I wanted to buy a nendo of Kenma these days, but there’s no goods in Taobao. So I tried to find it in Singapore. But there’s no goods in online shops, and the shipping is to be honest, horrible.

Then I found Carousell, an app for trading second-hand goods in Singapore. Lucky for me, there’s one guy called “oppai” selling brand new Kenma nendo and only for 55$. So I contacted her and made an appointment meeting at Clementi.

I arrived on time. But funny, I came to the wrong person. There’s another girl trading on Carousell, but there good was a book. Then I finally found oppai, and accomplished our deal.

It was a really nice experience!

Overall, the Temasek LEaRN program has benefited me in many ways. Firstly, my leadership skills have been significantly improved. From the startup team in SUTD to different CIP events, I’ve been subject to opportunities to shoulder responsibilities and to practice my leadership skills. Also, I’m lucky to spend time with young elites from all over the world, exchanging our ideas over certain topics and trying to work things out. The whole experience with them is really inspiring. Secondly, the CIP events boosted my initiative to be actively engaged in the community. The dialysis centre volunteering experience made me realize that there’re many people out there in the community who are in need of certain sort of help, and we should reach out to them more in the future to build a better community. Thirdly, I’ve made friends from different countries, which always provides me with a global horizon and brand new perspectives to work things out. I even had the chance to visit Thailand and I was deeply amazed by their splendid culture.

This program offers me a chance to view my home country from a whole new perspective. China is now the 2^nd largest economy in the world, promising to hit the top in decades. Despite the soaring economy, there’re still plenty of deep rooted problems within Chinese society. Aging problems, uneven development among different parts of China, skyrocketed housing prices, worsening air quality, the list goes on. Seeing how Singapore government deal with these problems is enlightening and eye-opening. For instance, HDB flats are the original Singaporean solution to the local housing problems. Hopefully China can learn a lesson from its neighbors to further address its domestic issues.

During the stay, I’ve made some friends as well. They’ve really impressed me with their hospitality. The new friendships taught me to be open to all kinds of cultures and lifestyles, and to view them with respect.

From this experience I’ve gained, I believe that I can make more contribution in my home city Shanghai. Shanghai is a world class financial hub and is well-known to have an inclusive culture. The Shanghai spirit is something engraved in the city, namely “tolerance to diversity, excellence, enlightened wisdom, and humble atmosphere”. I found my takeaways from the program somehow consistent with the spirit of my home city: open to diversity, excellence in leadership, a wise mind and a humble attitude.

Our last visit in Singapore is Orchard Road. We bought some anniversaries for our friends here and we went to the bookstore to get some comic books that can not be bought in China. It’s quite diverse here and the bread with ice cream is really good! We listened to the songs of the street singers and it was time to say goodbye to this diverse country – Singapore!

To put a final seal on my 3-month-long stay in SUTD, I decided to celebrate The unique tropical Christmas in Singapore.

When those popular Christmas songs come on repeat, you know that Santa Claus is about to come to town. The festive atmosphere has been around town since late November. Every single mall takes on a new look, embellished with dazzling lights and fancy Christmas trees.

2 days before my departure from Singapore, I paid a second visit to Gardens by the Bay where a celebration event takes place. Among all attractions, Flower Dome was my personal favorite. Just a couple of weeks ago it was a normal greenhouse, but now it has turned into Alice’s wonderland with every kind of Christmas decorations known to man. Everyone was merrily immersed in the festive vibes, taking photos to capture the unforgettable moment.

The end of the semester is around the corner, it’s time for students to show off their fruitful results to people. So here it comes —— the ESD pillar’s project showcase of freshmen. All of them have a well-structured poster and a fully-functional prototype. SUTD students are really adept at making prototypes. However, I’ve noticed a common but fatal problem that is most of them are solving a pain point but their solution is not that perfect. They just did it without thinking in depth about the consistency of the need and their products. That is to say, they spent much time in building the product before they actually prove their idea. On the contrary, Chinese students always think too much before they make anything. We tend to brainstorm, prove, pitch, brainstorm, prove, pitch … so on and so forth. How I wish we could complement each other!

Throughout the semester, I’ve been working on the EPD 30.111 Entrepreneurship Project. Our first product is called Belowvol, a revolutionary product to create your private sound zone. With Belowvol, you can talk freely without bothering anyone. It also has a collaboration function that allows people to interact with multiple people at once, like a mobile meeting room. We want to make it a portable device to breach the existing physical barrier for sound dampening and improve the communication efficiency for everyone.

Our team has done many user interviews and the overall feedback is really encouraging. Every time I see an air of surprise on their faces, I know I am on the right track. And what the course has taught me is always go out and talk to people, it’s a useful and risky thing in your whole design process before whatever products you make.

The other course, called The Role of Design and Technology in the Growth of China, is delivered by Li Xiangdong, a professor from my home university.

Given the remarkable economy and society progresses achieved by modern China in the past decades, it has been a phenomenal topic of how China imports, learns, and innovates technologies and designs, as well as what exactly is the role of the technology and design in the middle of boosting the rapid development of China economy. In the context of modern China’s ‘reform and open’ policies, this course describes and explains the role of technology and design, respectively. The course covers the role of technology and design in the past, present, and future.

The course introduces the relationships between technology and varieties of society, commodity, education, and so forth. Also, the course introduces the connections between modern designs and related purposes, methods, and impacts on the broad side of society.The importance of the role of technology and design in modern economy development has been widely accepted by the China administrative and other nations around the world. Therefore, the course also puts a strong emphasis on the introduction of the state-of-the-art of technologies and designs in China, as well as related roles in local communities.