During the six weeks on OIP in China, it was not easy for me to get used on the living here. In the beginning, I thought that it was almost like in Singapore which could allow me to manage my living more efficient. However, I was found that I was underestimated. I remembered that on the first day we arrived, the first meal that I had during the evening was the local curry noodle. The curry noodle that I ate was not really as tasty as in Singapore. And I was almost spilt out whenever I was eating it. Maybe I wasn’t getting used to the taste in China. At the same night, the weather was seemed to be so cold, and the temperature was about 8 or 9 degrees Celsius since the moment when we arrived at Wuhan Airport. And I was hardly to move around as my feet were shivering from the cold temperature.
Through this OIP, I have achieved quite a number of learning objectives that I set on the first assignment before the trip. One of the learning objectives that I achieved in China was the culture. The culture between in Singapore and in China was difference by so much. In China, littering and splitting were everywhere as the people here usually did that most of the time. And I had noticed that there were some people who did smoke in the air-conditioned places such as shopping mall, cinemas and etc even though it has smoking prohibited sign shown everywhere. Unlike in Singapore, by doing one of these mentioned, it would end up on paying fines or going jail for weeks if consistently. Another factor which I noticed that the people in China were likely to be followed the 3 R’s, Recyle, Reuse, Reduce. I remembered during one of the days in China, I was asking from the cashier in the shop for plastic bag to carry the stuffs that I bought. Then, I was shocked that the amount charged was printed in the receipt for the quantity of plastic bags I used. In order to overcome the problem I encountered, I was told myself to bring a bag along wherever the places I been, so that the moment when I was buying stuffs, I could put them together into a bag to carry. In China, not only applied to plastic bags, it also applied to empty bottles in the school as well. I believed by doing these, would cut down the resources cost in China. Unlike in Singapore, plastic bags seemed to be used every day and the resources might cost probably as twice as much than China. However, there always have pros and cons of doing it in China, The advantage was allowed to save the cost and cut down the resources but the disadvantage was brought inconvenience to the customers, which I found that it was not the proper way to conduct the business.
During my stay in Wuhan, my communication level and social skill were much better than before. In the past, I was used to be a quiet person who didn’t really to communicate more with others and lack of sociability. However, I began to improve on these two areas whenever there’s an interaction with the local students. In the beginning, I was feared to communicate with them as I wasn’t really good at starting the roll of conversation. But unexpectedly, they turned out to be ones who started it instead. Since then, I took the courage and slowly improved on my sociability and communicability after having a few interactions with them. Through the conversations that we had after few weeks, I found that their study lifestyle in China was much different than in Singapore. They even had to attend extra lesson during Sundays in order to complete for two certificates every year. What I felt that they were working much harder than me.
I had been two different sites for industrial visits during the trip in Wuhan. One of those visits that I went and learnt was the Yangtze Optic Fibre & Cable Company. This company was specialized in making the network cables by using the raw materials such as optic fibre, silicon, germanium and etc. It was the second largest fibre making company in whole China and currently joined with other two major companies from other countries. From this trip, I also had learnt on how those network cables being processed and how they worked according to the requirement met. Although I had learnt how it worked through the theory in ITE before but I had never got a chance by learning practically. Other than the industrial visits in Wuhan, I had also learnt and discovered in many areas during the tour trip on every weekends. The places that I went were Three Gorges Dam, Yellow Crane Tower, Hubei Province Museum and Wudang Mountain. One of those trips that I found quite interesting to learn was the trip to Three Gorges Dam. Upon this trip, I had learnt how the dam operated and how it was being built by under certain condition during the past. According to what my tour guide told me that the dam was operated with 26 generators to generate hydroelectric power and provided the electricity to every household in the province as well. And the dam was not easily to be built since 1970s as it had to be considered on the high rise and low rise of sea level. Then, from there, I had also gone to visit one of the ethnic groups in China, known as the Tujia group. This group was quite different from others in China in terms of their cultures, lifestyle and etc. One of their cultures that I found amazed was their wedding culture. Although its procedures were almost the same according to the Chinese traditional but in Tujia wedding, it worked quite differently. The different was that the children had to cry as much as possible for the bride during the ceremony. This was known as the Ku Jia, a crying wedding ceremony. Another factor which I came across from this group that if a guy steps on the left leg of opposite sex with the right leg, which means that both parties were fell in love on each other and getting to be married. Unlike in Singapore, there wasn’t much to be followed on those traditional as nowadays the newlyweds were following the simpler way to conduct their wedding ceremony. In another issue was that by stepping on one another’s legs doesn’t mean anything instead of causing conflicts easily in Singapore
In addition, I had learnt the history of China, Chinese FengSui and the background of Chinese cultures such as Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and etc during every week of IS lesson. Although those lessons were conducted by the guest lecturers instead of Ngee Ann’s, I had the opportunity to experience on their teaching method and given my full attention for it as well. One of those lessons that I found interesting was Chinese Fengsui. It was described as the law of environment. The guest lecturer taught me on furniture placing in our home. This was to be done with five balanced elements such as water, wood, fire, metal and earth. Without having those balanced elements, it would not able to improve in my vitality, financial and etc.
