Saturday, May 23, 2015

The Finale

I write this post while on my 20+ hour journey back home. To say that a lot has happened since my last blog post would be an understatement. As you may remember, I had put my blog on a hiatus since early April so as to devote more time studying for my final papers and exams. This proved to be a smart decision, as I am fairly confident I was able to perform relatively well in my classes. Still, I need to wait a couple more weeks to hear back on my grades.

In this final blog post, I would like to step back and focus on the main reason I created this blog: to reflect on my leadership development during my semester studying abroad at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Through my classes, continued extracurricular involvement, travels, and self-reflection, I have built my leadership capacities in ways that I simply could not have been able to had I stayed in Ann Arbor last semester.

Leadership Development

In my class "Managing Nonprofit Organizations", I developed a proposal to start a global nonprofit organization along with a team. Through this course, I was able to develop my presentation skills and my entrepreneurial skills. Moreover, by working with 3 Singaporeans and a German, I learned how to work in a culturally diverse team and leverage each person's different experiences and insights for the benefit of our project. At times, it was very difficult to work together since we all had different interests and wanted to serve different communities, but in the end we incorporated everyone's insights so that we each had a stake in the organization's success. For those that are interested, our nonprofit organization is an intermediary that would connect famous people on social media with nonprofit organizations so as to solve the two main problems we deem nonprofit organizations face: (1) a lack of publicity to generate awareness and promote their mission and (2) insufficient funds to achieve their mission. A friend from the group and I may actually go forward with the proposal and establish this nonprofit organization for real, but this is not yet definite.

Since April, I've travelled to Australia, Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea. Since leaving Michigan in January, I have been able to explore eight different countries in total (the other four countries are Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines). To the extent that I had not fully realized prior to coming to Singapore, travel can be a deeply educational experience. My understandings of identity, nationality, race, democracy, authoritarianism, colonialism, governance, public policy, development, and life in general were all challenged and furthered. Moreover, through my travels, I have been able to develop my cultural competencies and leadership skills. I feel as though I have become more globally aware, interculturally competent, and can look at issues from varying perspectives. Also worth mentioning is the fact that most of my friend group consisted of non-Americans. This, I believe, helped me build my listening and communication skills, as well as allowed me to engage in dialogues across cultures.

Simply being away from my family and friends back home helped me grow more independent and mature. It is difficult to explain why this is, but I think it has to do with the fact that I was more "on my own" than I otherwise would have been in Ann Arbor. I would take public transportation by myself, study for classes more independently, and so forth. It is also important to note that I went to NUS without knowing any single person from Singapore or anyone who would be studying at NUS (aside from a brief orientation with the other Michigan students before leaving). Resultantly, I now feel like a more capable, confident person.

By the end of the semester, I truly felt like I had become a more effective leader. During an office hour discussion with my managing nonprofit organizations professor, she told me that I have an "embracive" style of leadership, meaning I am very inclusive and tend to facilitate the participation of others. This, in her view, is the best style of leadership to have. While I am everyday contemplating whether I would like to work in business, politics, nonprofits, government, or social enterprise, I learned that ultimately what drives me is a desire to lead and to have a positive social impact. My professor shared with me that she has worked and led in many capacities: business, government consulting, nonprofits, etc., and I feel as though I may follow a similarly erratic career trajectory.

Final Thoughts on Studying Abroad

I had confidence that it would be a good decision to study abroad, but I really did not expect it to be as positively transformative as it has been. I remember initially feeing hesitant about studying abroad during the school year because doing so would mean missing out on a semester in Ann Arbor. To look at it in this manner, however, overlooks everything one stands to gain through their study abroad program.

While I will say that I find the classes at the University of Michigan to be more engaging and enriching than at NUS, I've learned more in this semester than I ever could have had I stayed in Ann Arbor. If not through the classes, then certainly through my travels and by being in a wholly different environment. Overall, I could not be happier with my study abroad experience — from the academics, to experiencing other cultures, to the lifelong friends I have made — choosing to go on exchange at NUS was undoubtedly the best decision (and also the most compulsive decision) of my life thus far.

Thank You

I would like to take a moment to give thanks to all those who have helped to make my study abroad experience so memorable and enjoyable. First and foremost, I would like to again thank the Barger Leadership Institute for helping to support my leadership development by providing a generous scholarship to make studying abroad more financially viable. From BLI, I would especially like to thank Ms. Tiffany Purnell for offering special workshops and events where I have been able to build and apply my leadership skills. I look forward to being more involved in the work of the BLI this coming year. I would also like to thank the Center for Global and Intercultural Study for offering this exchange program with the National University of Singapore and for their constant receptiveness in addressing the concerns of my cohort. I would especially like to thank my study abroad program coordinator and advisor Patrick Morgan for going above and beyond the call of duty to make our study abroad experience truly special. Even after being promoted to another position mid-semester, Patrick would regularly ask how things were going and even introduced me to his friend in Japan via email.

