Epilogue: Revisiting The Experience A Year On

This day 13 August, a year ago I boarded a UA flight to Dulles International Airport. I arrived in Washington, DC after a 20-hour flight, still on 13 August because of the 12-hour time difference. The path I would journey in the next 4 months simply cannot be fully expressed within this blog, but I shall make a small attempt to revisit that memorable journey.

I started this blog as a way to capture and share my amazing journey in the Fulbright Award in Teaching Program. But towards early December, with the looming deadline of the capstone project, I took a break from this blog to focus on the final lap of the project, not realizing that I would only return to it several months later.

Back in August 2013, I was still working at full steam a few days before departure and was indeed thankful for the National Day holiday, which gave me a breather before leaving home. Forget the long flight and the uninspiring airplane food, I arrived at Dulles International Airport full of anticipation. The first two Fulbrighters I met were Bishakha and Analia, who would become my flatmates at The Varsity!

All the settling-in and adjustments took about 2 weeks (they are captured in my earlier posts in this blog). The Metro card, the Metro map and schedule, the apartment key to activate the lift, the C2 bus times, the walk to CVS and Benjamin building, and all the little operational hassles have now become shared fond memories within the 13 members of the 2013 Fulbright family.

The experiences of living away from home, of living with 12 other initial strangers from 4 continents,  of networking with US educators, of having to work on a capstone project under all these circumstances are life changing for us in great and small ways, and some more so than others. But whatever the impact, we all have gleaned some perspective of the differences in the education systems of the 6 countries (Argentina, Finland, India, Morocco, Singapore and USA). We all recognize the strengths, potential and challenges in each country, and I believe we all recognize that there is no such a thing as a perfect system. We became acquainted with the term Common Core almost on a daily basis, and observed the range of responses and reactions to this new US national standards by local educators. We have learnt how the word 'Fulbright' would open doors and provide networks for us with other US educators. The three of us from Singapore received many queries from educators who are curious of the high scores our students get in international tests such as PISA and TIMMS. In my mind, test scores are test scores, they reflect little of the cultural milieu of the education systems of high scoring countries.

The 4-month journey came to an end with the completion and presentation of our capstone projects. The weekly Friday Seminars and Country-led breakfast sessions have brought us together in many ways. I remember the final Friday morning after the capstone presentation and graduation, there was no more Friday seminar but several of us who had not left Maryland gathered at Dr Lettitia Williams' office, and we chat and chat. Well, it was a mini informal Friday seminar.

When it came the time for us to bid farewell, there were many hugs and photo-taking. The last potluck meal and cup of tea together in the nearly emptied apartment with half packed suitcases became precious moments. As much as we were happy to go home, there was a tinge of melancholy in parting, knowing that we may or may not meet again. We left College Park, Maryland on different days, some travelling to other US cities before heading home. I managed to fly out a day before the big freeze in the north eastern seaboard and midwest, that was followed by a record breaking cold winter in the US. I would like to think that we could be somewhat responsible for that, having taken some 'global' warmth with us when we left. Whichever day we departed, we left with some excess baggage, a suitcase that the US Customs could not scan or detect, a suitcase filled with deep memories. I am not sure if we had left footprints in the US, but something of the US has etched in our consciousness. We may travel to the US again sometime, but none will be the same as this unique journey, a shared experience by 13 individuals who would otherwise not have met if not for the Fulbright platform.

I returned to Singapore a grateful citizen, appreciating the things I have been given. A year on, we have all been fully re-integrated back to our respective local lives, but a part in us is no longer local. As for me, it is more than fond memories. It is appreciating the smallness of the self within a vast world of diversity.

I want to thank all the members of this 2013 Fulbright community, the University of Maryland faculty members and graduate students involved in the hosting of us 13 'Aliens' (our status according to our US Social Security Cards) and the International Institute of Education for the organisation. This has been a priceless journey. Praise God!

