Black and White

Peace is a journalist and a ‘recent’ graduate from the National University of Singapore (or so she believes to convince herself she’s still young). But maybe she really is still young at heart, taking baby steps at learning about this world she’s living in. Peace grew up in a loving family and hadn’t had much to worry about for the most of her childhood. Easily affected and touched by what she encounters, Peace spent most of her younger days avoiding the not-so-rosy picture of our society. But she’s grown to understand that she can no longer hide from the imperfection and appreciate that the knowledge of it can help effect change in our society. 

Since young, I’ve always been fascinated by TV serials about law. My parents have always instilled a sense of right and wrong in me, which I thank them for, as it protected me from many dangerous aspects of our society. Things were always black and white. I’ve also conveniently (and mistakenly) equated legality to morality. In a sense, I had been very fortunate that I never had to encounter a situation where I had to deal with the ‘grey areas’. 

A few years back, I went with my university friends for a school field trip to Thailand. I admit that one of the main reasons I went for the trip was that I thought it was a fun way to clear modules. But I’ve gained a lot more from the trip. 

We went to many regions in Thailand, but it was the stay at Mae Sot that was particularly entrenched in my memory. It is a town in western Thailand that shares a border with Myanmar. I remember that we visited a school that had many students from Myanmar. We were also told that there were many of such schools and that these students were illegal migrants. Our instructors told us that Thai authorities there often close one eye to such cases and allow these students to stay in Thailand to seek better education and their families, better job opportunities. I must say that the idea of it being illegal did make me feel uncomfortable for a moment, but the compassion of the Thai authorities and schools as well as the enthusiasm of the Myanmar students for learning immediately eradicated all the rigid black-and-white thinking that I had all these years. 

---

"The Action Collective" features six guests involved in humanitarian and environmental work. Our last guest will be Huishan Aprilene Goh, who helped founded Save That Pen, an organization that refills donated used pens and ships them to school children in Southeast Asia.