Yota was a great host and friend for us in Kyoto, Japan
I would also like to thank all those who enjoyed and looked forward to reading my blog posts. It really makes me happy when I receive messages from people telling me how a certain post resonated with them. My friends abroad and back home alike have shared with me how much they enjoy certain posts. For example, a friend of mine on exchange told me that he also felt the pressure of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and that it wasn't until he read my post that he confronted it and decided to simply enjoy the moment. Another friend back home, who is Chinese-American, enjoyed my piece questioning what it means to be an Asian. Finally, the staff at the Center for Global and Intercultural Study let me know that the future cohort of NUS students from Michigan are following my blog and are enjoying reading it. I really did not expect my blog to have as much of a following as it has received, and for that I'm very thankful.
If you are reading this as someone who is considering studying abroad at the National University of Singapore -- whether you're a Michigan student or not -- I would be more than happy to discuss my experience further and give advice. I remember wishing I could have spoken with someone who had studied on exchange at NUS before I accepted the offer to go, but fortunately it all worked out in the end. The best way to contact me is through my email, which is mrhaidar@umich.edu.

Bonus Piece

What follows is a post I had meant to publish earlier but had simply forgot to. Feel free to read it if you want!

Two Worlds

Today marks my final day in Singapore. I begin this blog post while in the cab heading to the airport. I feel both happy and sad at this moment. Happy because I am excited to return to my "normal" life, but sad because that means I'll have to let go of this new one I've established.

You see, when one chooses to study abroad, it is easy to think about how you will miss your family, community, friends, and so forth before you leave, but what's often overlooked is the fact that the same thing will happen once you have to return. Don't get me mistaken, I miss my life back in the states more than I expect I will miss my life back in Singapore, but I will still miss it nonetheless.

I have essentially established another life halfway across the world. I have made many close friends, taken on new dietary habits, learned how to get around around a once foreign city, adapted to a new university and culture, even learned a new form of slang called Singlish, and now I am sad by the thought that I'll have to leave all of that behind.

What was once unfamiliar to me has become commonplace (e.g. being the only non-Asian in a room, navigating through the bureaucracy of NUS, getting around town by MRT), and I feel comfortable in this new world. I almost feel as though I might experience a sort of "reverse culture shock" upon returning back home, and what was once second nature will -- for a brief moment -- be unfamiliar.

In any case, this will surely not be my last time in Singapore or SE Asia. I will surely keep in touch with the friends I have made while at NUS -- whether Singaporean or non-Singaporean -- and I'm sure our paths will intertwine in the future. I've made friends with people from all around the world, and we have promised ourselves to host one another in our respective countries and to even travel together in the future.

Through this experience, I can empathize with international students at the University of Michigan. They similarly lead "double lives" where they have to navigate between two distinct worlds and personal identities.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Penang, Malaysia + Lee Kuan Yew

Penang!

Last weekend, I travelled to Penang, Malaysia with my mom. Penang is an island in northwestern Malaysia that is famous for its delicious food, eclectic culture, and friendly people. The main attraction of Penang is the district of Georgetown because of its strong colonial influence and status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Main highlights included (but are not limited to): biking around Georgetown, eating biriyani with my hands like a local, taking a Malaysian (Nyonya) cooking class, and visiting temples. 

Street art in Georgetown (the Bicycle one is the most famous)

They gave me a fork and knife expecting me to actually use it... HA.
Biking around Georgetown
Cooking class with my mom!
Very talented local, let me actually "play" his guitar too!

My mom noticed that this local looked Hispanic, and it turned out that he is originally from Peru! 
The oldest and largest mosque in Penang

My fellow classmates and Pearly (the teacher)
Gurney Hawker Centre (a large food court)
Ball is life.

Clan Jetties, a water village established by Chinese immigrants

The water isn't quite like Thailand or the Philippines...


There's even "street art" in the Clan Jetties 
Kek Lok Si, perhaps the most beautiful temple I've visited in SE Asia 

I've never seen so many turtles in my life
We took a cable car up to Penang Hill, the tallest point of Penang 
We met a friendly group of locals celebrating a birthday party (for Gino!) at the top of the hotel we stayed at!
Khoo Kongsi 
Very friendly street food vendor at Penang Hill that let me and my mom try a lot of his food
Special South Indian Chickpea Masala
Me and my friend Mr. Tan, the nicest and most knowledgable cab driver there is
Had to bring back some durian coffee for my Singaporean friends!