Since over the weeks in China, I had also discovered on the languages they used to communicate. According to what my tour guide told me that there were several languages that used in China. And the language use was different from one province to another. For instance, people in Hubei usually spoke in Southwestern Chinese or some dialects and people in other province like Guangdong, they spoke in Cantonese. However, most of the people in Wuhan usually spoke both in dialects and Mandarin, just like what we spoke in Singapore. In the beginning, it was hard for them to understand the way I spoke. As time went by, they slowly got used on my communication.
Although these six weeks in China was seemed to be long, however I found that it was short. As the days passed, I have managed to get used on the living here. At the same time, I got to know more new friends in China and had fellowship with them as well. This allowed me to expand my social network and improve on my communication during this period. However in Singapore, I couldn’t have an opportunity for having this as most people have very small area on social network. Having fellowship with them was my opportunity given as I could know and understand them better through their life, study and interests. This also allowed me to improve the friendship and relationship that I had with them. I remembered during one of the days, I went to the Wuhan Zoo together with the local students and my two classmates. They were seemed to be generous as they helped to pay the bus fare for us when we boarded the bus. However, we didn’t know it in the first place but we decided to have a dinner treat for them in our return. We did this way because we didn’t want to take for granted from them and let them have the difficulty to cope on their expenses. Aside from the local students, I even had got along well with the local residents. One of the examples I had was having my dinner at the stall outside. In the first place, the stall owners didn’t know that I was from Singapore. However they thought that the way I talked was being treated as one of the locals here. Since then, we began to understand on each other well.
The three global skills that I assess myself during OIP in China were open-mindedness, curiosity about other cultures and respect for other beliefs. Firstly, with open-mindedness allowed me to have different opinions when dealing with some situations. Although in China, I have seen many people like to spill around but in the beginning, I found that it was very unhygienic to me and yet slowly I got used to it on their lifestyle. To my certain view, what I thought that the way they did was just to clear their throat. Secondly, with curiosity about other cultures, it allowed me to learn and know more about the cultures in China. I remembered during the trip to Three Gorges, I had learnt about the wedding practices in Tujia ethnic group. In the beginning, I found that it was weird whenever they have crying wedding ceremony for the bride. But lately, I understood the reasons behind of doing it. Lastly, with respect for other beliefs, I found that the people in China had the habit of drinking alcoholic since young, In Singapore, alcoholic wasn’t suppose to drink at the age of 18 or below according to the law by the government. However in China, people do drink a lot and yet the price of alcoholic drinks was much cheaper than in Singapore.
In my understanding of cross-cultural in China, I found that there were much different than what I seen in Singapore. One of my understandings in China was the food. Normally in Singapore, foods were considered as healthy and balanced diet with the standard given by the government. However in China, some of the foods were much oily, salty and unhealthy diet that what I expected during the first day in Wuhan. Sometimes I could find that the way they cooked their food was using the existing cooking oil instead of replacing with the new one. And another point of my understanding in China was the transport. Whenever I was taking the bus to city area, the first thing that I noticed was the way they drove. Regardless about safety, people still love to overtake with one another as they would drive to opposite side of the road and surpassed the slowest. Thus, none of the accidents took place during the trip of 42 days in China.
As my conclusion for this trip, I was glad that I have the opportunity to learn and gain something that I have not been encountered before in Singapore. Through this trip, I have the opportunity to be more independently and got to know the cross-cultural between in China and in Singapore. Although in Singapore, there were certain areas that I couldn’t explore and get to know more but in China, it was much eye-opened for me as learning took place every day.