Of the 4 analogies of elation, the 2nd analogy: 他 ta乡 xiang遇 yu故 gu知 zhi (To Meet an Old Friend in a Far Away Foreign Land)

Prologue

A Southern Song dynasty scholar 洪迈(Hong Mai) had written 4 analogies to the most elated moments anyone could ever experience. They read like this:

久汗逢甘霖, 他乡遇故知, 洞房花烛夜, 金榜提名时

Translation:

久汗逢甘霖 (jiu han feng gan lu):

A long drought is met with sweet refreshing rain. This has an agrarian origin and reference. It later became a metaphor for anyone who experiences relief from a long, dreary wait in a dire situation.

他乡遇故知 (ta xiang yu gu zhi):

To meet an old friend in a far away foreign land

洞房花烛夜 (dong fang hua zhu ye)

The night of the wedding

金榜提名时 (jin bang ti ming shi)

To be named/nominated at the imperial examination results announcement

Significance

The writer洪迈has identified the moments of ‘high(s)’ and ‘low(s)’ in a person’s life, and classified the above 4 experiences as the ultimate moments of elation, in other words, the highest of the high points in life.

I have had the blessing of experiencing the 2^nd analogy three times during my Fulbright journey in the US. Below are the three narratives.

From the Art Room in a Secondary School to Boston, MA

A memorable class

I taught in Girls’ Secondary School for some 5 years and I have many good memories there. I fondly remember many of my students and have reconnected with several of them on Facebook since 2009.

Eunice was one of my most humorous students. She has a spontaneous and infectious laughter that can brighten anybody’s day within seconds. I recall the fun I had teaching her and her class of unique and cheerful bunch of girls. I also recall Eunice’s mother who was one of the most enthusiastic parents in the parent-teacher support group. Eunice has certainly inherited her mother’s positive spirit and hearty laughter.

Tie and Dye revisited

In a former staff and student gathering at the girls' secondary school in 2009, I met a few former students and Eunice’s mother. Eunice’s mother told me Eunice has kept her Tie and Dye piece all these years, so has a few other former students. As an art teacher, one of the most heart-warming words I can hear is that my students have kept the artwork they did in Grade 10. In a way, the Tie and Dye artwork has tied the connection we share all these years.

Northeastern Reconnection

Eunice left for studies in the US about 3 years after she graduated from secondary school and I had not seen her since graduation. She spent all that time in Hawaii, where she met her husband. Just this January, Eunice and hubby were relocated to Vermont because of a new job. If Hawaii was far enough to make it difficult for us to meet again, then Vermont would make it quite impossible, until my Fulbright journey to Maryland. Under the Fulbright award, we have been given professional development opportunities to attend education conferences. I had originally wanted to attend the ASCD conference in Las Vegas, but I changed my mind after reading the program of the Learning and the Brain Conference that would be held in Boston. I was really pleasantly surprised when Eunice initiated a get together in Boston. I was so touched when Eunice told me she would drive over 2 hours to Boston for the reunion! After all these years, we were to meet again in the northeastern coast of US! I visited Boston some 6 years earlier and I like the city, but this time I was really excited to go to Boston, both for professional and personal reasons. Even my fellow Fulbright teachers could tell I was excited.

It was a great reunion, albeit over a short time of a dinner, and a lunch sandwiched between concurrent sessions and seminars. We talked about everything from the days in her alma mater, Eunice’s 17 years in the US, and the updates on her classmates. I am very happy to see Eunice happily settling in to a new job and new life in Vermont. It was also very nice to know that Eunice’s mother was all excited about our reunion and kept asking Eunice 2 weeks prior to the meet up if she had ‘met Ms Lee’. These are the little things that make teaching worthwhile.

When we parted, Eunice suggested a class get together when she visits home the next time, although she laid a condition: I would not pay for her meal.

Well, we shall decide on that later.

From Victoria (Melbourne) to Albany (NY)

3 Singaporeans strangers met in Melbourne

I met Josephine and Sijie well over a decade ago in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, when we were undergraduate students. Josephine was studying social work while Sijie and myself were fine art students at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA).  I still recall it was the international office manager who had contacted me in my 3rd year of studies about renting a room to a fellow Singaporean student enrolled in VCA School of Art. I was the first Singaporean to study in VCA and when another Singaporean enrolled, it was not surprising that the international office manager thought of linking her up with me.

