Blog entry for the 4th week

Day 24(27^th march)

Today I did something I thought I would have never done before. I sent a letter to a friend when I was overseas. The china postal service and the Singapore postal service is extremely different. In Singapore, all the staff in the office are willing to help you and they know almost all of the rates. Whereas in the china post office, they just have a big board with all the rates for the various places and different types of mail. When you ask them for help, they just refer you to the board and you just have to figure it out yourself. But it was a good experience. And I hope that my letter makes it to my intended destination. I wonder how long it will take to get to Singapore though.

Day 26(29^th march)

Today we set off for the three gorges trip. I was told that we would be staying on a cruise for three days. I was looking forward to it. But before we could get to the ship, was a 5 hour drive. I hope that the boat will be nice as at this current point in time, I really need a morale booster as the stress of the fast pace schedule and the amount of projects are really getting to me. Before we got to the boat, there were many setbacks. There was a massive amount of miscommunication and only when we were almost at the boat, the lecturers informed us that there were no towels, water or toilet paper that would be provided on the boat. Upon hearing all these, all of us had lost hope for the boat being nice. We were all also quite unhappy about needing to buy another set of toiletries due to miscommunication and we would not be reimbursed. When we got to the dock, we were all already extremely tired and just wanted to get some rest. We got on the boat and went to our rooms. The rooms were just as we expected. We didn’t expect to be pampered and get a 5 star cruise type treatment, but the rooms were really quite bad. There wasn’t hot water to bathe for a long period of time, the toilet at first didn’t have water, the toilet bowl doesn’t flush hard enough to get rid of the waste and the bed was quite hard. Also breakfast is at an extremely ridiculous timing of 6:30-7 am. If you miss the period, there isn’t any food to eat. I hope that the sites tomorrow will be nice at least. Despite all this, at least I have my friends here to accompany me and to make the journey less painful and sometimes somewhat enjoyable. I am thankful for them.

Day 27(30^th march)

I learnt a very valuable lesson today in china. I know that china isn’t the only country that exploits child labour, but in my opinion, china is the most obvious about doing it. Asaph was harassed today by a small child. When we were at the exit of one of the entrances to the attraction, a small kid approached him and the kid wouldn’t leave him alone. The kid would follow Asaph everywhere he went and kept bugging him to buy something. We all knew it was a scam as who wouldn’t feel guilt from ignoring and not buying something from that small rundown looking young boy? We all told asaph to either buy something or just outright ignore the boy. After the boy chased Asaph for 20 minutes, someone finally took action, wei sheng just helped asaph out and bought something on asaph’s behalf, and finally the boy left. The person who says what needs to be done will never be as successful as the person who does what need not be said. We all knew that asaph should have bought something to get the kid off his tail, but no one did until wei sheng came and bought something. I learnt that we should all just do what need not be said as sometimes the person in need of the help may not be able to do what has been said. I feel guilt for not helping him even though I knew I should have done it. It was a great learning experience.

Day 28(31^st march)

We ended the 3 day boat trip today. As we were driving back through the countryside, I was thinking about something. How do the people that live so far away from mainstream civilization get education? There aren’t any schools near them. I know that the concept of not getting education is not something new or unusual in countries like china, but when I actually see it in person, it just seems so odd. I think that it is just because I have been living in a first world country for all my life and education has always been the norm. And as we drove back on the highway and passed all the farmers, the sight of them living in poverty really made me appreciate my living conditions and what I have in Singapore a lot more. I feel extremely fortunate to have power, computers and etc as when I see them, they don’t have most of them and would most likely never. So I am very thankful to have those things and it really made me appreciate life a lot more.