Francis's Late Reflection

OCIP Reflections

The 14 days spent in China was truly an experience for me. I was never really fully bent on the idea of service learning. I saw it as something noble. It was an idea which in the plane of thought of most people is grand but at the same time only persist as an idea when it reaches the plane of reality by most people save for the selected few willing to go the distance in the name of outreach. As for the average guy such as me, one can only go as far as local community service or CIP if ever the tingle of outreach was felt. Often it was enough to do CIP to give a person the feeling of satisfaction one usually gets when he/she helps one’s fellow man therefore giving that person a restricted view of service learning just being something too excessive from the norm. Hence when I became a part of this service learning programme, I wasn’t expecting much other than the view that it was just like a normal CIP but longer. I was wrong. Service learning was something more than an extended CIP. It enabled me to share and learn from the people around me. It opened my eyes to the wider picture of outreach and had taught me what it should really be like. I am truly grateful for such an opportunity.



It was kind of funny at the same time ironic that I was in a way able to learn more about the culture of not only Yunnan but as well as of Singapore through my interactions with my Singaporean friends. I was a foreigner in a foreign land arriving there with people from another foreign land. In more times than one, I found myself lost in the casual conversations between the locals or between the Singaporeans. However, in the end I was able to make friends with a lot of great people. They have taught me things I was never really able to thank them for and the memories shared on the trip would be hard to forget.


Tan Francis =]