Riding a foreign wave (cont.)

Part 4: Fancy finding lost treasures?


An upside of independence is you have the time (too much time even!) to research tips and tricks for different areas. Or you have enough motivation to find shortcuts, innovative ways that would save you time (although you have plenty), money (especially when the Sterling is ever strong against your currency) and effort in the future. Over time, I have learned a trade or two. Among those are bargain hunting skill, Internet scouting skill, "student tag" deploying skill and many more...


The main reason behind all these is the ever-growing bond between me and my laptop. Even though I am well aware of the health consequences of glueing my eyes to the screen, somehow it is just an indispensable part of overseas studying. Such a cliche to say but now I can truly understand and value the magical power of technology. I even come to the conclusion that it is a 2-way process: I am dependent on it but it also depends on users like me to thrive. For instance, what is the point of having a website full of money-saving coupons if no one wants them? 

More than just for long-distance communication

Whether it being receiving health treatment, buying insurance, purchasing tickets, I've learned to try my luck by saying: "I'm a student. Am I entitled to some sort of discount?". Most of the time, the answer would be yes. Sometimes when I'm in the "pestering" mode, an upfront no could be swayed! And I swear with all my student's heart, it feels as good as receiving a first class degree.

Riding a foreign wave (cont.)

Part 3: Watch out for rogue waves!


Innocent excitement over time would become cynism. Not that I'm saying I becoming a paranoid person, just more mature. What remains impressive to me is the civilised manner things are dealt with, or at least some efforts are exerted towards that ideal. But the question is, could too much politeness actually be a mask for insincerity? Could there be ulterior motives behind acts of kindness? 


In this material world, especially with the current economic climate, money appears to gain more and more value over everything else. As far as one sees the potential of money inflow, then talking can begin, or resume. If not, expect to hear apologies and warnings of backing off. Too much fairness can sometimes be harsh. 


Sympathy, or to be exact, empathy, is what I need to survive amid the foreign ocean. And sometimes communication breakdown, cultural differences or just personality disparities lead to lots of frustration. But one thing for certain, whatever happens, I have to keep sailing. I'm the captain of my own ship. I chose the itinerary and I must learn to toughen up along the way. 

Willpower does!

There are only storms in your mind!

Riding a foreign wave (cont.)

Part 2: Welcome ab(r)oad!


I still recall the very feeling of touch-down when the aircraft arrived at Manchester Airport. A mixture of bewilderedness and excitement. For a moment, I did not have time to think about what or who I had left behind; family, friends, familiar food...would have to wait. Wait till I breathed in the very first flow of UK air. Wait till I saw the very first British person, who was an airport ground staff. Wait till I heard the very first English word uttered by a native in their homeland. Those were all the very first moments of my new life, the moments that struck me as both real and unreal, or even ethereal. 


On my taxi ride from Manchester to Colwyn Bay, the town in North Wales where I would be staying, the effect from 15 hours of flying long-haul for the first time of my life couldn't stop me savouring the scenery, or anything that came into view. I was assigned, by my college, to stay with a host family, which consisted of an old lady, 73 at the time and an old female dog, 12 at the time. With hindsight, perhaps I should have seen that as a sign.


The house seemed cosy and comfortable. I couldn't help noticing how all the furniture and interior seemed to be so...close-knitted. In Vietnam, as it is a hot country, spacing is very important as it alleviates the feeling of being crammed into a boiling pot! My very first dialogue with the host mother made me worry about my English skills a little bit, but it was actually because she couldn't hear me if I talked too softly. 

My room - independence starts here

To me, culture shock didn't happen as fast as expected. Probably I was too excited about learning new things and discovering the lifestyle to make comparisons. Many of my Vietnamese friends couldn't eat British food, or even hated it. But somehow, I enjoyed the experience purely based on novelty, even though it was only frozen food, microwaved and served with cooked vegetables. As far as my memory is concerned, my very first meal was minced beef with rice, potatoes, peas and carrots. Exotic! I thought to myself. Finally I got to know how it felt like to eat food all served in a plate, rather than in a bowl for rice and multiple plates for different components such as meat and vegetables. It was just a convenient thing to have everything in one place. And I got to use a knife and a fork instead of chopsticks too.


