04. going on e Trans-Pacific Exchange on American Business & Society when I knew nuts about American Business
somehow became part of e
1999 batch of e Trans-Pacific Exchange on American Business & Society, a 2-week programme in e Silicon Valley organised by
Volunteers in Asia. plenty of emails flew about as e 15 NUS participants & e 8 Payson Treat Fellows (Stanford students who would be our hosts) introduced ourselves to one another. in e process, H|u|a Y|i|n|g, e Biology major from Stanford, got to know H|u|a Y|i|n|g, e Biology major from NUS =P mad rush to pack & get to e airport at 6am e morning after my last paper, only to meet my primary school best friend there with her parents to see off her brother who was going on e same trip!
over e 2 weeks, visited places like Ken Soohoo's
Planetweb start-up(haha it's still around today unlike many other dotcom 'hanged-up's =P), 'ex-start-up's (e infamous 'HP way' that put us all to sleep),
New United Motor Manufacturing (first time in a car factory wandering around e production lines),
San Jose Mercury News (where meeting e editor of
VietMerc impressed upon us e sheer strength of numbers of e Asian community),
Ideo,
Howler products (ice cream from rainforest ingredients),
Harrel Remodeling (gender in business), JUSTACT (Youth ACTion for Global JUSTice) etc.
fell in love with e beautiful Stanford campus where every undergrad is entitled to campus accomodation, bunked over on e floor of H|u|a Y|i|n|g's room, took e BART to e not as beautiful but just slightly less energetic (everyone was in e exam halls) Berkeley campus, met with e Stanford GLBSS (now e transgendered are included so it has become LGBT), soaked in & celebrated e incredible energy & diversity in opinion, ethnicity, orientation, religion, political leanings etc, learnt how Stanford deals with students who cheat during exams, made my first Hispanic & bisexual friends, made e night trek up to e Dish to stargaze, & found physical & mental/intellectual space to think & stretch my mind.
in San Francisco, attended service at e
Glide Memorial Church in e Tenderloin neighbourhood, got attacked in broad daylight while waiting to cross e street in e Civic Center, walked through Union Square, Fisherman's Wharf & Nob Hill safely at night, took e MUNI Metro to e Castro station with e rainbow flag flying high above to visit e gay neighbourhood of Castro & a gay church, met e homeless on e streets, took bus rides & met a different side of San Francisco, spoke to a Filipino security guard at e Martin Luther King Jr memorial waterfall at Yerba Buena, went up Twin Peaks for e freezing night view of San Francisco, got overwhelmed by Gu Wenda's
works & Mario Botta's
architecture at SFMOMA & pleasantly surprised by e fact that I could go in for free just because it was e last 45 minutes before closing time.
got heartened by e fact that there are still people & societies that can believe in 'for e greater good of all' & accept people for what they are & recognise their differences as 'strength in diversity' rather than as points of contention, instead of treating them as nails to be hammered down flat into place, that being in e majority in no way justifies e absolute right to impose one's values on others....think this is e time when I picked up e phrase 'agree to disagree'.
while on e Stanford campus, spent quite a bit of time at e Volunteers in Asia office in e
Haas Center for Public Service, tucked away in a corner among eucalyptus trees along Salvetierra Walk. one afternoon, a white-haired gentleman on his way out of e building came up to Sze Meng & me, shook our hands, & introduced himself as
John Glenn. just John Glenn, visitor. not NASA astronaut, oldest man in space, colonel, senator, or whatever. didn't seem like he'd just landed back on earth ~6 months ago =P he was setting up e
John Glenn Institute for Public Service & Public Policy at Ohio State University & was visiting e Haas Center, where a previous director,
Tim Stanton, is one of e pioneers of 'service learning':
Service-learning advocates differentiated their practice from volunteer service in an additional way, questioning the nature of the service act itself, and evoking the concept of reciprocity between server and served. Such an exchange "avoids the traditionally paternalistic, one-way approach to service in which one group or person has resources which they share 'charitably'...with a person or group that lacks resources" (Kendall, 1990, p.22). In service-learning the needs of the community, rather than of the academy, determine the nature of the service provided. This view is summarized by the slogan we often use at Stanford, "I serve you in order that I may learn from you. You accept my service in order that you may teach me" (Stanton, 1992).source: 2003 conference paper presented by Stanton at e Singapore International Foundation's Center for International Service-Learning 
e second 'unofficial' half of e Trans-Pacific Exchange was when e Stanford students came to Singapore =) both e American & Singaporean sides were on a budget, hence e 'cheapo college student' itinerary that included e former Seng Poh Road market & hawker center, e Night Safari with newspaper discount coupons, Telok Blangah Hill (instead of Mount Faber) for a free view of Singapore without having to mentally 'photoshop out' e ugly Sentosa Merlion, NUS Arts canteen, East Coast Park (cheaper than 'political prisoner island', just as artificial, & NO ugly merlion =P), Lau Pa Sat, Singapore History Museum, public transport & e ERP system, Killiney kopitiam, gatecrashing classes at NUS, Far East Square's Fu Tak Chi museum & Good Chances popiah (first 'some self-assembly required' meal they'd ever had), HDB estate & town central (showcase of social engineering =P), after-dinner walk through Raffles Place past e Teochew Yuen Hai Ching temple (where souls of e dead can be 'married' with e help of mediums) with hanging incense 'spirals' in e courtyard + Boat Quay + Chijmes, Sim Lim, Changi airport staff canteen, & even a photo-op outside e US Embassy with them brandishing their passports, more than proud to be American.
in short, show them a side of Singapore & Asia that hardly filters through their local media ;)
sis ended up in e 2000 batch of e Trans-Pacific Exchange, & a year or two later, together with a bunch of her social work classmates, we helped Dwight Clark (e founder of Volunteers in Asia) to host a group of 60-odd students from Tokyo's Keio University. somewhere in between bringing them to e Night Safari & having drinks with 2 of e Keio guys & z.d. at Boat Quay, a Keio girl & a NUS girl found time for an aikido session, exchanging moves at e corner of e SGX Centre building nearest to our tables at Lau Pa Sat =P
back then, sis & I were just so absorbed in e fun & exchange of ideas, opinions & cultures. in time to come, international understanding & service learning would pop up again in our lives as we eventually became involved with e 'Singapore equivalent' of Volunteers in Asia - SIF.
[ filed under: thewanderingstraycat + thewonderingstraycat + 7_things_i_jumped_into ]
