'Read all about it! The Shanghai Story, hot off the press! Get your copy today! Read all about it! The Shanghai Story....'

Whenever I think of the Shanghai Overseas Community Involvement Programme (OCIP) trip I get this bubbly, effervescent feeling inside of me, as if I suddenly had the energy to do a billion things at once. This trip was my first OCIP trip, and I must say, it was definitely worth every single minute of my time and energy, more so, because, as those who know me will know, some weeks before committing to the trip, I had been agonising over several trips/seminars that all occurred at the same time. I eventually chose this trip, and I'm really glad that I did, because the experiences that are stored away in my notebook and my mind I will never forget. It's one of those things that takes up its own private shelf in your mind, and even then, that shelf might not be enough to contain all the emotions and memories....
Which is why I shall now proceed to transfer everything from my notebook to this online journal, so be warned, this is going to be a long entry; partly because so much happened, and partly because I am just too lazy to cut out all the private jokes that some of you might not find funny.

Apologies in advance.

First, a brief overview so you don't get all turned 'round because of the names mentioned. We went to Shanghai -attached to YMCA- on the 21st of May with the main aim of refurbishing two libraries in two village schools, and teaching the children basic English. Our team of 25 was split into two teams, Team A and Team B. I was overall team leader and default leader of Team A. Team A went to a school called Wan(3) Lian(2), B went to a school called Xing(4) Wang(4).

To be honest, Team A had to put in much more effort than Team B, mainly because the room we had been given was in comparatively worst condition. On our first day, we had to wipe the walls because they were so grimy that the paint would not have stuck anyway. We also had to plaster up cracks in the walls. And sometime in the afternoon, we became rather frustrated because the dirt just wouldn't come off! We would rub furiously at it for sometime, and usually, two things would happen. The dirt would either

a) Spread itself over the cleaner parts of the wall or;
b) The plaster itself would come off!

Another 'interesting' phenomenon was the sandy quality of the walls, and how the plaster enjoyed falling into our hands. I would be scrubbing at the walls, and see some plaster that was already peeling off, so I would peel it off to make painting easier (though painting itself was quite difficult also...) only to find whole sections of the wall coming off!
At the very least, we all learnt how to plaster properly by the end of the first day.

Painting was yet another new experience. We had snow in June! Actually, not really. It was simply the paint happily flaking and dropping off the walls onto our shoes, glasses and hair. Quite brilliant, actually. I got really funky sneakers after two or three days of painting walls with a roller brush (can't say the same for my shirt though..). This is also partly why I say Team B's job was comparatively easier; it was normal for the YMCA staff to see a busload of us come back from our work days, half of us with paint-splattered shirts, arms, legs, glasses and shoes, while the other half would seem as if they had just come back from a day of sightseeing. Both teams did alot of work, but Team B's was of a different, and perhaps, less messy nature, I think.

I must say though, that it was an extremely satisfying experience on the whole, especially watching the library take shape gradually, and having the children greet you 'good morning teacher!' in their bright and cheery ways. Of course, many other incidents and events also happened; it was an eventful trip, I must say, and now, I shall go on to type out all the eventful things that happened. From here on, everything came from my notebook, completely unedited. Forgive any spelling or grammatical errors; I had an average of three hours of sleep per night because we had meetings every single night...

DAY ONE:
I get rashes upon landing. Actually, they start appearing on the plane, or possibly before that, so I am fairly paranoid about the cause.

Was it a) the medicine
b) my jumper
c) the stress of school
d) All of the above or various combinations of the above?

I was really not sure at the time and being the rather paranoid person that I am (especially regarding health) I decided to ask Shuling (YMCA liasion officer) if I could go and see a doctor, seeing as I really wasn't sure what the cause was. In my mind, doctor meant clinic and maybe small clinic somewhere near the YMCA hostel...so just imagine my shock and horror when we piled into the taxi and another one of our liasion officers said something in rapid-fire shanghainese: '....yi(1) yuan(4) -hospital. I nearly had a heart attack. After the checkup I was left feeling infinitely stupid and guilty because it turned out to be HIVES. Normal, non-life threatening HIVES! The cause however, was and is still a mystery. The funny Swedish doctor who examined me suggested that it was perhaps caused by the lobster noodle that I had had the night before but privately I disagreed. Mainly because I am definitely not allergic to lobster. Anyhow, the eventual cost of the check-up conducted by a GP further compounded my guilt. I didn't really catch the price but I do know that it was at least 600 yuan. Gods. On one hand, I am grateful that it turned out to be nothing worse than hives, but on the other hand, I felt like such an idiot for even suggesting that I go to the doctor's (read: hospital) and causing so much trouble...
Anyway, that was the drama of day one.

