MIT Sport TKD Blog

“Can I go in there please?”

“Can.”

“Ten bucks for this?”

“Cannot.”

Singaporeans don’t say yes or no. They say can/cannot, and when I say can’t they still think I am saying can. I realized both words do sound extremely similar. After much confusion, I too have embraced the can/cannot system here – laaa. They also add a ‘ laa’ at the end of some expressions, I still haven’t figured that one out yet.

In short, I am in Singapore for about three weeks working as part of the MIT-Singapore Alliance on a water quality project. I work at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and live at NUS (National University of Singapore). Do not know why I don’t live at the same place I work, but I actually like the arrangement, because I got to experience both colleges. The universities are very, very impressive. The labs are top-notch, campuses are gorgeous, and the warm weather makes me feel completely at home. I realized even after three years I still feel like a fish out of water with the East Coast clime. I am truly a tropical creature.

I work about ten hours a day and then spend nights and weekend either sightseeing or kicking with the taekwondo teams at NTU and NUS. Tkd can be such a useful tool to cross cultural gaps. I just walked into practice at NTU (thanks to Wenxian’s extremely accurate info), introduced myself and started kicking. The taekwondo culture at NTU is very, very similar to MIT’s. They have a ton of alumni helping out and leading classes, it’s more casual, they have officer announcements after practice, people circle and do cheers. I have been cheering: “NTU, sah, NTU sah, NTU sah, sah sah!” for the last two weeks. Practice usually starts with a voluntary run around the track, and then kicking paddles (they call ‘em handmits!) or gearing up for contact sparring. The black belts seem to trickle in and out, or sit out some drills as they choose to, the color belts do the whole class from start to finish.

Practice can be pretty grueling because of the weather. You sweat off a lot ions and quickly feel dehydrated. Neither the NUS or NTU club practice on mats, which totally killed my feet. I haven’t had such bad blisters since my hard-court karate days back home in Bangladesh. Good times those. I have been practicing a lot spin kicks and other new techniques. Bought new gear here. The hogu is much more expensive here for some reason, but the forearm and shin pads were waaay cheaper. I got smas, a Korean brand, I think. It rocks!

In general, it has been really great experiencing how a different club, a different country approaches taekwondo. I quickly made friends and they took me shopping and to sketchy night places which only a local would know about. Check out the link for pictures.   Wait guys, sorry to disappoint, they are not sketchy pictures, just atypical touristy shots.

http://smilebox.com/playEmail/4d5441304e4459354d4452384d6a45774f4451794e44513d0d0a&sb=1

Random facts:

I, as in an American tkd trained person, hold the paddle with the weave facing out. That’s how we usually do it at MIT. But everywhere else in the world, they hold it the other way round. I have lost count how many times I have been corrected here.

Don’t roll up pants when no one else around you is the doing it. The NUS coach called me out for that one in front of the whole class.

When I say padachagi, no one knows what I am talking about.

The little shields are called ‘big brother’.

Intra-club dating is a universal phenomenon!!

That’s all from me. I will be here for about five more days and then I am going home to Bangladesh for a few weeks. Can’t wait to see my family!

HOME!

 

I got home on June 11^th, flew in at Zia International Airport in Dhaka at night which is Bangladesh’s capital and not my home. Home sweet home is Chittagong.  The first person I saw was Abba (Bengali for dad).  I put out my T-mobile phone card from my razor and inserted my local SIM card and dialed my father.  We talked through the glass coz I hadn’t been cleared through my immigration paperwork yet.  A year is a long time not to see abba.

 

I couldn’t rest very long at Chittagong.  Although I am home, I have a HUMONGOUS project to carry out. I am working, with a friend, to implement a youth leadership training program that incorporates three different types of kids in my hometown.  There are three schooling systems here: English (of which yours sincerely is a product of) a.k.a. rich, spoilt kids, (which yours sincerely is NOT), Bengali (the state language and state supported schools) more middle class, and Islamic madrassas (which focus a lot on Islamic/religious education).  There is great disconnect between peers of these three mediums.  We want to bring these kids together in the spirit of responsible leadership through community service.  The project was one of the winners of the Davis Peace Prize 2008 (

 

English kid: OMG! Doooddee, I just learnt this killer break dance move from Step Up2.

 

Bengali kid:  I must have perfect grades so that I can go to a good university to support my family.

 

Madrassa kid: I am sidelined because people think I am a ‘Islamic fundamentalist’.  I will get rejected from a top-brass job because I have a beard and wear the Islamic cap.

 

Disclaimer: I am grossly stereotyping and would probably get shot if any of the kids saw this blog!

 

I started work on this almost immediately after I got here.  We are working here with a partner organization.  So the rest of June and the WHOLE of July has been swallowed up in getting applicants for the program, screening applications, getting a venue, training facilitators, keeping track of thousands of dollars, making ten gazillions phone calls, answering ten gazillion phone calls, and basically going nuts.  But by the grace of God, the program has kicked and is running with AMAZING colors.  The kids are so enthusiastic, so positive, they have been bonding really well, and they really believe they can make a change in their community and country.  We went for a field trip to a local slum yesterday.  The kids have to design community service projects that cater to the need of the slum dwellers. Example: one group came up with the idea of directing a play with the children of the slum to demonstrate the dangers of illiteracy, so that families send their children to school.

 

Program will end on August 16^th with a huge graduation ceremony inshAllaah. The kids deserve it, they have been working their gluts off.  True my summer is being swallowed whole with backbreaking work, and I am actually looking forward to the time when I will be back on campus doing solid mechanics classes and annoying psets (aaahhh good times ))  But this will be an experience for me to remember for the rest of my life and it might have even changed the course of my life. 

 

P.S.  I am also guilty of treason.  I have returned to my karate club, and have been training there for the whole summer. BUT I have been practicing my TKD kicks on my kicking bag and on my karate-mates.  I made my club use the same warm-up drills like plyo jumps that we do at practice. There were a lot of groans when I made everyone do the plank for 40s!

 

P.P.S  The whole credit for this entry to THE Mary.  She threatened never to cut weight to make me spar heavy for the rest of my life.