Ma-ku-do-na-ru-do! That's How McDonald's Is Pronounced In Japan!

Written by Sean Foo Yong Don (08S26).

Excitement and joy were clearly visible as I hung up the phone call from Ms Angela Quek (of the GP department) that day. A trip organized to Japan had sprung out of the blue and had given the applicants very little time to consider about it. It was a tough decision to make since there weren’t any familiar faces signing up but I still went ahead with the trip.

Meetings and briefings were plentiful before the trip began. Our group, which was made up of 26 students, were divided into a presentation team and five other research paper teams. Most of us still did not know each other well even at the final stages of the briefings itself. A sense of awkwardness still lingered as students sat silently in their seats and were very quiet. However, this changed rapidly during the course of the trip.



















We went on with what seemed to be an activity-packed journey complete with a very detailed itinerary that ranged from museum visits, cultural experiences and even a bit of shopping. We covered places such as Nagoya, Takayama, Hamamatsu, Hakone and of course the capital of Nippon itself, Tokyo. Being in the land of the rising sun during winter was simply beautiful as it was the time when the leaves were falling and the temperature turned nippy. Imagine how fast the temperature dropped from 15 degrees Celsius to a negative 10 degrees in just a matter of days? We were blessed to be able to enjoy the snowfall as well as a nice cold sunny day.

Being in Japan, naturally the culture there and Singapore would be very different. For example, Mcdonalds is not pronounced as how we would in Singapore; instead it is pronounced as Ma-ku-do-na-ru-do! They wouldn’t know what are you referring to if you pronounced the restaurant as it is in English. It was instances like this that made us discover the unique yet intriguing Japanese culture. The meals we had in Japan were fantastic. Over the course of the whole trip, we had probably tried almost every type of Japanese cuisine that you could name, from shabu shabu to chicken sashimi to Japanese soft serve ice cream and many more. It was indeed an eye opener to how wondrous Japanese cuisine can truly be beyond the well-known sashimi and sushi.
























Accommodation was quite fun as there were times when we bunked in rooms of four, rooms of two and there were even a couple of nights when each of us had our own hotel room and bathroom! We were able to experience both western and Japanese accommodation as well throughout the entire trip. Onsens are also an essential part of any ryokan (Japanese inn). They are hot springs that simply relaxes the body and remove any tension that builds up in it. And oh, we had to go in naked - that was why it was divided into different gender baths.
























Twenty-six students came together for a nine-day trip and we have all become good friends with one another as we shared our inside jokes and had great fun together. Even though we were strangers to one another at first, we managed to undergo a truly enriching experience both culturally and in terms of friendships as a team. The late nights and snow fights might be great, but the greatest things that we took away from the trip were the photos, souvenirs, fond memories and of course friendships. The latter two made the whole experience priceless.

Our Bintan Trip, Blogged!

Written by Muhamad Shahrin Izhar (08S12).

The whole entry is taken from HERE. Nah, we decided not to edit 90% of the original blog post.

Hey guys, it’s been quite a while. I’ve been in Bintan for 4 days, and it was a truly awesome experience. All you suckers who thought that it was gonna be a bullshit trip, you were wrong. The instructors were awesome, the teachers were awesome, Mr & Mrs Law were awesome, and the TPJC peeps who went were awesome.

I’m gonna break the entry about the trip into 4 parts - each part covering one day that I spent in Bintan. That way, I won’t be cramming shitloads of pictures and words into one entry which could cause catastrophic damage to your poor computer (and mine too).

Right, let’s get things going.

Day one: The departure, the happy faces, and the mosquitoes.

Finally, the day which I had been looking forward to arrived. I thought that I would have had a hard time falling asleep the day before but surprisingly, I fell asleep pretty fast. I woke up early, made sure that I had everything in my bag, got ready to leave, and I left home feeling excited.

I guess I’ll skip the bus ride and what I did when I got to school. I’m sure you guys wouldn’t wanna know all that. Haha.

Right, just before we left, Ms Tay confirmed our groupings and who we were going to sleep with for the three nights. There were five groups:

Kingfisher (my group) a.k.a The Kinkies.

Archerfish.

Mangrove a.k.a Man-garok. (according to Hanis)

Mudskipper a.k.a The Mats.

Horseshoe Crab a.k.a Horse-hoe Crabs.

After settling some stuff, we boarded the bus, and embarked on an amazing journey - to the ferry terminal. Haha.




There, we settled more admin stuff, and when it was time to board the ferry, all of us were excited like little kids in the circus. Whooopeeee. But the bastard passport-scanning-machine didn’t accept my passport. Damnnnnnn youuu machineeeee!

Well, nothing much happened on the ferry cause I was asleep with Zach next to me and Tzehaw in front. We slept. And slept. And slept. Then we reached Bintan. This is where the adventure starts. Yeah man!

