Post Trip Reflection

This was an enriching an fruitful trip indeed!
Within this 5 weeks, i have gained a deeper understanding on China's culture.
I have also developed some global skills such as patience, comfort level with strangers, respect for other beliefs and also the willingness to take risk!

My reflections on:

Student's dormitory

Almost every student studying at WUST live at the dorm provided by the school. We were also being arranged to live at the dorm in the school. Compared to our own house, the dorm we were staying was really in a bad condition. So, I complaint to my family about it, the building looks so old, the toilet is so dirty, the mattress is so thin until i felt backache after sleeping the first night. However, during my last week of stay in Wuhan, I realised how fortunate we are compared to the local students. According to Chen Ming, they cannot use electrical equipments which exceed 700 watt, that means they can only use less than 700 watt per day. If they exceed the amount of limited electricity, the electricity supply will just stop! Furthermore, the light in the dorm will be switched off automatically after 11.30 pm! I wonder how the students study during the exam period. They do not have air conditioner in their room so it is really cold during winter time! And, the worst thing is they do not have water heater in their toilet! What they use is only a pipe which supply cold water! Comparing to them, our dorm is much more better! We have 24 hours of electricity supply, air conditioner and water heater! After knowing their dorm's conditions, i told myself, why should I complain if what we posses are so much more than them? We should be satisfy with what we have and do not always complaint.

Sacrifice and tolerance

One of the night, after we watched movie at cafe 119( Dr Teoh's room), we took issac's key which he left in our room instead of our room key. So, we were locked outside our room! We tried to unlock the door using cards and also nail clipper! After trying for half an hour, our efforts were in vain! So, Edmund suggested to let us sleep in his room and they share one room with Issac,Justin,Clarence and Bo Kang. However, because of my leg, we decided to stay at Issac's room which is at the first floor! They gave up their bed for us to sleep! We felt so sorry to them as they did not sleep well for the whole night! Through this incident, I can feel the selflessness of my friends, Justin, Issac and Bo Kang. I would like to say thank you to all of you and also sorry for the inconvenience caused!

Lastly, I would like to say thank you to everyone for taking care of me for the past few days! Camellia and Gracia take care of me almost 24 hours per day, Yvette , Qiu yan and Meiling, chose to stay at my dorm to take care of me instead of going to shopping! I also received get well soon gift from some of my friends! A cute totoro from Issac, Azleena, Clarence , Dharshini and Lavanya, a dress from Edmund, three clothes from Gracia and Camellia! :) Thanks everyone of you!

I am loving this PHARMily!Everyone is so cooperative throughout this entire trip! Without you guys, this trip would not be so fun and enjoyable!

I never regretted for signing up this OIP and I am looking forward to more overseas trip!

I'm Home!

After around 11 hours of flight, we finally reached Singapore!

I would say, 5 weeks past really very fast! I feel like we just reached WUST a few days ago!

In this 5 weeks, I have meet a lot of friends in Wuhan!



Chen Ming, the local student, who always being teased by me because of his pronunciation, brought me a lot of laughter. He is so friendly to bring us around Wuhan to eat, to shop and to walk around.



Christina! also one of the local student we met, never rejected any single request from us! she was willing to help us in anything especially our projects when we had to explore around Wuhan.

Mrs Tang! Calvin's godmother! I have learnt really a lot of things from her. After i injured my right knee, she took care of me just like her own daughter, cook me soup, brought me to hospital with Dr Teoh, and advise me to eat those food which may help me to recover. We also seek her for help to know about the folk remedies in Wuhan and she lent us a book on TCM to help us on our projects:)

Lastly,Back alley! the place where we meet a lot of friends! We became close with them as we always went to the same stalls such as tang bao , sushi ,milk tea and lotus leaf rice! They treat us so friendly and try to make the food less oily and less salty for us!

After 5 weeks, i can really felt the friendliness of the locals! I felt so fortunate to have a chance to know all of them!