INSERT: After this incident, I was rather paranoid the next day when cleaning the walls and kept checking my hands to see if the rashes were reappearing...

DAY TWO: AKA THE SHANGHAI SPRINT
We had some free time after our first proper work day and so a group of us decided to head out to explore.
We first went to a night market where we walked around for a bit sieving out what treasures there were (not that there were very many, other than fake DVDs, but I was not in that particular group)
After that, the next day being Lim En's birthday, we (Rachael, Shouhao, Andrew, Sam and I) decided to dig around the place for a present for her. Shouhao suggested we walk to Hong Kong plaza, a shopping centre.

So we proceeded to stroll there slowly, taking the time to examine each petal of the roses and to take plenty of pictures...
When we got there however, and walked in, we realised that it was getting rather late (our curfew that day was 9PM) and so we began to hurry a little, with Shouhao taking the lead and bringing us to the food section. here, Sam stopped and asked what on Earth we were doing here and wouldn't Lim En have preferred a 'fake Chanel wallet from the streets'?

After some heated discussion we hurriedly decided to buy her cookies and then saw with some apprehension that we were running out of time. Andrew certainly didn't help very much, listning out reasons calmly in that zen-like way of his.

One of his many nuggets: '..And you're the team leader.'
My reply? 'Yes. Shit.'

It was decided that we would sprint back.
But that didn't really work out because
a) Sam can't run
b) Sam can't run
c) Sam can't run even if we help her
- Rachael attempted to piggy back her but that plan fell through because after about 50m (and much noise made) Sam gave up because she said Rachael was in danger of being throttled.

It ended up being a constant cycle of Andrew, myself and Shouhao ahead, Sam walking quickly behind with Rachael trying to help her. (how selfless...)

And this was one of many moments where I ws reminded of TAHAN trainings and DASH TREKS.

The funniest part is that when we burst into the YMCA building and raced up the stairs two at a time to the second floor (STAIRS, anyone?) and attached ourselves to what we thought was the tail end of the group, we walked into the room only to find that...
WE WERE EVEN EARLIER THAN THE TEACHERS!!!

Needless to say, Sam looked absolutely murderous.

DAY THREE:
Today, we walked to shang(4) hai(3)
shu(1) cheng(2) - Shanghai Book City. It's an amazing place...one whole building dedicated to books, books and more books...I swear, it's every book lover's dream.

Well, maybe not every...one must remember that a large proportion of the books on sale there are in Chinese. Haha. But anyway...it's a brilliant place and I've been there several times already, just can't get enough of it!
Also, we discovered a lovely little shop that was also rather queer in a way...or, should I say, quite surreal. it's a candy/sweet/fruit shop called CAN MORE and they sell things such as fruit bowls, fruit sandwiches and ice-cream waffles. The food is alright; a little on the expensive side, but it isn't the food that amazes me, it was actually more the ambience and the decor that blew me away. For one thing, they have SWINGS and ROCKING CHAIRS instead of normal plastic chairs...what's more, these swings and rocking chairs are covered in embroidered cushions!

Haha...we had a pretty good time there though unfortunately we didn't take any photos there because we weren't allowed to. We did however, have much fun swinging back and forth and trying to time our movements. Heh. The waiter at the door was also rather tickled. The place has very good service as well; the moment we entered the waieter at the door showed us to the counter where we made our orders. Soon after we were shown to our seats a waitress delivered a place of bread to us. The slices of bread were fairly thick and came with a plate of sweet cream. It tasted surprisingly good though I've never eaten bread like that before.

SAM'S INSERT: This is a reminder to Yue Lin to write in more amusing escapades about Sam, who cannot put her own life into chronology.
Sam feels like she is living in a meme.

Anyway, we ate a total of two plates of bread and one huge ice-cream waffle...tasty but bread is rather tiresome to eat.

Moving on, we later went to Raffles City - Yes, same as Singapore's - to buy bread, and it was there that Lynnette discovered that she had misplaced her phone.

We didn't really panic...it was more like ordered panic, if you will. Cheryl called Nnette's number and we found that it was still ringing so we hurriedly made our way back to CAN MORE to try to locate her phone, but to no avail.