Oh yeah, one funny thing was, I was enjoying myself in the Bintan toilet at the ferry terminal when suddenly Zach barged in and he was like, “Shah, where’s the box?!” And there I was, with the most amazing “OMG” face ever.

You see, I was carrying this box filled with toys and shizz which will be given to the kids at the local schools. We spent hours planning, and painting, and playing with those things, and if we lost it, well.. we’d be screwed. So Zach and I ran to the ferry and the box was gone. I was like “Oh man I’m so dead, I’m so dead” but we found out later that the ferry crew had already brought it down for us. Whew, those dudes saved my ass.

We met our instructors for the trip: Afiq and Bhai. They were funny, and cool. I’ll describe them more in Part 4. I’m gonna describe everyone in Part 4.

We then headed to the first school which we will be visiting during the trip. Pretty long drive, but Afiq made it fun cause we were all singing songs and all on the bus. Not those lame-ass campfire songs, we sang our favourite songs. I found out that Afiq listens to Chinese songs. Whoa.

We reached the school in about an hour. It was at some rural village and it was really cool cause the people at the village can just ride motorbikes without a license. So we saw like 8 year old kids riding motorbikes to school and all. Pretty darn cool, I must say.

I was pretty nervous cause I was doubting my capabilities to communicate with the kids. The thing is, the kids don’t really speak English so each group had one Malay TPJCian who had to take up the role as the translator. I was the one who had to do the talking for my group. Hell, I might have gotten an A for Malay for the promos, but I still think that I speak Malay pretty weird-ly. Blame the Cheena secondary school.

We received a warm welcome by the Principal, the teachers and the kids. Especially the kids. They all seemed so excited to see us. Some were already waiting at the corridors. Some were peeking through the windows. I guess they don’t really get visitors.



The Principal of the school.

One thought I had when I was the school was, “This place seriously reminds me of a Military School.” Why? Cause of the way the teachers dressed. They all wore the same uniform as the principal, and I think that it looks pretty Military-style. The way the teachers controlled the students were also very military. The kids stood in neatly-aligned groups. They carried out basic drills and I was pretty surprised by that.

After an opening speech, we got started. It was time to play! Yay.





My group initially planned to just let the kids play soccer, but due to lack of space, we had to split up and help the other groups with their own respective games. I helped out in Hanis’ group and boy, it was a very tiring job.

The objective of the game was somewhat similar to bowling. They had to knock down bottles. But the twist was that each bottle had a certain number, and that number represents the points the group will get when they knock it down. Simple enough right? That was cause it was in English! I found it hard to explain the game in Malay so I dumped all the explanatory work onto Hanis. :D

I was standing behind the bottles, picking them up whenever they fall. I was also there stopping the ball from going into the drain behind me. I was constantly moving, and before long, I was sweating pretty badly. But it was fun, cause the kids had fun. That’s all that matters. Poor Steffi had to count the number of points. Honestly, I think it’s harder to keep score than to pick up the bottles.

When it was time to leave, Hanis had to give the closing speech, and also to hand over the game-stuff to the principal. I was laughing at her about it, but I guess what goes around comes around, you’ll find out why in Part 2 or 3. She did a good job, I was pretty impressed by her Malay.

Finally it was time to leave, but before that. We gave some biscuits and stuff to the kids. When the kids saw them, they all rushed forward to grab some. It was something that made me think a little bit. I mean, those kids, rarely get to eat stuff like that. So when they get some biscuits, they really cherish them. Compare that, to our lives here in Singapore. When we get biscuits to eat, some of us might go, “What?! Biscuits only? Wahlao…” Some of us might just chuck them aside. I think that we don’t realise exactly how lucky we are, until we witness first-hand the lives of those who are less fortunate.

The kids also prepared a performance for us. They played the Kompangs, which are like traditional percussion instruments. It seemed pretty unrehearsed, but I appreciated it a lot. I just didn’t know when they would stop, so I was like clapping pretty much at the wrong times. Haha.

Group shot!



Adorable.

When we were about to board the bus, Bhai was telling us to collect coconut husks behind the school. We were all like “What? Okay….” but after a while we found out that when we burn the coconut husks, it drives away sandflies and mosquitoes and other flying-biting-annoying insects. So we grabbed more and more.



We had our packed lunch in some sheltered place which had chairs, and rooms. Shuhua thought that it was the “chalet” which we would be sleeping in for the 2nd and 3rd night. She was really bummed out about it. It was funny. Turns out, it was just a place where we could rest. Haha.



Food in my mouth.

Some of us couldn’t finish our lunch so Ms Tay fed them to the stray dogs which were roaming the area. At least we didn’t waste any food. Those dogs were really skinny too. They seemed like they needed the food more than us.