4.16.2009
Journal on OIP in China - Day 41 & 42
Day 41 April 13
Today I woke up at 6.45am to continue doing on my homework and assessments. However, it wasn’t pretty much for me to go anywhere in Wuhan. And the temperature was seemed to be increased and getting hotter and hotter every day. At about 8.30am, I went down to Canteen 2 and had a light breakfast before I set off from the campus. After that, I walked out of the campus and crossed over to the opposite to take a bus, bus no 901 to Guang Bu Tun. Although I was decided to go to Hanyang once again but I remembered what Mr Chua told me that I had to be back at 3pm sharp for group photo taking. So ended up, I decided to go to Guang Bu Tun and looked for wireless optical mouse. After I had boarded into the bus, I saw some of the local passengers including the children were vomiting in the bus. One of them was vomited right in front of me while I was standing and holding the hand grip. Fortunately, the passenger who vomited was not facing me but still my shoes had the smell of it. When the moment I reached Guang Bu Tun, I quickly dropped off from the bus and went to the nearest toilet to clean my shoes. Next, I walked out along the street, and I saw most of the shops were not opened yet. So I went to one of the computer malls there and fortunately most of the shops had opened as their operating hours was from 9am to 5pm. By the time I got in, it was 9.20am. Then, I went around the mall and searched for wireless optical mouse at the lowest price. Later, I was passed by a shop at level 3 and went inside to ask for the price of Logitech wireless optical mouse. And one of the shop assistants who recommended me on both items but different brand with same product. One of them was cost at $200 RMB while the other was cost at $660 RMB. After what the shop assistant told me about the recommendation on those both items, so I was deciding to buy the one at $200 RMB. However, I had a difficulty during the payment as I told the shop owner that I needed to have foreign currency exchange from SGD to RMB. Then, the shop assistant asked her boss whether could bring me to go the bank for exchanging the currency. After she got approved the permission from her boss, she bought me to the nearest Bank of China. By the time when we reached the bank, the bank assistant told us that the bank couldn’t allow doing the transaction so ended up recommending us to try another bank for it. After we went so many banks, we managed to find one of the branches in Zhou Dao Quan, where was just kilometers away from Guang Bu Tun. By the time when we got inside the bank, the misfortunate that we met was the identification of ours. As we didn’t bring it along with us, we couldn’t proceed doing the transaction by the bank. So ended up, we were wasting our trip for it. After that, I went to have lunch at the shopping mall nearby in Guang Bu Tun. At about 1.30pm plus, I decided to take a bus, bus no 901 back to the campus as there was nothing much places to go in Guang Bu Tun area. When I reached the campus outside, I saw no one reached outside the main gate. As I was waiting for them outside the gate, the first person I saw was Mr Ma and followed by Mr Chua. At 3pm, we three of us were still waiting for the rest to have a group photo taking. About 5-10 minutes later, the first group that we saw was Sebastian’s group as they were back by taking the cab from Lu Xiang. Later, we saw more and more of my classmates had reached and all of us taken group photo before we went to School of Foreign Language for closing ceremony. After had taken group photo, I went back to the hostel together with my roommate, Shaoming and Mr Ma for bringing the fireworks items to the School of Foreign Language building outside. Later, I decided to help up for the closing ceremony and left first from the hostel. When I reached the school, I saw Mr Chua was playing table tennis with Professor An, the Dean of School of Foreign Language. They were playing as most of my classmates were helping to set up the ceremony. After that, we were waiting for the local students to be released from their lesson at 5.30pm before we could have the closing ceremony together with them. At about 6pm plus, most of them had reached and the ceremony was started. As Sebastian and Hwee Ping were chosen as the English and Chinese hosts, they were started to rehearse together while Ben was taking as the host lead for the whole ceremony. During the ceremony, we had played some games with the local students and enjoyed our last interaction with them as well. At about 7.30pm, there was fireworks display outside the school and it was the last part before the ceremony completely ended. From there, I could see most of local students had enjoyed themselves playing the fireworks sticks. Although, we didn’t play much with it, but I could see they were enjoying themselves happily than us. Before we were going to light up the large fireworks set, one of the school security guards came to us and stopped us from lighting it. He told us that he didn’t been informed and we didn’t seek the permission for it. Then, to our curious and concern, Mr Chua went to approach him that we had been approved the permission by the staffs of School of Foreign Language before we bought the fireworks from the shop outside. So ended up we waited for 20 minutes discussion before we lighted up on it. After displaying the fireworks, we exchanged our contacts and had some photo taking before all of us left to have our dinner. After the local students had made their move, my roommate, Shaoming and I went to have our dinner at the usual place outside and we saw Siew bo and some of our classmates were eating at there. As for today, I observed that the local students were enjoying themselves happily especially when they played with fireworks sticks. Although in Singapore, fireworks couldn’t be sold according to the rules given and the safety priority, we couldn’t have a chance on playing them. However in China, even with safety concern, people used to enjoy and play them whenever there was an event or ceremony held.