For 2 years prior to Sijie’s arrival, I had deliberately stayed away from undergraduate student hostels as I have heard too much ‘horror experiences’ of dormitory style hostel accommodation. I have also decided not to stay with other Singaporean students, as I had wanted to experience life like a local in Melbourne. The advantage of renting on my own also meant I could lower the rental cost by staying a bit farther away from the campus located in the city. But my Australian housemate of 2 years, Melissa, decided to return to her hometown in New South Wales, and I had to find another housemate to manage costs. Prior to Sijie’s arrival, I have endured several undesirable 3rd housemates together with Melissa, from handling a young lady who went back to her drugs, to a Greek Cypriot serial smoker who used expletives as punctuation, to a Turkish student who would get pretty hysterical whenever she was on the phone. So I reckoned renting to a Singaporean girl would not get any worse.  Sijie’s high school friend Josephine (Jo) was also studying in Melbourne so I got to know her as well. As it turned out, renting a room to Sijie was a wise decision. 

The three of us were not straight out from high school as we have individually gone through tertiary education in different disciplines, and being older, I have been working before I went to pursue my fine art studies.  I believe we could connect well quite quickly as we weren’t the typical bright-eyed busy-tailed late-teen Singaporean students, and there was some sense of commonality in terms of maturity. It was also really nice to know that Sijie was from the same secondary school I have attended, so we had some common topics in our conversations.

Memorable road trips to Cape Schanck, Bright and Mt Buffalo

The three of us went to a few places together but some of the most memorable moments were the trips to Cape Schanck, Bright and Mt Buffalo.

Cape Schanck was a scenic spot in the Mornington Peninsular. We hired a cheap rental car and drove to explore various scenic spots in the peninsular. Josephine reckoned she had the best ever iced-chocolate drink in a café in Arthur’s Seat. Sijie was at that time obsessed with learning horse riding and found out a horse riding stable in the Cape Schanck area. I was just happy to be able to do outdoor drawing with my favourite 8B carbon pencil in the outdoors. It was well before the Web 2.0 era, so we relied on folded maps, cell phones that were purely calling phones, and SLR cameras that used 35mm negative film.  Despite the lack of technological affordances, we had a whale of a time.

Sunset near Cape Schanck, Victoria, Australia

The famous rock at Cape Schanck.

My quick sketch of Cape Schanck done just before dusk

Sitting on the rock, just by the edge of a stream down
from Mt Buffalo. Sijie and Jo called me a 'big bear'
because of my brown gloves 

The trip to Bright and Mt Buffalo was another great trip. Sijie and Josephine read from some travel magazine (hardcopy of course!) that Bright, a 5-hour train ride away from Melbourne, has an annual autumn festival and it was a little town planted with European trees. So it was a little orange and red bright spot in the autumn in the midst of a brown-grey Australian outback.  

We were all mesmerized by the colours little ‘Bright’ town. I was so inspired by what I saw that I composed a little poem in Chinese! I have totally forgotten about it till Sijie reminded about the poem when I visited her in Albany, NY, after all these years! It’s a pity I didn’t write it down and the poem is lost.

The next day, we negotiated a special price with a local taxi driver to bring us up Mt Buffalo. Upon arrival, we decided to head to the Horn, the peak of Mt Buffalo. I brought along our drawing pads and Sijie even brought her Chinese ink and brushes. We walked, sat and drew, walked and sat and drew. That was such great fun, until lunchtime. Josephine was in charge of carrying the bread and when we asked her to take the bread out from her bag, she could not find it, much to our horror. She then realized she had grabbed a wrong bag and all we had was a pack of Maggi instant noodles that was meant for our dinner at the back packers’ lodge. We sat in the wilderness with no means and equipment for cooking so we had to share the small pack of chocolate and brazil nuts as lunch!