We then moved on to play team-building games. My group was called “Imba”. Basically because we were awesome. Yes. Awesome.



This game hurt like hell. My shoulders were about to be ripped off my body. Haha. Fuad suffered more though.



This, was the Bhai clap. Why? Afiq told us it was cause at night, we can’t see Bhai. We can only see his teeth. Super racist, but it was all for fun.

After all that, we packed our daypacks, and put on the life-vests in preparation for our long walk to Pulau Sumpat.



On the way there, we came across some Mangrove saplings which had fallen, so we all had to re-plant them so that they will stand upright!

End of the day! We went to our tents to sleep. I had a hard time sleeping cause it was bumpy, and I kept rolling around. Wenwei started sleep-talking. It started raining. Mosquitoes started biting. I got cold. But it was an experience that I would gladly re-live.

Oh, you guys wanna see the “toilet” at the campsite? Here it is:



Awesome! Hahahaha. Seriously, it was fun! Hahaha. Well unless you had to take a crap (or if you’re a girl), then it would be pretty uncomfortable. Haha. The campsite also had a nearby well where we washed our utensils and stuff. It got pretty dark at night, at the well, so it was pretty creepy.

Okay, I’ve been here writing for over an hour. Time for me to get some rest. I knew it was a good decision to break up the entry into 4 parts. Look how long this part was. Hahaha. If I were to write it all into one entry… wow. Good luck to all of us. Haha. :D

Interesting facts that happened in Day 1:

* I lost my spoon at night.
* Fuad pronounced “mosquitoes” as “moss-kiss-toes”.
* I ate dragon fruit for the first time in my life.

You can read Part 2 HERE and Part 3 HERE.

Ten Days In Cambodia

Written by Nur Nadiah Bte Zailani (08S08).

This year’s OCIP trip had definitely been an eye-opening experience for me. Most of my fellow teammates would agree that we had gained more than we gave. Besides learning new life skills such as carpentry and wall-painting, there was also a list of life learning lessons that we obtained, such as understanding how to be more appreciative, initiative and patient.

The children there are one of the strongest and toughest group of people we had ever seen or known, both mentally and physically. We were awed to witness both the boys and girls pulling hairs and pushing each other to the ground as if it was a form of a game before bouncing back up and laugh instead of crying. At one moment, a boy even pulled and stretched a dead bat, of which I assumed was treated like his toy!
























They were not only enthusiastic about learning; they provided help as we did our arduous tasks of digging the soil without us asking for it. Despite the language barrier, they were patient with us as we struggle to make them comprehend the daily lessons prepared for them. I could not help but feel envious on how such small children could be so well behaved when the time demanded for it. I dare to say that some of them acted more matured than some of us. Furthermore, we could also witness some of the elder children taking care of their younger siblings with full responsibility in school.



















One stark contrast between their school and ours' is that they have a small class consisting of 40 to 50 students at any one time. Three to four students will share a row of table and a bench that was built in a jointed manner, and there was not even a single fan in any of the classes. Imagine class during a hot day! Most of them had little or no stationery available during classes for them to take down notes, and some who were more worse off did not have extra clothes. Hence, they had no choice but to keep using the same clothes for the whole of the ten days with us. Despite the huge amount of students that we had to teach in one class, there were little difficulties faced as cooperation was given most of the time.

As we donated the items during our home-visits, we realized that some of the houses they live in were built in a very simple manner - some are even standing for 45 years and now function as a shelter to more than ten people. Most of the houses there do not have toilets as they clear their bowels in the wild. Their parents, of whom are mostly farmers harvesting rice, only earn their income when their fields are ready for harvesting (equivalent to only earning income of one term per year). Despite all the difficulties that they faced, they were still happy with what they have. They rarely complained or sighed at the state that they were in. Instead, they faced every adversity with a smile on their faces, full of determination thus erasing any signs of frustration or anger.



















Although at certain times I felt confused and hopeless as I could not help them live a comfortable life like the one I have in Singapore, more importantly it had made me realize how appreciative and happy they were at the state they were in. It had opened my eyes into discovering that they are different interpretations of living in comfort. Nonetheless, as a team, we had opened a window of opportunity for them to access some information that we know of about the world. These information never reached the Cambodia citizens in the past due to the wars that they had to constantly face, such as the Khmer Rouge and Pot Pol.



















What we had left there were a newly painted school, a nicely evened out compound for the children to run around, donations such as toys and books and a new library for them. During our final days there, I felt delighted to see them and even some of their parents eagerly opening up the pages of the new books and playing with the toys standing on the newly-constructed shelves against the brightly painted walls.