Banana pie in Macdonalds..
Street basketball
A signboard that shows no hitting on machine
Mr Chua and Mr Ma are waiting for the rest of the class to have photoshot
Still no one comes.
Last shot of library
Last shot of basketball match
Last shot of the school building that we attended for class
Welcome banner
Mr Ma looks happy.
Mr Ryan is singing a song.
Talent time.
Distributing firework sticks
Day 42 April 14
Today, I woke up at 6.15am to do wash up and started packing up on my luggage. And it was the last day in Wuhan before leaving to Singapore at 10.30 am sharp. At about 8.20am plus, my roommate, Shaoming and I went down to Canteen 2 to have our breakfast. When we reached the canteen, we saw Mr Ma, Mr Chua and Mr Ryan (one of the WUST coordinators) had their breakfast together. As we were walking to the stall, we saw there was a weighting machine which brought by Mr Ryan for weighting our luggage. After we had taken our breakfast, we went to the hostel and had the luggage weight with Mr Ryan and Mr Ma. Then according to Mr Ryan’s suggestion, we began to weight from level 5 to level 1 in every of our hostel rooms. As the weighting process took place, most of our luggage had not been exceeded 30 kg each. Otherwise there would have some certain amount to be charged if exceeding the weight limit. At about 9.45am, Siew bo, Shaoming and I decided to carry our luggage down first before the rest started to carry down at the same time. While we three of us were waiting for the rest at the ground level, Siew bo and I went to buy some screen protectors at the province shop in Canteen 2 and left Shaoming for helping us to take care of our luggage there. When we were buying screen protectors, some of them cost us $5 RMB each and others cost about $3RMB each as well. After buying them, we saw our group member, Jeremy together with one of the local students at the province shop buying ice-cream. Then, we left them behind and headed back to the meeting point. Along our way back, we saw there were some staffs and students doing their workout at outside of the Administration building. It was just begun and we managed to have a look on their workout exercises. After that, we headed back to the meeting point and waited for the bus to be arrived. As we were waiting, Mr Chua needed help on carrying his luggage there so Shaoming and I together went to his hostel room for helping up. Later, when we were our way back to the meeting point, Mr Ma came to us and asked where we had been. So we told him that we were given our help to carry Mr Chua’s luggage. Next, Mr Ma was seemed to be worried about the bus arrival, so Mr Ma and I went to check whether the bus has reached somewhere the area. As we saw the bus had reached outside the School of Information Engineering building, the bus driver told us that he couldn’t drive into the parking area as there was having some road site. So ended up as the final conclude, we had to carry our luggage up ourselves for the sake of the time. Before we boarded the bus, I saw some of the local students like Tom and Alex who sent us from there. When it was about the time, we boarded into the bus and set off to Wuhan Airport from the campus. During that time, I saw Alex, the local student who stood aside and started to cry. When most of us saw him cried, I found that I had the same feeling as what he had. After 45-50 minutes of the bus travelling, we had reached the Wuhan Airport finally. Later, while we got in the airport, and I saw Mr Ma was talking to one of the local people. So I thought that the local people was also a friend of Mr Ma but lately I found she was not and her name was Zhang Xi, also one of us in the same batch from ECE. After we exchanged our contacts, I left the others first and went to have lunch with Shaoming and Siew bo. As we were looking the place for our lunch, we found that the food in Airport was quite expansive than outside. So ended up, we waited until 1.40pm with our empty stomach. In the middle of waiting, we saw Yongxin coming towards us and told that Mr Chua was giving us a lunch treat. After hearing the unexpected news, we quickly went there and took a sit in the restaurant. Then, we began to eat after Mr Chua bought us a plate of fried rice each. At about 1.30pm plus, we went to the meeting point and waited for our luggage to check in. At about 1.45pm, we walked towards the check-in section and queued as a group. Then, I saw there were some students from Ngee Ann Polytechnic and I found that were some familiar faces which I had seen before, lately I knew that they