My Perspective on Lee Kuan Yew

As I am sure many of you are aware, Signapore's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, passed away at 91 this week. I've had a few people from back in the states ask me how Singaporeans are handling this and to ask what my thoughts are on Lee Kuan Yew. Here's my two cents. 

Stores closed. Events were cancelled. Profile photos on Facebook changed. People mourned.

The MRT -- the public transportation system in Singapore -- remained open 24 hours so that people could pay their respects to LKY at the parliament building. The line to see LKY's casket was consistently about 8 hours just to spend about 5 seconds in front of his casket. In fact, I have a Singaporean friend who entered the line at 2am and did not even get to LKY's casket until 11am. It takes a very special human being to inspire thousands -- actually, millions of people -- to wait in line for that amount of time through the night. 

What I've noticed about Singaporeans' view on LKY is that even if people may have differing opinions on some of his policies or actions, everyone deeply respects him and finds him to be a noble man. He may have been stern and at times authoritarian, but there is no disputing the fact that through his leadership Singapore was able to develop from the third world fishing port it once was to the cosmopolitan metropolis it is today.

After seeing how affected Singaporeans (and the whole international community, really) is by LKY's passing, I look forward to learning more about him this summer by reading a couple of his books. If you're interested in learning more about LKY, there are many great articles online that I recommend.

Washington Post, Kissinger (Pretty American-centric)
New York Times, Cohen  (Pretty balanced)
The Independent, Cheng (While I don't necessarily agree with this author's viewpoint, this one is definitely worth reading if you are a Westerner)

In other news...

This will probably be my final blog post until finals are over, which ends on the 28th of April. I'm really trying to focus all of my energy on classes. Unlike many exchange students, I'm even postponing my travel plans until after finals end. That said, I have decided that I will travel to Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea before returning back home and starting my summer internship!

However, even though finals may end on the 28th, I will remain active on this blog for the month following finals. I feel as though it is necessary to continue the blog after finals end so that I may have time to reflect on my experiences and articulate them properly back to you all. I anticipate that the blog posts following finals will be among my best, as I already have a general sense of what I will share. 

In the meantime, please feel free to catch up on any of my previous blog posts -- wish me luck in my classes!

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Notes on Traveling (for Exchange Students)

After spending more than 3 months studying abroad in Singapore, I've had the privilege to travel to a few different countries in Southeast Asia. I would like to share some thoughts on traveling to you all, especially to those that are interested in studying abroad and traveling.

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)

Whether you are currently studying abroad or will in the future, one must understand that there will always be places you wish you could have gone but simply didn't have time to visit. However, as students studying abroad, our primary obligation is to do just that: study. This, of course, limits the amount of time one has to travel and therefore makes it difficult to go to all of the places one would like to go to. 

Understanding that travel time is limited, many exchange students try to cram multiple destinations into short 3 or 4 days trips. I will admit, even I have been guilty of this to an extent. The result of this is a very surface-level experience that can also be quite stressful to plan logistically. 

There comes a point -- for many exchange students -- where traveling just becomes checking off boxes from a list. Don't fall inside that trap. There is a strong sense of FOMO in the exchange student community, which is not conducive to a truly enjoyable or rewarding study abroad experience. Life's about making decisions, and with those decisions come trade-offs (e.g. depth vs. breadth).

Rather than exhibit FOMO, I challenge people to exhibit JOMO: Joy of Missing Out (shoutout to the Center for Positive Organizations for sharing this concept with me!). It is not healthy to put too much pressure to travel during every lasting opportunity. Recognizing this, I took a few weeks off from traveling to relax and focus further on my studies. 

I will, however, be traveling this weekend to Malaysia with my mom! But rather than go to multiple places and stretch ourselves thin, we will instead explore one part of Malaysia: Penang.

Understanding One's Privilege 

Those studying abroad must also understand that many of the locals have not travelled to many of the places we have travelled to, nor do they live the lives that we live. For example, while I had the opportunity to go to the Philippines, many of my Singaporean peers haven't. This applies not only to places outside Singapore, but also within. Some Singaporeans haven't been to Sentosa Island or even Chinatown, but one would be hard-pressed to find an exchange student that hasn't. 

Given this reality, I think that many people studying abroad erroneously perceive a given country's quality of life to be higher than what it actually is. When you travel to a place, you are exposed to a different side than what someone who lives there is exposed to. Not only do you naturally see the country in a different, more positive light, but you also engage in more fun, perhaps expensive activities that those living in the country likely don't partake in. 

We as exchange students ought to be more aware of these privileges when we formulate opinions on these places. These privileges distort our understanding of a place, since they shield us from aspects of a country that can be -- for lack of a better word -- less glamorous.

Taking Photos, a Trade-off

There is also a trade-off in taking photos that I think is often overlooked not only by exchange students, but by people in general. 

