ChongQing OIP ✈
- iphigenepeh
- Mar 28, 2019
- 3 min read
The country our school chose for this Overseas Internship Programme (OIP) was in SouthWest of China, the ChongQing City.
As the city is built on mountains, it has been nicknamed a “mountain city.” The integration of mountainous terrain and urban construction creates a special landscape here. Chongqing also has a worldwide reputation for its spicy food and hotpot as the climate here has an average low temperature in winter at about 6 °C .
I was very privileged to be given this opportunity, alongside with my peers to attend a 3-week OIP here in a beautiful city, Chongqing. I learnt a lot about the culture of Chongqing and her people and the dos and don'ts doing the trip. One of the example beings, not to call a waitress miss as the term 'miss' is usually associated with prostitutes.
I felt that I was indeed very fortunate to be given the opportunity to stay in the campus with the rest of my school mates to experience how it is really like to be a student in China, a student of Chongqing university because the trip was really an eye-opening experience for me.
During the trip, I attended calligraphy and Chinese paper cutting classes. In its distinctive Chinese form, calligraphy offers an important channel for the appreciation of traditional culture and for arts education. It is also a source of pride and pleasure for the Chinese people and embodies important aspects of the country's intellectual and artistic heritage.
Paper-cutting is a very distinctive visual art of Chinese handicrafts. It originated from the 6th century when women used to paste golden and silver foil cuttings onto their hair at the temples, and men used them in sacred rituals. Later, they were used during festivals to decorate gates and windows.
I feel that China is even more advanced compared to our homeland, Singapore, even though Singapore is already considered a fast-paced and advanced country.
WeChat Pay, an online application developed in China, can be easily downloaded and installed on electronic devices, allowing users to make payment throughout many, or in fact all of the places in China. Many places in China are more inclined to accept WeChat Pay simply by the scanning of QR codes or bank cards as compared to the collection of cash. I felt that this initiative brought about great benefits in China, such benefits include cashless payment and the prevention of fraud.
Though I felt regretful I did not believe how advanced China was in terms of their payment technology when I hear it from my seniors, I would definitely be more prepared for my next visit in the future by setting up my own WeChat Pay account.
Personally, I really agree on and support China’s initiative. The idea of cashless payment is definitely a brilliant one, because of the many benefits involved, I would very much prefer this system made available in all parts of Singapore, apart from the use of credit card. Therefore, I really hope in the near future, I would be able to experience the same technological advancement as seen in China, back in Singapore.
As the saying goes, “The biggest room there is, is the room for improvement.” I strongly believed that even the humblest places in the world would definitely be able to teach us a thing or two different about their own culture and how it can impact our personal lives, perspectives and even make changes to our own nation. We would never know for sure but what I do know is, we have to be humble and be open-minded enough to accept the lesson they are going to teach and learn as much as we can from them.
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