were from Building & Environment division. After checking in, we went to B11 gate and waited for our flight to be registered. About 20-25 minutes later, I saw there was a bus travelling along the running track outside the airport. But unexpectedly, the transport that we were boarding was the bus, so we thought that we were sort of being cheated by taking the bus instead of airplane. Later, I found that this bus was bringing us to where the airplane located. And I saw the size of the airplane was not really in normal as others, it was much smaller to carry up to 70-80 passengers. After 2 hours of flight, we had reached Guangzhou Airport at 5.45pm and from there, we had to transfer another airplane before we could reach Singapore. So we quickly rushed down to collect our luggage at the ground level. After that, we were being rushed to check in our luggage for our next flight. And Mr Chua told us to walk fast so that we could check-in as fast as possible before we were going to board on the next flight. After had done our check-in, we quickly rushed to register for our flight at the A16 gate. As we were on our way, Shaoming decided to buy a soft toy of panda as a gift to his friend. At the same time, I decided to spend all my RMB currency for buying some local snacks home. After we had done buying, we went to register our flight at the gate of A16 and boarded into the airplane. While we were inside the airplane, we were been informed according to the estimated timing to reach Singapore for 4 hours. At about 10.30pm, the airplane had finally landed the destination and we were given our claps loudly as our praise to the pilot. After that, we dropped off from the airplane and went to take an informal group photo as our memorable for the OIP trip. Later, we went to duty-free shop and bought some hard liquor and wine for my family. From there, I immediately went to collect my luggage and met my mother and my sister at the Terminal 1 in Changi Airport. As for today, it was the end of OIP trip. Although I found that this program could be recommended to any students. Money wasn’t the main issue as it was something that I could learn and gain at the same time. Through this trip, not only I made a lot of new friends in China but I also had learnt to be more independently without supporting by my parents. During the OIP in China, I also had the opportunity to experience on the living between in China and in Singapore. Until the very end, I found that being as a Singaporean, I was much fortunate than those people who live in China. I hope there would have this kind of OIP offered next time.
Time for checkout.
This room where Mr Chua and his wife are staying
The day we left for Singapore
Wuhan Airport
Today I woke up at 6.45am to continue doing on my homework and assessments. However, it wasn’t pretty much for me to go anywhere in Wuhan. And the temperature was seemed to be increased and getting hotter and hotter every day. At about 8.30am, I went down to Canteen 2 and had a light breakfast before I set off from the campus. After that, I walked out of the campus and crossed over to the opposite to take a bus, bus no 901 to Guang Bu Tun. Although I was decided to go to Hanyang once again but I remembered what Mr Chua told me that I had to be back at 3pm sharp for group photo taking. So ended up, I decided to go to Guang Bu Tun and looked for wireless optical mouse. After I had boarded into the bus, I saw some of the local passengers including the children were vomiting in the bus. One of them was vomited right in front of me while I was standing and holding the hand grip. Fortunately, the passenger who vomited was not facing me but still my shoes had the smell of it. When the moment I reached Guang Bu Tun, I quickly dropped off from the bus and went to the nearest toilet to clean my shoes. Next, I walked out along the street, and I saw most of the shops were not opened yet. So I went to one of the computer malls there and fortunately most of the shops had opened as their operating hours was from 9am to 5pm. By the time I got in, it was 9.20am. Then, I went around the mall and searched for wireless optical mouse at the lowest price. Later, I was passed by a shop at level 3 and went inside to ask for the price of Logitech wireless optical mouse. And one of the shop assistants who recommended me on both items but different brand with same product. One of them was cost at $200 RMB while the other was cost at $660 RMB. After what the shop assistant told me about the recommendation on those both items, so I was deciding to buy the