I been back from Da Lian China from my 6 weeks AIESEC internship for like nearly 2 weeks already and i always been wondering,have i learned enough or did enough for the society there yet?Infact i did learn alot of things i wouldnt expect or i could probably learn here in malaysia.
In China, i seriously did learned to be much more independent that i would have in Malaysia. There is where i have my family and friends to back me up always if i get into any trouble.But china no,I have to take care of whatever i do,what action i take and every step i take means i'm actually acting as a Malaysian,in a sense a Malaysia's ambassador. So that's part of my responsibility too to bring myself well wherever i go and not to put Malaysia to a shame position.
Talking bout responsibility,i remembered how i planned for the HIV/AIDS slides for primary school kids who age ranging from 9-12 years old. I had 2 other interns in my team as well but they're not working as hard as I'm for the classes and somehow 1 of the classes is conducted badly and i do feel bad for that so i told my team i'll help them to finish up and refurnished the whole thing and make it good and the next class was conducted awesomely. I'm not trying to stress how good i'm but in fact i'm trying to say i somehow feel responsible for teaching kids the wrong information and they would probably goes back home and tell their parents bout it and it keep going on spreading wrong information that way and the chain keeps going on.
Somehow i learned to be thick skin or some of you call it bravery. I usually dont like to voice out much in a public but i did alot in China,maybe in Malaysia people been acting like a porcupine and shrink to it sharp pokey ball to protect itself. E.g: If i found some classes or information bout HIV/AIDS is spread wrongly i'll approach and tell them the right thing.
These are the things that lots of people or even i wouldn't do in Malaysia like i used to be,because all of us trying to protect ourself and concern if people will look at us with some weird eye stare for trying to being stand out.
I would give my sincere thanks to Catherine Mak for sharing her times in China which somehow inspired me and Yi Hong for insisting keep promoting his exchange to me,if he doesn't,i wouldn't even have a chance like this life changing experience. And thanks to the OGX team for helping me sort out all kinds of problems i had before leaving to China.
Some of the stuff might sounds nice or awesome when u heard stories bout how people enjoy,experience some life changing moments of their's,
But how true is that?
it's up to u to find out =)
written by,
Jeff,U Song
an AIESECer