The walk back to YMCA was rather quiet, and when we reached the floor where our teachers stayed to tell them about what had happened, we found half the OCIP team waiting anxiously for our return. That did cheer Lynnette up quite a bit...

AOB (at the meeting in Sam's room that night, as all other nights):
1) Sam likes POIFULL. Or rather, she's ADDICTED to them.
2) Shouhao is a chocoholic. Makes orgasmic noises when eating them.

DAY FOUR: AKA THE INCIDENT
Simply put, that night, the four of us and Lynnette headed to Andrew's room for a singing cum jamming session. As always, Rach and Sam got tired and fell asleep on one bed.
We found out sometime later that Shenton (Andrew's room mate) had got tired of waiting for us to clear out of the room so he could sleep, and had gone over to Shouhao's room to sleep on Shouhao's bed.

Shouhao decided to bunk in Andrew's room that night. Problem being Sam and Rach were snoozing peacefully on the bed he was supposed to take. We decided not to wake them because they looked so comfortable together...

This led to Shouhao singing mournfully about the occupants of his bed. Unfortunately, I don't have the lyrics with me...he was singing to the tune of Travis' 'Why Does it Always Rain on Me?', except it became 'Why do they always piss on me?'

We were laughing so hard we nearly cried.

In the end, Shouhao divided the remaining bed into two, one half for him, the other half for Andrew. This apparently because he 'didn't want to end up in Andrew's arms in the morning.'

It certainly painted a pretty picture; two guys on one bed, two girls on the other...

INSERT: After this, I skipped a few days, probably because nothing much happened, other than the fact that one of my friends got assaulted by a little orphan boy selling flowers and Andrew, Shouhao and Shenton had to bodily remove the boy from my friend's shirt. And I also saw an unsuccessful pickpocket attempt. I skipped the weekend as well, because we went sightseeing and spent one whole day shopping, so nothing much happened either, other than the fact that I grew closer to my group of friends (Andrew, Shouhao, Sam and Rachael) and now know their medical histories, among other interesting facts...

DAY TEN:
Today. Also know as Farewell to Wanlian. Turned rather emotional towards the end. Shouhao sits mutely next to me reading all the letters that his P2 class wrote to him. Sam and Rachael too. Feel a little odd because while I feel sad at leaving the school - after all, when you spend one whole week staying up late, incurring sleep debts, frantically scraping paint off the walls and breathing in noxious fumes you do become very attached to the place, but not to the point of tears. Sam and Rachael started crying, but Shouhao's just very, very quiet. Quieter than usual. I really, really want to go back. Yong Sheng (a little boy in the P2 class) is adorable. Little, fast,
ku(4)-cool, shuai(4)-handsome guy who is so very sensitive.

Oh well. Wonder how Team B is doing at their school...

Well, no tears at team B. In fact, very little commotion and noise. Very different from Wanlian. XingWang was large, much larger than Wanlian, and somehow not nearly as warm either. Maybe because it's a physically bigger school, or maybe because we don't know the students, but I somehow felt that Team B's efforts weren't appreciated as much as ours were.

Their library was much nicer than ours, but I think the effort we put into ours was greater. Haha. BUT seriously, as Yuan Jun put it, we started with shit and ended with paradise. Even if we had to scrape one of the walls ##!@%^%&#$@ times, paint it, and watch the fresh coat of paint PEEL OFF before our very eyes...

Wanlian library, truly built with love.

Breathing in the dust, getting funky sneakers (custom-made paint splattered shoes!) staying up till 3AM almost every night...I think we really poured our hearts into it. We know every inch of it from the first coat to the third, from the scraping to the creaky windows that ensure you freeze if you work in front of them...

Damn. I'm definitely going back.

Note: Wow. Scary. Shouhao couldn't wake me up just now on the bus when we had reached the hostel...I wonder, do I go into hibernation or something???