Even though most of my teammates would agree that we could have done so much more given the ample time that we we had, we were glad to have provided them with the tools that could possibly improve their lives in the future. In addition to that, I think complaining would not make a difference, as we have left the place with cherished memories and we learn to appreciate life and its wonders. Moreover, it opened our hearts towards helping others more in the future. How I wish we could stay longer!

Living In India

Written by Lee Xinyu (08S07).

I learnt to appreciate what I have from my trip to India. People, and even babies could be found sleeping on the streets. In fact, it was so common that I would be surprised not to see any homeless people within a 5 metres distance.



















The children of India. [Source]

We went to a 'Feed the Poor' project organized by interact members there. I noticed that the kids there were contented with just having a small serving of curry and naan. I believe that if we were in their shoes, we would definitely be complaining and demanding for more. I was amazed that the children there were still happy even though they were penniless. They have proven that money does not bring us happiness.

Besides that, we also helped out at Shanti Dan, a home for the mentally challenged women. The women were basically adults having the mentality of a young child. I was very touched by the way they greeted us; they were smiling and hugging. They were ecstatic when we visited them. We helped tidy their beds, wash their clothes, shave their hair, paint their nails and even sang and dance with them.



















The mentally challenged women. [Source]

The patients there were all very disciplined and obedient. Each of them had their own chores to do - some had to fold clothes while others had to hold the door open for us and they did their jobs very well. Despite being mentally challenged, they could sing quite well and were very caring. There was this particular patient who chased away a cat because she knew my friend has a phobia about cats. In the past, I tended to avoid mental patients. However, after this trip, I learnt that they are actually no different from the normal people and we should not evade them (except for those who are aggressive).

After that, we visited a home for the destitute and dying. A funereal atmosphere greeted us the moment we stepped into the building. Most of the patients were just sitting on their beds and seemed preoccupied all the time. It was as if they were waiting for their souls to be forced out of the body. It was really scary to see them in that state. Then, one of the patients opened out her hands to us. I approached her and held her wrinkled hands. When she gripped my hands tightly and looked into my eyes, I could really feel her sorrow and helplessness. I felt as if she was trying to say "I am going to die soon. I am going to die soon. But I don't want to die."

















As I await death. [Source]

As the surreal experience evaporated, I learnt that some of the patients had Tuberculosis . I trust God will protect all of us who entered the home. From this visit, I understood that we have no control over our lives, such as when or how we are going to die. However, I was also saddened by the fact that there was almost nothing that we could do for the patients who are resting on their deathbeds. We must appreciate our ability to be able to wake up every morning and live life to the fullest.

Money can buy us a house, but not a family.

Money can buy us a watch, but not time.

Money can buy us medical care, but not health.

Money can buy us the fashion and status, but not happiness.

A Year In Review: TPJC

2008 was a year of changes for TPJC. Staff and students saw quite a number of new additions to the school: the turnstiles, the plasma TVs, the new security guards...As a student taking her A Levels this year, here are my thoughts on the changes we witnessed.

1. The turnstiles
The turnstiles caused quite a bit of commotion in the early stages of its implementation. Forum threads, in particular the one created by Zizie Zuzantie of 07A07, were rife with complaints, suggestions and even pleas to do away with the turnstiles. Photoshare was, for a while, dominated by photos of the long queues caused by the turnstiles after remedials in the late afternoon. Apart from the turnstiles accomodating only one person at a time, another problem with the turnstile was that once you went out, you had to walk all the way to the main gate to come inside again. Yes, the turnstiles seemed like the worst possible thing.

On the other side, I feel like the turnstiles were a blessing for students who stayed back late to study. Before their arrival, students were chased out of school as early as 7 or 8 pm, and could not study later than that. As the turnstiles were open until 9 pm, students were given another hour to study. After a while, students either became accustomed to the turnstiles, or became more concerned with their studying.

2. Plasma TV sets in time for the Beijing Olympics
The plasma TV sets caused another round of unhappiness: students complained about how "The school [has] the money to install plasma TV and turnstiles but no money to replace the mirror in the [boy]'s toliet next to LT1 or change batteries in clocks". Nonetheless, the Beijing Olympics saw clusters of students (and even teachers!) gathered around the TVs, in the student cafe or the foyer, necks craned to catch the action on screen. Admit it: we all love the plasma TVs.

3. Security guards
A forum thread on students' experiences with the security guards revealed that many students found them unnecessarily unreasonable and sometimes even rude. In a case of students' voices being heard, however, there was a change in their behaviour: they were kinder and friendlier to students. This, I believe, improved the students' mood, because with friendlier security guards one has no reason to be annoyed. My own experiences with them reinforced again how even security guards are people too. A simple 'good morning, uncle' brought a smile on their faces, and a smile on mine as well as they returned the greeting.

So these are some of the changes that TPJCians saw in 2008. Whatever changes 2009 will bring, I have to admit that I wish I could be there for it. All the best for the coming year!