The excitement was preserved for my first appearance at the college too. Llandrillo College, or Coleg Llandrillo, as in Welsh, was the largest in North Wales. I could jump up whenever I saw something new, albeit I kept that wild attitude inside my mind. Classes were small, with just about 15 students, unlike 45 in my high school class back then! The college was surrounded with such a beautiful landscape that I could paint a mental picture of the white being the building, amid the blue colour for the sea, the green for grass field and the greenish brown for mountains. Staff were friendly and welcoming. Seagulls seemed to be too as they walked around the campus peacefully. Perfect, I couldn't have asked for more. 

The view opposite my college when it snowed

But would the wonder wear off? Were everything as I thought they were?

Riding a foreign wave

It is a truth universally, or in this case, nationally acknowledged that a kid coming from a family in possession of a good fortune must go abroad to study. In retrospect, after 4 years and a half in the faraway island of Great Britain, I ask myself what brought me here. Not the Boeing 777. But Jane Austen.


Part 1: Choosing your sea


I was 16, a young, ordinary Vietnamese girl who went to high school to receive education and to yearn for more. English was a mandatory subject in the curriculum from primary school, and I somehow seemed to be good at that. In fact, I was among the high fliers in a class specialised in English, in a school that had already been known for its good English teaching. So there I was, exposed to the language almost everyday, that ambition to study abroad started to take shape.


Nonetheless, the outward perspective has become so common among Vietnamese students (and parents I hasten to add!) that it is seen as a "tradition" rather than a trend. Kids go to school, learn English and at some point, they go overseas to seek better education. But for me, it was more than that, I am "passionately curious" about foreign cultures, about discovering new experiences. That burning desire drove me to attend a myriad of seminars, exhibitions, talks and tests, that would bring me closer to my goal. 


I kept my options open, any English-speaking country would do, the US, UK, Australia, Singapore etc. With persistance, luck and a bit of grey matter, I managed to get scholarships and offers from quite a few colleges and high schools through taking part in assessment tests of all sorts. So the next question beckoned, where would I go?


Research. Compare. Select. As simple as that. I have to admit I was perhaps a teeny bit meticulous, in that I would devour prospectuses from schools as if they were my favourite novels! My mother would go on complaining about my stockpiling and I would gladly reassure her that they would vanish through recycling once I made my decision. Among the amount of students like me going overseas, I estimate half of them go because it is their parents' wishes. Lucky in my case, it had always been my idea, which made me the leader of the whole process.


Frankly, the more I drew endless comparisons in terms of costs, length, location and other objective factors, the more I knew the decision had to be based solely on my subjective feeling for the place, or "going for true love", in a sense. I had to thank Oxford University Press for holding that reading competition, in which participants had to write down a paragraph or two reflecting on a book of their choice in the series of OUP abridged classic novels. 


It was fate, wasn't it? I had always loved writing and expressing my ideas. And then I met Jane Austen, my first and also primary source of inspiration at the time. Followed were Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, the Bronte sisters, to name a few. Although the books were only the shortened version, my periods of enlightenment just seemed to  grow longer and longer. Until I was awash with questions such as, "what would it feel like?", "what if I could be there?", "what could happen to me?". The key to all of those was finally moulded after a period of imprinting. I would pick the UK. I would become a writer, just like Jane Austen, just like.

View of Llandudno seashore from the Great Orme

So where in Great Britain did I end up? North Wales. Yes, as random as it sounds. Apart from having a scholarship which entitled me to a 40% tuition fee reduction, I just thought to myself after having seen photos of the place, a picturesque location could be a good start for a writer's cultivation. The sea was chosen. And I set sail.