The day of leaving

It was 10 am in the morning and it was the time for us to leave WUST :(

Chen Ming, Christina and Mrs Tang followed us to the airport to send us.
The owner of the Lotus leaf rice stall came to send us off before we boarded the bus to airport. She brought her son with her together and he is soooo cute! The atmosphere turned very sad when the lady started to cry because we are leaving :( I felt really down and not bear to leave them, however I have no choice but to board the bus.



I felt so sad when I was hugging Christina and saying good bye to her:'( She promised us she will come singapore to study next year! However, for Chen Ming, I doubt that I am able to see him again.. In 5 weeks time, we became good friends with them and had joy and fun together! I really cherish the friendship between the local students and us,I can feel that they are so true to us. I felt like crying too when both of them were crying on our way to the airport :'(

We gave them some souveniors, letter and our contacts so that they can remember us and contact us!





All my friends in Wuhan, please dont forget me :DDD I will always remember all of you and keep you all as one of the best part of my memories!

Painful April Fool :'(

It was 1st April 2011.

However, it was not fun at all.

This is not a joke, I fell down while i was laughing and dislocated my knee the night before April fool :(

The next day, the swelling did not subside but worsen, so Dr Teoh, Mrs Tang( local teacher ) and Camellia accompanied me to go to the hospital nearby to do a check up.

At that time, I couldn't even walk so Dr Teoh had to carried me when i went into the cab and came out from the cab. (Sorry Dr Teoh! I gained 2 kg after coming to China :o)

The local teacher arranged me to a hospital however the doctors there are not experienced enough so we went to another better hospital to do check up! (Thanks Mrs Tang!)

After reaching the hospital, we waited for 20 mins before our turn to meet the doctor. The TV programme playing was Mr Bean and this made me laugh and relaxed a little bit before i can see the doctor.

After the diagnosis, the doctor said that i tore my ligament :( As what we learnt from APS module,tear of ligament is very hard to recover as there is no blood vessel run through it. Therefore, nutrients are hardly to diffused through blood. I told the doctor this is my second time experienced dislocation on my right knee so he think I was born with less ligament on my right knee that is why my knee dislocate easily. And continuously he said , I NEED TO DO CORRECTIVE SURGERY after going back to singapore.

I was shocked and stunned at that moment as I never ever did any surgery before. My tears rolling around my eyes but I controlled it as my "geh kiang"(pretend to be strong) character did not allow me to.

I was advised to do X ray to know whether there was any fracture on my bones.

This is the X ray room!


While waiting!



After that..


However, my conditions did not improve so i went to hospital again on 3rd April :((

And.. my blood!!




My experiences and observations

The local public hospital is very different from Singapore's public hospital. Firstly, we must pay first before we can actually do the treatment. Like my case, before I can actually meet the doctor, I must pay for the fee first, this goes the same way as doing X ray.
Another thing is some patients' bed are along the corridor! Just imagine that, you can have no privacy and what you are doing can be seen by anyone walk by the corridor. Compare to China, Singapore's public hospitals are much more well-equipped so we are really very fortunate for being provided all the well-structured necessities! I learnt to be more contented after knowing their hospital's conditions.

I hope that my leg can recover soonnnnnnnnnn!! I want to walk and play around and SHOPPING!!!

Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone!

Dr Teoh is really a very caring and responsible lecturer:))

Mrs Tang the local teacher even made white fungus soup for me to drink as it has lots of collagen :D THANK YOU!

Lastly, my friends! Camellia, Gracia , Yvette , Meiling , Qiu yan and many more!
Sorry for bringing lots of troubles to all of you! I will recover very soon :)) Jiayou She Hui!!

Wudang Shan Trip =)

Last weekend was spent at Wudang Mountain, it was really fun !
We have to take several buses to reach the Golden Peak of the mountain, we were 2000m above the sea level! Can you imagine how great it was? The view from the peak of the mountain was just breath-taking!I felt peace and relax.



At the Golden Peak!!


After that, we walked further down to explore the Golden Peak. To my surprise, we saw snow!!It was my very first time to see snow and feel it!


photo taken with snow!