one at $200 RMB. However, I had a difficulty during the payment as I told the shop owner that I needed to have foreign currency exchange from SGD to RMB. Then, the shop assistant asked her boss whether could bring me to go the bank for exchanging the currency. After she got approved the permission from her boss, she bought me to the nearest Bank of China. By the time when we reached the bank, the bank assistant told us that the bank couldn’t allow doing the transaction so ended up recommending us to try another bank for it. After we went so many banks, we managed to find one of the branches in Zhou Dao Quan, where was just kilometers away from Guang Bu Tun. By the time when we got inside the bank, the misfortunate that we met was the identification of ours. As we didn’t bring it along with us, we couldn’t proceed doing the transaction by the bank. So ended up, we were wasting our trip for it. After that, I went to have lunch at the shopping mall nearby in Guang Bu Tun. At about 1.30pm plus, I decided to take a bus, bus no 901 back to the campus as there was nothing much places to go in Guang Bu Tun area. When I reached the campus outside, I saw no one reached outside the main gate. As I was waiting for them outside the gate, the first person I saw was Mr Ma and followed by Mr Chua. At 3pm, we three of us were still waiting for the rest to have a group photo taking. About 5-10 minutes later, the first group that we saw was Sebastian’s group as they were back by taking the cab from Lu Xiang. Later, we saw more and more of my classmates had reached and all of us taken group photo before we went to School of Foreign Language for closing ceremony. After had taken group photo, I went back to the hostel together with my roommate, Shaoming and Mr Ma for bringing the fireworks items to the School of Foreign Language building outside. Later, I decided to help up for the closing ceremony and left first from the hostel. When I reached the school, I saw Mr Chua was playing table tennis with Professor An, the Dean of School of Foreign Language. They were playing as most of my classmates were helping to set up the ceremony. After that, we were waiting for the local students to be released from their lesson at 5.30pm before we could have the closing ceremony together with them. At about 6pm plus, most of them had reached and the ceremony was started. As Sebastian and Hwee Ping were chosen as the English and Chinese hosts, they were started to rehearse together while Ben was taking as the host lead for the whole ceremony. During the ceremony, we had played some games with the local students and enjoyed our last interaction with them as well. At about 7.30pm, there was fireworks display outside the school and it was the last part before the ceremony completely ended. From there, I could see most of local students had enjoyed themselves playing the fireworks sticks. Although, we didn’t play much with it, but I could see they were enjoying themselves happily than us. Before we were going to light up the large fireworks set, one of the school security guards came to us and stopped us from lighting it. He told us that he didn’t been informed and we didn’t seek the permission for it. Then, to our curious and concern, Mr Chua went to approach him that we had been approved the permission by the staffs of School of Foreign Language before we bought the fireworks from the shop outside. So ended up we waited for 20 minutes discussion before we lighted up on it. After displaying the fireworks, we exchanged our contacts and had some photo taking before all of us left to have our dinner. After the local students had made their move, my roommate, Shaoming and I went to have our dinner at the usual place outside and we saw Siew bo and some of our classmates were eating at there. As for today, I observed that the local students were enjoying themselves happily especially when they played with fireworks sticks. Although in Singapore, fireworks couldn’t be sold according to the rules given and the safety priority, we couldn’t have a chance on playing them. However in China, even with safety concern, people used to enjoy and play them whenever there was an event or ceremony held.
Banana pie in Macdonalds..
Street basketball
A signboard that shows no hitting on machine
Mr Chua and Mr Ma are waiting for the rest of the class to have photoshot
Still no one comes.
Last shot of library
Last shot of basketball match
Last shot of the school building that we attended for class
Welcome banner
Mr Ma looks happy.
Mr Ryan is singing a song.
Talent time.
