Category Archives: OCIP

Food Tasting Day

We met at Zihui’s house today for food tasting.

I must say, every day I become more and more amazed at this group of people that I’m travelling with because they all seem to be chock-full of the kind of talent you would never expect.

We all know that some of us can dance well; some can sing well; then, you’ve got this bunch of people that can play the piano.

Now, I realize, we even have people that can cook. Amazing. Our group tasted some wonderful Hokkien mee (courtesy to Gordon), chicken curry, Thai-style fried rice, and even some great dessert.

I guess this is what they mean when they say there’s never a boring time when getting to know someone.

After some practice with The Lion Sings Sleeps Tonight, the group decided that four of us – Sherwin, Shaun, Jun Kit and myself would form a band called The Plastics and take on the original singers of the acapella version. We had our doubts about our perceived abilities, though. In the end we recruited four more vocalists into our band. Guess we’ll have to see whether we can really perform on Monday.

Scenario-based games

Scenario-based play today consisted of us being split into two groups: The villagers and the project group. The “project group” was supposed to be, well, the project group, while the “villagers” had to pretend they were this group of people from the village.

DISCLAIMER: Whatever you’re about to read might be slightly disturbing. But it was all done in the element of fun. And trust. And, strangely, cooperation.

So I belong to the “project group”. Interesting. Without really anything to guide us on what kind of culture the villagers are going to be like, what customs they have and all, we rush in like fools into the “Village” thinking they’re going to welcome us with open arms.

My, how wrong we were. The smiling “entrance guard” was merely a facade. Entering the room, we were immediately shouted at. “Why so late?”, then quickly forced to kneel down under the tables (!).

Our leader asked, “What’s going on?” But negotiations with the villagers appeared to be all but impossible. We then decided to comply with them. We were supposed to stay silent – those who failed to do so were asked to push at the walls and shout “Help, help, the walls are falling!”

One of our group mates was locked inside a dark room, for good measure.

Then, we were offered a drink. Drink, in the sense that it was a beverage, but unfortunately it really wasn’t that drinkable. But we had to drink anyway, and pretend to enjoy what is their “national beverage” – which the “villagers” claimed to be made from lizardtail and some other exotic ingredient. (It was coconut wine.)

And then, our leaders had to negotiate.

Negotiations went like this: We had to call ourselves “Your lowest minions”, and the mayor of the town “Your heavenly goddess”.

The “villagers” ask for money, but Jun Kit – the “co-leader” – refused to give it, politely saying, “How can Your Heavenly Goddess take such an unworthy gift? Here is the calligraphy that we present you,” and promptly passed the rolled-up scroll of A4 paper to Sharon.

Jeremy stared at it incredulously. “You call this a scroll?”

What a hilarious scenario game to a very important lesson – how in the world do we deal with cultural differences?

Something that made me think. If I was pushed into such a situation, would I have instigated an escape attempt? It would have been really scary should something similar happen – and the “villagers” were not our friends, but strangers from another land.