DTCL 5th Intake: Cultural Immersion at China, Shandong

22nd June to 3rd July 2009

This is a rare opportunity for me to go to China. Personally, I feel that after serving at CI-NTU for nearly 3 yrs, it is a good chance for me to know what is China, how is China like, who Shandong University is and how their structure is like. As staff from CI, it is good to everyone gets to visit China especially those who we are closely related to so that when visitors from China or anywhere comes to CI, we would be able to tell them: “YES! We went to China once”!

I find this trip fruitful as I led the students to China for immersion programme and a chance for me to display leadership. At China, I could only rely on myself and handle these students and liaised with Mr Gui Xin Jian from Shandong University who was in charge for this group. Students were delighted with the lectures arranged and hope there would be more lectures lined up for them. They mentioned that it would be great if there was a chance to visit the schools however it was the summer holiday, therefore we were unable to go to schools. Mr Gui was kind enough to arrange an opera show 《狸猫换太子》 for us to attend which was greatly appreciated by all.

During leisure time, students would find their way to visit local tourist attractions. We had a short meeting everyday after class to share which are the attractions that other students can visit. There was once when I arranged 2nd intake DTCL students, Han Ai Chen and Low Tek Sing who were currently holding scholarship and study at Shandong University to talk to students their life there and how they can obtain this scholarship when they graduate from DTCL. Students were quite interested in obtaining this scholarship.

During the time at Qufu, I was like in another space. It was a very cultural and clean place. I was very touched and happy when I reach Qufu. It was a place of Confucius! Everywhere was Confucius sayings. Finally I came to Qufu and visited “Kong Lin”, “Kong Miao” and “Kong Fu”. Taishan was enormous! We conquered to the top with pride!

Lastly, this was an enriching cultural trip. Thanks to all the cooperation from the students although there were some hip-cups along this journey. However everything was solved and things were run smoothly. This journey ends with a smile.