Distributing firework sticks
Day 42 April 14
Today, I woke up at 6.15am to do wash up and started packing up on my luggage. And it was the last day in Wuhan before leaving to Singapore at 10.30 am sharp. At about 8.20am plus, my roommate, Shaoming and I went down to Canteen 2 to have our breakfast. When we reached the canteen, we saw Mr Ma, Mr Chua and Mr Ryan (one of the WUST coordinators) had their breakfast together. As we were walking to the stall, we saw there was a weighting machine which brought by Mr Ryan for weighting our luggage. After we had taken our breakfast, we went to the hostel and had the luggage weight with Mr Ryan and Mr Ma. Then according to Mr Ryan’s suggestion, we began to weight from level 5 to level 1 in every of our hostel rooms. As the weighting process took place, most of our luggage had not been exceeded 30 kg each. Otherwise there would have some certain amount to be charged if exceeding the weight limit. At about 9.45am, Siew bo, Shaoming and I decided to carry our luggage down first before the rest started to carry down at the same time. While we three of us were waiting for the rest at the ground level, Siew bo and I went to buy some screen protectors at the province shop in Canteen 2 and left Shaoming for helping us to take care of our luggage there. When we were buying screen protectors, some of them cost us $5 RMB each and others cost about $3RMB each as well. After buying them, we saw our group member, Jeremy together with one of the local students at the province shop buying ice-cream. Then, we left them behind and headed back to the meeting point. Along our way back, we saw there were some staffs and students doing their workout at outside of the Administration building. It was just begun and we managed to have a look on their workout exercises. After that, we headed back to the meeting point and waited for the bus to be arrived. As we were waiting, Mr Chua needed help on carrying his luggage there so Shaoming and I together went to his hostel room for helping up. Later, when we were our way back to the meeting point, Mr Ma came to us and asked where we had been. So we told him that we were given our help to carry Mr Chua’s luggage. Next, Mr Ma was seemed to be worried about the bus arrival, so Mr Ma and I went to check whether the bus has reached somewhere the area. As we saw the bus had reached outside the School of Information Engineering building, the bus driver told us that he couldn’t drive into the parking area as there was having some road site. So ended up as the final conclude, we had to carry our luggage up ourselves for the sake of the time. Before we boarded the bus, I saw some of the local students like Tom and Alex who sent us from there. When it was about the time, we boarded into the bus and set off to Wuhan Airport from the campus. During that time, I saw Alex, the local student who stood aside and started to cry. When most of us saw him cried, I found that I had the same feeling as what he had. After 45-50 minutes of the bus travelling, we had reached the Wuhan Airport finally. Later, while we got in the airport, and I saw Mr Ma was talking to one of the local people. So I thought that the local people was also a friend of Mr Ma but lately I found she was not and her name was Zhang Xi, also one of us in the same batch from ECE. After we exchanged our contacts, I left the others first and went to have lunch with Shaoming and Siew bo. As we were looking the place for our lunch, we found that the food in Airport was quite expansive than outside. So ended up, we waited until 1.40pm with our empty stomach. In the middle of waiting, we saw Yongxin coming towards us and told that Mr Chua was giving us a lunch treat. After hearing the unexpected news, we quickly went there and took a sit in the restaurant. Then, we began to eat after Mr Chua bought us a plate of fried rice each. At about 1.30pm plus, we went to the meeting point and waited for our luggage to check in. At about 1.45pm, we walked towards the check-in section and queued as a group. Then, I saw there were some students from Ngee Ann Polytechnic and I found that were some familiar faces which I had seen before, lately I knew that they were from Building & Environment division. After checking in, we went to B11 gate and waited for our flight to be registered. About 20-25 minutes later, I saw there was a bus travelling along the running track outside the airport. But unexpectedly, the transport that we were boarding was the bus, so we thought that we were sort of being cheated by taking the bus instead of airplane. Later, I found that this bus was bringing us to where the airplane located. And I saw the size of the airplane was not really in normal as others, it was much smaller to carry up to 70-80 passengers. After 2 hours of flight, we had reached Guangzhou Airport at 5.45pm and from there, we had to transfer another airplane before we could reach Singapore. So we quickly rushed down to collect our luggage at the ground level. After that, we were being rushed to check in our luggage for our next flight. And Mr Chua told us to walk fast so that we could check-in as fast as possible before we were going to board on the next flight. After had done our check-in, we quickly rushed to register for our flight at the A16 gate. As we were on our way, Shaoming decided to buy a soft toy of panda as a gift to his friend. At the same time, I decided to spend all my RMB currency for buying some local snacks home. After we had done buying, we went to register our flight at the gate of A16 and boarded into the airplane. While we were inside the airplane, we were been informed according to the estimated timing to reach Singapore for 4 hours. At about 10.30pm, the airplane had finally landed the destination and we were given our claps loudly as our praise to the pilot. After that, we dropped off from the airplane and went to take an informal group photo as our memorable for the OIP trip. Later, we went to duty-free shop and bought some hard liquor and wine for my family. From there, I immediately went to collect my luggage and met my mother and my sister at the Terminal 1 in Changi Airport. As for today, it was the end of OIP trip. Although I found that this program could be recommended to any students. Money wasn’t the main issue as it was something that I could learn and gain at the same time. Through this trip, not only I made a lot of new friends in China but I also had learnt to be more independently without supporting by my parents. During the OIP in China, I also had the opportunity to experience on the living between in China and in Singapore. Until the very end, I found that being as a Singaporean, I was much fortunate than those people who live in China. I hope there would have this kind of OIP offered next time.
Time for checkout.
This room where Mr Chua and his wife are staying
The day we left for Singapore
Wuhan Airport
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