My observations
Maybe it is because that day was Saturday, the bus we took was very crowded. We must push all the way to get ourselves up so that we have the chance to board the bus.If not, we will be leave behind! Everyone was pushing no matter young or old, just to get onto the bus. If we show mercy to others,we have to sacrifice ourselves,it was like the scene of war.Our tour guide kept asking us to push no matter how hard, so that we can get a place. I seriously disagree with the habit of these people as this kind of actions will only cause chaos in the crowd and may cause injuries or the kids will be lost with their parents. This is not a good way for elderly too! They are already old and cannot afford to fall down. I hope that this bad habit can be changed some day and the people can queue nicely before boarding the bus so it will be more convenient and organised.In Singapore, people queue for almost everything! For example, queue for the toilet,to buy food, to wait for the bus etc. So, I hope that the people here can take up this good habit and not to cut queue or push others when taking a bus or whatever.

The next day, before going to Wudang Shan, we were teached by a coach to do Tai Chi early in the morning! It was a nice experience! Tai Chi combines physical exercises, relaxation and breathing exercises to give a peaceful mind. We repeated the Tai Chi movements for a few times and we decided to teach Mr Imran the Tai Chi movement we learnt after we go back to WUST as he was not there with us.

After a refreshing start of the day, we started our journey to Wudang Shan! We have to take cable car to reach the peak of the mountain! It was exciting but also frightening in the same way. Me and Camellia screamed all the way when we were taking the cable car up!

When we reached the peak of the mountain, I was taken aback by the huge crowd of people! In order to make our way out, what we can do is just push and push! For the sake of getting up to the peak, we pushed each other until we reached the peak of the mountain. I felt very bad for being so inconsiderate as I normally will not do this in Singapore. It takes about 1 hour for us to go up to the peak although it was only a very short journey. I nearly lost my way and got lost from my gang !

Finally. we reached the peak of Wudang Shan! The scene was amazing~



At the peak of Wudang Shan, there are a few temples. Our tour guide kept reminding us not to take photos of the gods. I do not know the reason behind it but I guess it is probably to show respect to the god. All the temples are very crowded and this has shown that people in China are very loyal to their god. I can see a lot of people praying to the gods inside the temple we visited.

This ends my journey to the Wudang mountain! I was very enjoyed throughout the trip and had discovered some new cultures in China!

Bye Bye blog! Good night! :D

Third week in Wuhan!

Hello blog! It has been nearly one week I did not update my blog! It was a tiring week filled with tests and PBLs!
Well, for this week I went to a lot of different Traditional and Chinese Medicine shop for my reflection on CAM in Wuhan PBL. While we were visiting most of the TCM shops, we tried to ask questions for more information to do our PBL , however, sometimes the pharmacist do not want to answer our questions and asked us to go other shops for more information. The pharmacists and shopkeepers were very unfriendly to us as we did not purchase anything but keep on asking questions.
There was an incident happened when the year 2 senior, Calvin went for acupuncture for his muscle ache. As we were doing our reflection PBL, we need to take photos on what we know or what we did related to CAM in Wuhan. However, the nurses did not let him to take photo for the process of treatment. The local students who brought us there had a quarrel with the nurses there and we were chased out by the nurses and physicians. I feel very bad as we initiated the quarrel and the local students being scolded just because we requested to take some photos. The nurses even scolded them for helping us which are foreigners to them. According to one of the nurse, taking photo is prohibited in their clinic and this is their privacy.
When the incident happened, I actually felt angry as we being chased out and treated badly by the nurses and physicians. However, after went back to dormitory, I reflect this incident and found that we were actually wrong at the very first place as we took a photo of the physician without seeking his permission when he was explaining to Chaz about his cough condition. No photo taking is one of their rule and principle of their clinic and we were putting them in a difficult situation when we keep requesting to take photos for our PBL.
After this incident, I learnt to ask for permission before I do something so that I will not offense others or break others rules or principles. Also, I learnt to be more patient when talking to others. The local student, Christina who helped us to persuade the physician for letting us to take photo talked to the nurses and physicians very patiently but her effort was in vain. I know how to communicate with others using suitable tone so that people do not get offended.
The next day , me camellia, gracia, dharshini, Clarence, larvanya and azleena went around the school to look for other acupuncture shop but we did not get to find one after walking for around 1 hour. So, we decided to go for foot massage so we have something to do for our PBL.
It was my very first time to do foot massage.
I felt so relax after the massage and we plan to go for the massage again before going back to singapore! :D

Yangtze River Cruise along the Three Gorges Dam!