The climb up the Horn was memorable in many ways. I am a little afraid of heights and was the slowest. Josephine and Sijie happily negotiated they way up the giant boulder rocks while I was ascending in a semi-crawling position. I was wearing my brown gloves and they gave me a nickname ‘Big Bear’ as they said I had brown paws! The terrain got steeper as I got higher and I had to tuck my large drawing pad in between the boulder rocks so that I could use my both hands. Mt Buffalo is a rock mountain and the peak, the Horn, is basically a stack of giant boulder rocks and there has no tree trunks or roots to hold onto during on the way up. The paths at some points on the verge were narrow. The drop was deep and it can be scary just looking down even if it was not difficult terrain to climb. I was at times holding my breathe along those narrow bends. 

By the time I got up there, the view was spectacular! But when it was time to descend, I looked down and my knees went jelly-like for a good few moments. Somehow I managed to get down from the treacherous spots and I got to thank God for that! I look at the photograph Josephine took of me and realized I was not smiling too much when up on top of the Horn. Perhaps I was subconsciously wary of the way down. Those were the things we’d do when we were younger.

A Bridge Not Too Far to Reconnect

We have not done such trips after we had completed our studies and returned home. But we do meet periodically for gathering until Sijie’s husband got a job in Texas. She did come back to visit family after her son You Shin was born and I remember little junior was still less than 18 months when I first saw him.

After some 5 years, Sijie and family has relocated to Albany, upstate NY. 4 months later I arrived in Maryland for my Fulbright program. She urged me to visit her and initially I was hesitant because of the Capstone Project schedule. But I decided that College Park and Albany was only a few hours away from each other and I should just make the trip to reconnect again. When I saw her after disembarking from the Amtrak train at Rensselaer, I knew I made the right decision! It was such a delight to see little You Shin when he got off the school bus!

Sijie took me to Lake George, Cooperstown and Saratoga Springs. This time the roles reversed and she was the driver and I did not even have to do the job of a navigator, as there was a GPS! Despite the cold and extreme quietness of those towns during the winter season, I felt warmed by the friendship we share. It was indeed a very deep moment of  ‘他 乡 遇 故 知 ta xiang yu gu zhi’.

From High School to State College, Pennsylvania

From the idealist art students to art educators

I met Junhui when I was a senior at high school, in National Junior College (NJC) and she joined as a junior. We were both in the Art Elective Program (AEP), a special art program at secondary level. The program is very special to many of us as many went on to be art teachers in Singapore. Junhui and myself are amongst them.

We were not close friends at that time and it was years after NJC that our friendship grew. Junhui taught art at a secondary school for a few years and decided to pursue her graduate and doctoral studies in the US. Upon getting her doctoral degree, she started teaching at a university in Ohio. We did not keep in regular contact during the pre-internet era and I am totally sloppy when it comes to hand written letters.

I cannot remember when we had started to communicate more but her doctoral research in art education and data collection took her back home from Illinois. She got the approval to conduct research in the school where I taught and we started sharing our views and thoughts about art education and teaching.  Our views and opinions often differ but we accorded each other with professional respect and that was one important factor that contributed to the growth of our friendship. With the advent of email and internet, we kept more regular contact and that helped.

The first collaboration

Despite knowing each other for years, the first time we worked together was a workshop for art teachers in the north zone in Singapore in 2010, when Junhui returned home for her first sabbatical leave. She and I co-conceptualized the workshop and together with a colleague, Pamela, we prepared all the materials for the hands-on activities.

It was a very busy time leading up to the workshop as I was also leading a few other initiatives in school on top of my teaching load. The workshop was well-received and we were heartened to see that it was a success. Despite the tiredness, I had so much fun collaborating with Junhui and I believe she also had much fun.

3-way Reconnection in State College, Pennsylvania

When I received the Distinguished Fulbright Award in Teaching Programs, I informed Junhui that I would like to visit Professor Graeme Sullivan at Pennsylvania State University (PSU). Professor Sullivan’s book is the key literature reference for my capstone project. She initiated to join me at PSU as she wanted to visit her doctoral academic advisor Professor Christine Marme Thompson, whom Junhui has not met for over 5 years. Well, I was more than happy to be the excuse for their reunion.

After 6 hours of Greyhound ride from College Park (MD), I finally reached State College (Pennsylvania). It was surreal, with two old high school mates reconnecting as total strangers to State College!

