All of us humans are similar to each other in more ways than we can ever imagine. We have our hopes, our dreams of a better life, and we experience love and emotions all the same. The only thing that differs is our circumstances.
Over the course of 2 months I've been on 3 trips to 4 countries for my graduation trip, and my graduation trips have finally come to an end.
Diving in Phuket, visiting Angkor Wat and the Killing Fields in Cambodia, pigging out in Hong Kong, visiting my distant relatives Shenzhen and finally embarking on a backpacking trip alone to Yunnan. Nothing remarkable, but traveling has always been more of a personal growth journey rather than bragging rights on a dinner table.
And so I shared a quote that says, "travel far enough, you'll meet yourself".
Did I travel far enough? I'm not sure, but I definitely discovered many things myself when I was out alone traveling than any other trips. Being alone is something we are probably quite adverse to, given the extent of interactions both online and offline in the bustling city of Singapore, we are rarely given a moment of isolation. The hardest part of being alone is the vulnerability that comes with it, at least that was the case for me. Nobody to seek attention and validation from. No familiar faces around to watch over you when you're in a foreign land. Suddenly it's just me, and myself. But when I was finally comfortable in my own skin, everything around me became more lucid because I wasn't looking inwards through others anymore. That was also the point for me when I could throw myself wholly into every new experience throughout the journey. Being starved from Facebook played a huge role in helping me disconnect from the internet, and I suddenly felt so much more alive when I was actually living my life for what it's worth instead of trying to fake a pleasurable experience for my digital persona.
China has always been such a fascinating country to me. Being a Singaporean Chinese, it's funny how we have so many things in common but yet we cannot wait to draw the line between us and the Chinese waiter serving our dinner. Living in Singapore, it is not uncommon to find many of us shrouded in xenophobia and steeped in misconceptions about others. But through my brief period of interaction with fellow backpackers from China and Taiwan, it's disturbing at how the world holds Singapore in such high regards but I cannot quite say we are deserving of their praise. Everywhere I went, I was welcomed with great hospitality whenever I revealed that I was Singaporean (I even had a taxi driver giving me a discount after discovering that I was Singaporean!). The comments always revolved around our excellent education system, our hardworking culture (highly contentious for me), our global opportunities and how our average citizen can access a high standard of living. At some point I realised that Singapore is perceived by many to be the gateway between the East and the West. Our excellent diplomatic relations with almost every other nation puts us at an extremely favourable position for all sorts of things.
Every nation has its strength and weaknesses. China has been hailed to be the next biggest superpower and the nationwide phenomenon of striking it rich in a short span of time. Reading about it through articles is nowhere near the actual experience of hearing it from the Chinese themselves. Social mobility in China is a much hairier business than us here in Singapore, and to think so many of us often take our opportunities for granted.
In China, education is a huge business. Agencies do a roaring business helping hopeful parents and children get to prestigious education institutes worldwide, Singapore included. The extent of methods employed are astounding, from having professional boutique agencies aimed at writing impressive entrance essays to having someone else take SAT on your behalf. In China, money CAN get you anywhere. It is no wonder why the colloquial description of an ideal male and female are 高富帅 and 白富美. It's all about being rich (富). Having poor parents severely limits your opportunities unless you can get a ticket out through an overseas scholarship or by being truly brilliant (while having to fight with countless other brilliant geniuses). The equivalent of our handphone selling Ah Beng in China is called 屌丝, a slang term to describe a guy mediocre in appearance and abilities and is often used in a jest or as an insult. Regrettably, many people do become 屌丝, addicted to online gaming, lost and dejected at a dead end job that pays peanuts. Whether it is truly their own fault, I don't think the reasons are ever that simple. But the feeling I got is that if you are born poor, avoiding such a fate is a lot harder for them than it is for us. It's not difficult for us to stay high up in our in our lofty skyscrapers, dismissing their circumstances as a result of their lack of talent and drive but that would be missing the point altogether.
Every step of the way, be it in China, Cambodia or otherwise, I feel immensely proud to be Singaporean. We may have our shortcomings, but when you hear of women being trapped in prostitution, or men risking their lives living a precarious life of drugs and crime to provide for their families, you realise that what we have today cannot be taken for granted. For the longest time, I always had an opinion that many of us stand by the "West is Best" attitude. Some of us adore their lifestyle and their culture, some of us despise and desert our own identity in order to embrace theirs. I hated it from the very start, not because Asian males are constantly perceived as the last of the pecking order, but because it revealed how Asians are such insecure pushovers. How can we ever be equals if we don't see ourselves as worthy individuals? There were several instances where I was insulted and discriminated against because I was a Chinese male, referred to as a cunning conman (and they automatically assumed that I did not understand English lol). I was less than impressed with some western backpackers in the group who decided that the Chinese girl would automatically want to sleep with him in a private room just because she was so enthusiastic about showing the beauty and culture of China to him along the way up the mountain. Perhaps it was through this, and some other incidents of discrimination, I now draw the line clearly whenever someone loses that respect for another human being.
I am so glad that I chose to go on this trip. Even through it was only such a short period of time, I truly had a great time and my mind has expanded along with my heart. I've been to America for 6 months, but I was only trapped in my own Singaporean/American world. Compared to many of the young traveller friends I've made from China, Singaporeans pale in comparison in terms of being open and accepting of other cultures. Maybe we are just so busying trying to pretend to be "hapz", or 作(zuo) in the equivalent Chinese slang, that we don't realise that no matter how hard we try to be someone else, we can never completely escape from who we truly are inside.
I am Singaporean, and I am Chinese. These two things are clearer to me than ever before, and wherever my path may lead me to be in the future after school, I know these are the two things that I would never want to lose.
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