TESTIMONIAL?
Feeling sentimental all of a sudden.
I've made quite a number of friends on this trip, and among them, Shouhao, Sam, Rachael and Andrew are, I think, among the closest. The times we've spent together on this trip laughing hysterically over something stupid Sam/Rachael has done - and strangely enough, it's ALWAYS those two - falling asleep over our breakfasts and dozing off simply because we had slept so late the night before and incurred such a huge debt, shopping together, stopping each other from buying stupid things/convincing some people to buy some items and accessories they've never even considered wearing/using before, (read: Rachael and her green handbag. 'I can't handle the pressure!'Rach and her first pair of tight jeans. 'You look nice in them, you do, you do.' X10, says Yue Lin tiredly.) cracking stupid jokes, learning about each other's medical history and family's medical history (yes, we're strange), playing music (read: THE INCIDENT...'I don't want to be a faggot, sleeping with this bloody braggart...'), buying CDs, and having numerous Culture meetings with the Culture attachees (Rach and I were from Admin) ('We must focus!' [Sam]/'You're the one who needs to focus, Sam![everyone else])

They're really a great bunch of people; I've got to know Rach better (though her past is still a complete mystery to me...), been able to learn the secrets of living with Sam (The Mr. Foo sec of deep meditation), found new buddies in Andrew (One more HP senior I know - other than just merely his name) and Shouhao (Yay. One more Science friend! Haha...nah, don't worry, you're not just a 'Science' friend, you're a friend, and a very interesting one at that.)

And...what I hope is that the workings of our friendship won't change much just because we're back in school. Of course it will change a little, that's inevitable, after all, there will be other people, lessons and breaks that unfortunately don't occur at the same time, but it would be brilliant if the dynamics of our friendship, the basis of it, didn't change. I think it'd be a great pity if we went back to normal school life as if Shanghai OCIP never happened.

I will rue the day one of us walks by the other and doesn't even acknowledge the other's presence.

Hmm..I don't know what put me into this mood, but in any case, I'd like to capture each of those moments and frame them up.
Put them side by side on my wall, the grins, groans, and laughter (and tears) so that I'll never, ever forget.

INSERT:
1) I wouldn't trade my library for the world.
2) And this is the reason why I'm taking time out to type this all out. My fingers are dying right now. Over-exercise!

DAY ELEVEN:
Last day today, now on the bus heading to the airport. It seemed fitting that the last night in Shanghai was spent in the company of Team A's Culture Group consisting of Sam, Rachael and Shouhao. And it seemed fitting that the time spent in that room should replicate what usually happened at Culture meetings. Rachael slept on one bed, taking up far too much space, and looking like a cat, as Sam would say, while Sam curled up on the second bed, dozing against my back. Shouhao and I were, as usual, the only ones still awake and coherent. We whiled away the time happily listening to Mayday's CD -We are Mayday, his favourite CD; the first time I've heard a Mayday song. He was singing along at the top of his lungs and knew the words to almost every song - at one point Rachael asked us to turn the music down - heh, at least he was singing in tune! A strange and violent movie filmed mostly using blue filter was showing on Star Movies.

We decided not to watch it. Haha.

I don't know why, but even when we aren't having Culture meetings, we seem always to end up in the same room together...funny.

May these bonds never be broken.

The trip summed up in two words, in case you got bored and skipped to the bottom:
Brilliant fun.

And now, I know for sure what I want to do when I enter the work force. I want to work for a non-profit, non-government organisation and contribute back to the world. After all, we spend so much time taking from it, why can't we take a little time off to give back to it?

--END--

Quotable quotes:

'When I was young, I hated playing the piano because whenever I tried to express myself I fell off.'
--- Sam

'Shut up dammit, I'm trying to focus!'
--- Shouhao when asked if he was going to cry.

'Of course many people in America aren't Christ.'
--- written by a Grade 5 student at the Shanghai City School.

'Another Culture meeting?'
--- Mr Lee to Yue Lin when he met me walking down the corridor at midnight on the last night in Shanghai.

'Well, I've heard that you can watch a hot guy called Shouhao playing...'
--- Shouhao's advertisement for his Chinese Orchestra Concert on 4th June.

An interesting incident:

[3AM]
Sam: 'Get off the bed so Lim En can sleep, please.'
I get off promptly and go over to Sam's bed. Shouhao, however, is very tired and still sleeping on Lim En's bed.

Shouhao: 'No, I haven't finished my f-ing work yet!'
A pause. Then,

'Oh shit, did I just say the F word?'

Needless to say, Lim En is annoyed.

An interesting conversation:

Shouhao: 'I never buy fake CDs.'

Yue Lin: '...because you respect the artists?'

Lynnette: 'But you buy fake DVDs! What about the directors and actors!?!'

Shouhao: 'That's only Hollywood.'

And lastly...

'I've never been happier.'
---Yuan Jun on the OCIP trip as a whole.

--------------------------------------- SHANGHAI OCIP 2006. BUILDING FRIENDSHIPS WITH OUR HEARTS.

last - next