Why do we take photos? In my view, we take photos to have something to look back on and to remember a particular moment in time. Without photos, we may forget exactly how a moment felt -- or we may have trouble remembering what we did altogether. 

On the flip side, taking too many photos defeats the very purpose of a photo, since it results in not having any context or meaning to the photos. The result is many photos but little memories (unless you consider the act of taking the photo as a memory). 

Thus, we should recognize that when we take photos, we are making a trade-off between enjoying the moment and capturing the moment. Everyone has their own implicit "sweet spot" for this trade-off, but I think it is important that we be more aware of where we fall on this spectrum. For instance, I have toned down on the number of photos I take abroad so that I am more on the "enjoying the moment" side of the spectrum than I was previously.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Thailand: Take Two!

I enjoyed Thailand so much during my weekend trip to Bangkok that I decided to go back to see more of the country for recess week. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, Thailand is very culturally rich and diverse. This time around, I visited Southern Thailand (Phuket, Ko Phi Phi, and Krabi) and Northern Thailand (Chiang Mai). 

In Phuket, we went elephant trekking, visited the Big Buddha and Wat Chalong ("Wat" means temple), watched the sunset, and then went to a local night market.

Elephant trekking with my parents

The Big Buddha
Thailand's natural beauty
It is very common for both locals and tourists to enjoy the sunset

Outside the Big Buddha, you can donate money to the Temple and write a message on a bell
Inside Wat Chalong

In Ko Phi Phi, we went island hopping, cliff jumping, and enjoyed the beach. This beach was easily the most beautiful I've ever seen, but it is packed with tourists.

Enjoyed relaxing and reading for class here

In Krabi, we went to Railay Beach, which was also nice, but the main highlight was visiting Tiger Cave Temple. The temple is located on the top of a hill and requires you to climb over 1,200 stairs. The journey up was tough and stands as one of my foremost life accomplishments. It was very rewarding to make it to the top and enjoy a 360 degree view of Krabi, especially because you know that you physically climbed up it. Moreover, the peacefulness and tranquility at the top was unlike anything I've experienced in my life. I truly felt at peace. After this experience, I have become interested in learning more about Buddhism and meditation.

Railay Beach
You don't realize how much this is until you actually do it...
At the top!
Crazy to see how high up you climb at the end
WE MADE IT

While I loved all of Thailand, my absolute favorite was Chiang Mai. The people were very friendly, life was calm, and the food was (somehow) even better than the other places I travelled to in Thailand. We visited various different temples, explored the historic "Old City", enrolled in a Thai cooking class, and even had the opportunity to speak to Monks at a program called "Monk Chat." Through this experience, we had the opportunity to learn more about Buddhism and Thai culture, while the monks (who were English majors at their University) were able to practice their English. This, to me, is a genius idea and should be applied to other places of worship (or any place where one group wishes to practice English and another group of English speakers wish to learn more about that culture), as it presents an opportunity for meaningful exchange between two groups. Toward the end of our discussion, we asked the monk what his favorite TV Shows were, and, to our surprise, he responded Teen Wolf and Vampire Diaries. May this serve as a reminder not to judge others without first having met them, as I know I at least was not expecting that from a monk.

After monk chat, my friend Jeevan and I met a friendly teacher from the local Buddhist School/Temple. He recognized us as tourists and began sharing with us the values of Buddhism, Thai culture, and giving us recommendations for places we should see in our limited time in Chiang Mai. He was a monk for 6 years, and has since been teaching English, history, and physical education for 15-16 year old boys. He was nice enough to even offer us a ride to where we needed to go, since we couldn't find a cab or tuk-tuk to get there. On the way there, he expressed that "friendship and family are the most important things there are in life" and discussed karma with us. To have this impromptu encounter with a local was really cool, and I am sure he has plenty of good karma coming his way in the future.

"Chat with us about Buddhism, Monk's life, and Thai culture. Don't just look from afar and walk away."
Words of advice from the monks
The local thai market where I shopped for my ingredients for the cooking class
Chef Mark in action... Thai food is the best!
The best Cow Soi in all of Thailand, according to a local. It was delicious. I aspire to cook Thai food like this one day.
THE SPICIEST food one could have... papaya salad! 

This is the temple where we met the local, Wat Phra Singh
Legend has it that an earthquake destroyed the temple and then they decided to keep it as is

In other news...

I have accepted an offer to intern with New Sector Alliance in Chicago this summer! This program consists of New Sector’s Leadership Curriculum, an internship placement with a nonprofit organization, and a specific management-consulting project that I will work on over the course of the program and deliver for the nonprofit (more info on the program here). By some fluke, my sister actually will be participating in the same program, so I am very excited to spend time with her this summer as well!