parted ways. But the sadness didn’t stay for long ah.. I guess it’s because all of us didn’t really spend that much time together with the villagers due to the heavy rain. And mostly because we succumbed to the comfort of civilization life. Warm showers, air con, a sink, flush for toilets, soft bed with comforters, tv, INTERNET, etc. Haiz.. SPOILT!!

Wah.. last night’s dinner we drank again! This time, it’s Mou Tai!! 53% ok!!!!!!! Arrghh… Burning to the throat!! The worst thing is, when we toast one another, I thought I had to finish the small glass like what we did at the village. So I gulped ¾ of it down and WAH PIANG!!! I almost died. For a few secs I couldn’t speak man.. hahah.. After that I learnt my lesson and just take small sips.

Okok time to sleep now, been waking up at 7am every morning! I miss sleeping all the way till the afternoon.. Hahaha.. Can’t wait to come back this fri!! And my bestest buds are arranging dim sum buffet to celebrate my return (in one piece)! Hahaha.. erm hopefully I do!!! Cya all soon!!!

posted by Miss Diam Diam @ 9:00 PM