18th March-20th March 2011
Finally, we went to the Three Gorges Dam for the three days two nights trip! :D We took a 4 hours bus journey to the Yi Chang to board the Yang tze cruise!

On the way to Yi Chang, the view from the bus was so nice! There are yellow flowers along the roadside! Besides looking at the view outside the window,I studied at the bus as the lecture test is coming! Hope everyone can do well and the questions will not be too hard for us!

Finally, after 5 hours, we arrived at Yi Chang, it was around 6 pm. We checked in immediately after boarding the cruise and unpacked our luggage. After that, it was our dinner time! However, the dishes did not taste good and there are people quarreling at the eating place. There are about 8 to 9 China men who were complaining to the waitresses and raising their voice to them as we,as the foreigners, being served the dishes first. The men were very fierce to the waitresses and asking them to pay them back the money as they already paid for the meal. Lastly, they went off without having their dinner.

I thought about this incident after the meal. The men who were complaining should have be more patient towards others as there was only a chef who was cooking. They should be more understanding and tolerance towards their nations instead of pissing off to them. In Singapore, this kind of incident is not common, and I guess that if there is such thing happens, Singaporean will ask for the Manager of the restaurant to solve the problem immediately instead of raising their voice at the waitresses.

At around 11 pm, our cruise went through the first ship lock and all of us were so exciting! The water level raised about 44 meter after we entered the ship lock~

After that, raining started and I went back to the cabin to rest.

The next day, we went to the Shennongxi river! We transferred to a small ship to go there. It was very cold on the ship as there is no roof! Without wasting time, we took a few photos on the ship~





Finally, we arriving at Shennongxi river and took the sampan to have a look at the shennongxi river! There are about 5 men who rower the sampan and 1 man controlled the direction of the sampan. The men are about 40 to 60 years old! I guess the weight of the sampan plus the weight of all of us was exceeding 500 kg and yet they are so strong to row the sampan for us although they are not so young as us.


I admired their stamina , determination and spirit! On the other side, I pity them for doing the tough work for everyday and I guess that their pay is not very high too. Compared to us, they work more but gain lesser. However, they seemed like enjoyed their work very much! I told myself to cherish what I have now and not to complaint even though there is a lot of school works and assignments because our suffering is nothing compare to them. I hope I can be as determine as them and not to give up easily even though I am in a difficult situation.

On the sampan, our tour guide sang a folk song for us! Although I cannot understand what she was singing, I enjoyed listening to the song very much!

After a tiring day, we packed our luggage and had a good sleep~

The next day, we went to visit 185 platform which is the highest platform of the 5 levels ship lock! The view from the 185 platform is really very nice!After that, we also went to a park and took some photos!





And this ends our Three Gorges Dam Trip!
Overall, It was AWESOME! :D

Shopping Time! :DD

17th March 2011

Today was the day of our Herbal supplement PBL! I felt very nervous before going to the class.

Our presentation did not go very smooth due to some technical problems of Gracia's laptop! However, I am sure that we can do it better next time! Jiayou! Camellia and Gracia!

The presentations of year 2 really impressed me! They presented in a very natural way without script! I want to be like them also! So, for the nest presentation I will try not to refer to scripts! Jiayou She Hui!!

After our lessons today, we want to relax ourselves after the PBL! so, we went for shopping at Jiang Han Road!

I bought 2 shirts , 1 hairband and 1 ring!

Felt very satisfied after the shopping!

Tomorrow we are going to the Yangtze River cruise and Three Gorges Dam! Hope that the cruise will not be too bad as what Mr Puah have told us :/

Hope eveyone will have a nice trip! :)