It was a great gathering of minds and hearts. Junhui joined me to meet Professor Sullivan and we got much intellectual food out of the meeting and we both had a beautiful dinner at Professor Thompson’s house in the evening!

Once again, the feeling of ‘他 乡 遇 故 知 ta xiang yu gu zhi’ was like a warm flow of water down a stream within my heart.

Journeying on to South Rim, Grand Canyon

A few months before we met in State College, we have decided to travel to see Grand Canyon. I visited West Rim Grand Canyon about 20-years earlier on a package tour and we were given only less than 2 hours to view the Canyon after hours of bus ride from LA. I was disappointed and vowed to return someday, but I was never really sure if that would happen. Junhui had wanted to see the Grand Canyon but despite spending nearly 20 years in the US, she had never made the trip. My Fulbright stint became the perfect opportunity for both of us to realise our dreams of seeing the great wonder of the world!

We met in Las Vegas and continued to South Rim, together with another friend and her family. It was a breath taking experience! Well, to see Grand Canyon with two great friends after a 20-year wait, it was worth it! I am really blessed.

I used to just memorize these 4 phrases …:

久汗逢甘霖, 他乡遇故知, 洞房花烛夜, 金榜提名时

…… but had little appreciation for them. I now have a deepened appreciation of the work of 洪迈. Indeed, these experiences do bring about an inexplicable elation.

When Too Many 'LIKES' is Not a Style of Communication that I Like

A glimpse of local mindset: listening to local talk

My previous experiences living out of my home country taught me some things. To really integrate as a local, we need to listen to local talk by real locals. This takes place in the most mundane and unassuming setting like the supermarket, the local shops and metro trains. It is not about the accent, it about how a simple, daily matter is being expressed verbally by a local. Many times I find the best way to get a glimpse of the psyche of a different culture is when I ask for directions or clarifications on operational matters. 

I find that in a dozen occasions, the answer does not come in a forthright manner. From checking airport shuttle over the phone, to asking for the correct platform to take the metro train, to asking for assistance at the self check-out counter at Giant Supermarket, I had thought that the way I phrased my question would only require an answer of ‘yes’ or ‘no’, or an answer that need no more than four words. Each time the answer would not be straight forward, and often is a piece of side information that does not address the question. I believe it is a cultural difference in the use of English language. 

It's like this, it's like that...But what exactly do you mean?

The fact that we stay in an undergraduate accommodation complex, at The Varsity, has given me a chance to listen to the undergraduate residents' chats in the elevator, at the student union cafe and on the UM shuttle bus. The talk is often lengthy description of scenarios and feelings. The descriptions are littered with some form of incomplete analogies. For example, in describing one's displeasure over another's behaviour, instead of saying ‘I was irritated with his bluntness’, the undergraduate would say ‘I was like....really, really not happy with the way like.. he said…….. ……. and he was like …… ..... ...... and it was like...... ...... ...... ’. 

The word ‘like’ is profusely used in conversations, and more often, one such description requires a good three minutes to bring across some sort of a point, which could easily have been made with greater clarity in thirty seconds if all the 'like... this and that..' are replaced with real adjectives. The style and habit in the use of verbal language is expansive, repetitively rhetorical rather than efficient and effective. I find that there is a similarity in the lack of proper adjectives in the use of Mandarin by teenagers in Singapore.

However, I have observed the tendency to speak in such voluminous rigmarole of analogies significantly reduces in professional adults. To set it in context, my adults contacts here in Maryland are basically teachers. Well, at least that is more assuring, as I cannot imagine what teaching will become if all the teachers use the word ‘like’ fifty to seventy times in explaining a concept in a 45-minute lesson.

  Seriously, I

 too many 

in a conversation.

When too few words frustrates just the same
In a stark contrast, many of the youngsters in Singapore do not speak with clarity because of the deficit in proper word usage. I have had far too many students asking for assistance or advice with minimal number of words, in incomplete sentences or broken phrases. Many of them neither illustrate nor elaborate what they were trying to express and I have had to probe repeatedly before I know what they were asking or requesting, and that is also equally frustrating.

There has got to be some balance somewhere.

Till I write again....