SingaporeA Portfolio Wen Zhou’s Exchange Expe-rience in Singapore

Wen Zhou

University of Nottingham School of Architecture

Exchange to (NUS)National University of SingaporeDuring Year 2 Semester 2&3

Contact:jojoalice@hotmail.com(email/facebook)

Exchanging is really a valuable and memorable time in my life. The most outstanding benefit is to meet people from other parts of the world. Most of them came from the best universities of their own countries and have their own interests in different fields. Though we are souls of sorted personalities and various culture backgrounds, we could always find commonalities, like the longing of ‘know each other’, as my Canadian friend said that we were ambassadors of our countries.

This is a photo taken when we were visiting the President House. I facebooked this event ‘Let’s photograph Singapore! ‘ on a sunny day.

Exchange --

A Chance For meeting

interesting people

Singapore

How much do I know about Singapore? Honestly, I know nothing except it’s hot and that Singaporeans speak English and Chinese.

Apart from a little bit of learning about Singapore from Wikipedia, a few personal exploring experiences, sto-ries heard from friends and some case study of my se-lected module gave me a much better answer to this question.

Here, you may see the short but impressing history of the independence and development of a city-state. You may find an answer how people under different cultures (Chinese, Malay, Indian etc) tries hard to live harmoniously together on the same piece of land. And if you travel around it a bit, you may change your view towards Asia.

Events

Lots of culture events were going on during the semester, from music festival to the Elec-tion. One of the most popular among exchange students is Chinese New Year celebration. As Chinese is one of the major ethnic groups in Singapore, it is a custom for families to have fun together on this day in their homes.

But a few of us (exchange students) besides those who went for dinner with their host families found no place to observe this joyous occasion. The rest of us then decided to go to China Town. China Town was well decorated with lights and lanterns crowded with a throng of people shopping or dining. Quite a lot of them are foreigners, known as the ‘homeless’ on this day. :P

dfa

Living in PGP -- Prince George Park Residence

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=prince+george%27s+park+residences+singapore&f=hp

More photos of Prince George’s Park Residence:

room type -- c foyer

inner courtyard

The most special part of PGP is the big steps at the foyer. Whenever we have some activities or simply meet our friends, we’ll meet at ‘the stairs’. As I usually say to my friend, ‘see you at the stairs’.

Generally speaking, PGP would always be my first choice to stay during exchange semester. It is a desirable accommodating place with quality rooms rated at accept-able prices and two canteens offering cheap and yummy food 17 hours a day. Oh, do not forget ‘Super Snack‘ – the best place to meet friends and have a bite at night. More than half of the exchange students live here, as it keeps friends nearby, expelling lone-liness far away.

School l

ife in

NU

S

Warming-up: Opening

Warming-up: Welcome Party

Warming-up: The first lady’s night~~!! Pubbing at Clark Quay

Food in

Sin

gapore

Dinner Out in a Japanese Sushi Rester-aunt

Korean BBQ

Home Dinner Party

School Life in NUSStudy in the school of architecture

The difference is that we have to finish two projects in the semester, each one taking five weeks while my friends stayed in Nottingham focused on one project during semester 2 and 3.

And I also realize that my weakness is structure and construction knowledge while the examina-tion of ArchiCon (Architecture Construction) really freaked me out...

Study in NUS is never something easy. But as an exchange student, the privi-lege is that we could take less modules than NUS student. That makes life slightly easier, having a life as maintaining a good transcript at the same time.

Students from Nottingham need to take 12 to 20 credits modules in NUS dur-ing the semester. Each lectural module values 4 credits averagely. But for some courses there are exceptions, say, in school of Architecture, studio module val-ues 12 credits, lectural modules values 4 credits. I took 20 credits in the semes-ter which almost took all my time from having a life :P However, NUS students take 24 credits averagely, and quite a lot of them are taking an extra foreign language module.

During this semester, there are only two exchange students in Year 2 Archi-tecture - me and Keerthy. We were allocated in different groups comprising respectively one tutor (architect) and 11 students while presentation are jodged by 3 tutors.

It was not difficult to get used to their teaching style. Also the large studio space and equipped workshop offer fairly good working environment.

What I enjoyed the most was probalbly the group work of ‘Making a Concrete Chair’, which was an assignment of Archi-Con during recess week. As in the lectures of Archi-Con this semester, the lecturer from ETH introduced concrete, steel and glass, he assigned students the task to make an 1:1 size concrete chair which weighs as less as possible.

Each group contains 3-5 students proceeding from chair de-signing, material purchasing, moulding, reinforcement , con-crete mixing, casting, till the refinement and presentation.

Many architects believe that you will never know a material well until you try to use it in real life instead of on your drawing board. Making a concrete chair is much tougher than I thought because my group was short of hands. I came to understand why my teacher said: You will never know how heavy the con-crete is until you feel it. :D

It was challenging and funny~!

To know more about studying archietcture in NUS, email me or facebook me (Wen Zhou) :jojoalice@hotmail.com

Or see parts of Wen Zhou’s work in the exchange year:http://www.wix.com/jojoalice/portfolio

Travelling in Asia

Singapore Changi airport is one of the busiest airport in the world. With its convenient connection to Asian countries and Australia and cheap flights tickets from Tiger Airways and Air Asia, travelling around becomes an essential part among exchange students.

A lot of exchange students explore Asian countries during weekends, recess week, reading week and summer holiday after the semester. There is no need to say how much does travelling values. It Is exciting enough to simply have a glimpse of other parts the world.

Among those countries, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, South parts of China and India are the most popular choice amongs exchange students.

I have been travelling in Cambodia during recess week and exploring in India for 20 days after the semester ended. My major purpose was to experience the culture and visit architectures in these countries, but I also learnt part of those countries’s history and stories from locals. These experience changed my value of history and I truly saw that history should be judged in different views. It also attributes to my friends travelling with me, one of them studys Economics and Asian Study in Mcgill and the other studys Politics in Paris. It was so much fun to travel with friends and talk about social issues in different perspectives.

CambodiaYesterday once more - Dark history

I will possibly never forgot what I have seen in Phnom Penh. It was a lively history lesson about Cambodia under Khmer Rouge regime during 1975 to 1979. During this period, 1/4 of Cambo-dian population (about 2 million) were ‘cleaned’ from the country, known as genocide.

Nowadays, the ‘Killing Field’ and ‘S-21 Prison’ became museum of this dark history. A memo-rial tower was build in Killing field and it was filled with thousands of head skeleton of those who has been executed during that time. And in ‘S-21 Prison’, we could almost feel how foreign-ers, scientists and engineers and their wives and children were tortured. It was shocking to see all these and feel the sorrow.

One visitor left a message on the wall, ‘There is no place in Art for sunsets and flower vases, while this goes on. Art must scream for those who cannot.’ Tragedies around world during the last century gave human beings an unforgettable lesson. But we don’t know if this is the end or not.

Cambodia - Siem ReapWorld’s wonder - Angkor Temples

New Delhi

Cows walking on the street;Scenes you would seen in ‘Slumdog Millionaire‘;Red Fort, Mughal Architecture style,amazing mosques and their belief;India’s capital and its population

Varanasi

Most sacred city for Hinduism;Gange River and people showering in it;Streets and people’s life;Cremation ceremony;

Srinagar

Capital of Kashimir;Houseboat;Kashmir in peace;Kashmir crafts and trade

India11 cities - A wonderful travelling experience

Agra

Agra Fort and Taj Mahal

Leh

City in Himalayah;Tibet culture and crafts;Breathtaking scenery; Tracking

The End Wen Zhou 2011.8.12