Global Citizen Test: Case Study for Those Who Want To Pass

Most of us have dreams, but they often end up being airy nothings that float away from our minds and bodies. It takes effort and it takes a willingness to go places mentally and physically that will challenge us. Yulin left home and country at age 14 to seek an education that would prepare her to become a global citizen and scholar. Do you have the courage it takes to achieve your dream? Maybe you do and don’t even know it yet. Yulin’s words may inspire you to take the first step.

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Foshan

Can you give us a little description of your background? Can you talk a bit about your family and where in China you have grown up?

I grew up in the city of Foshan in the Zhujiang River Delta in Guangdong province. It’s where China’s reform and opening up policy started and still benefits people the most and where Cantonese is spoken widely. However, I am not a Cantonese native speaker. My parents were both from Hunan province, famous for its spicy food and hot-tempered beauties. My father was born in a rural family and joined the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) after he graduated high school because he did not do well on his College Entrance Examination (Gaokao) and decided that joining the army would be his only chance to leave the countryside and see the larger world. He slowly rose up the ranks and became a grassroot official. He met my mother when his unit was stationed in Guilin city. Afterwards, his unit was re-stationed to Foshan, when I was about 3, and he brought my mother and me there. We stayed in the dormitory inside the military camp for about 3 years. I didn’t attend kindergarten when I was a kid because there weren’t any in the military camp, but I grew up reading quite a lot because my mother stayed at home to teach me how to read and think. I also got to watch the soldiers train and that was really fun.

This is basically the unique part of my childhood. After that, my life trajectory was pretty much like any other Chinese student. My father left the army and joined government service when I was in primary school, and I learnt to speak Cantonese in primary school and made a lot of friends. I graduated from primary school with good results which enabled me to go to a local top middle school. I did well for my High School Entrance Examination again, and was, surprisingly, awarded a scholarship to study in Singapore.

Can you describe what your primary and middle school in China were like. How did you like the classes and the school? Was there a lot of pressure to stand out?

My primary school time was really carefree. My parents didn’t expect me to be one of the top scorers in school because neither of them went to university. They also didn’t arrange any co-curricular lessons for me like piano lessons or painting lessons both because my family was not quite well off and because my mother didn’t want to stress me out. She only insisted that I should take extra English lessons, which was why my command of English was always better than most of my peers when I was young. Because of the freedom my parents allowed me, I basically spent my primary school years eating and playing and watching a lot of soap operas. The schoolwork was only a light task to me, and I usually finished my homework while I was watching TV shows. I didn’t watch a lot of cartoons, but just followed whatever my parents were watching, which expanded my horizons quite a bit.

My middle school years were in stark contrast with my primary school days because I was accepted into a top middle school in the city and it was a full-time boarding school. The teachers there were really strict and concerned about our results. When I was just accepted into the school, I thought my results would just be among the middle range at best, but in the first exam I somehow emerged as one of the top among the cohort of about 800 students. This gave me some confidence but it also  instilled a lot of internalized pressure to do well My scores also caught the teachers’ attention. From then on, I always felt that I must live up to their and my own expectations, so I studied really hard in middle school.

Yulin with VJC classmates

What was it that encouraged you to apply for a scholarship in Singapore?

This was interesting. Basically my results for the High School Entrance Examination were quite spectacular, and my teachers informed me about the opportunity to apply for a scholarship. Since I had nothing better to do over summer holiday, I just decided to try. Without any preparation, I didn’t even finish my IQ test, and thought that I was just doomed for the selection. Precisely because I was so sure that I wouldn’t get the scholarship, I was really relaxed in the interview, and just chatted about anything I felt like with the interviewers (teachers in my secondary school in Singapore) such as horoscopes and mandarin pop songs I liked. Perhaps it was because my relaxed performance was very different from others who took it very seriously and started to stammer quite a bit, or perhaps it was because I actually scored quite well in the IQ test despite the fact that I didn’t finish it, I was somehow selected. At that time, I was very much into Daoist thought, and I admired a saying by Zhuangzi which went something like” Life is like a little boat; you just need to follow where the waves take you to and land on whichever island you happen to set your feet on”. I know this saying is a bit fatalistic, but at that time I liked it a lot and just thought to myself, “I can study in another country. It definitely sounds interesting, so why not?” And that’s it-- a 14-year-old student’s journey in a foreign country began.

When did you realize that you were smart? I say this as you not only applied for a scholarship but you earned it. What do you think smartness means?

Well, I would say I am reasonably smart in the academic arena. There are two things that made me realize this. Firstly, you will notice that I used a lot of “accidentally” and “somehow” in the descriptions above. I think the fact that it did not take me too much effort to achieve something that quite a lot of students wanted to achieve means that I am gifted with good intellectual ability. Secondly, I am constantly curious about a lot of things. Whenever I come across words, I  instinctively want to read them, and I think I am fortunate in this aspect as well because it makes my learning much more enjoyable. However, according to Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, intelligence falls into multiple categories, including but not limited to linguistic, mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal abilities. I fully agree with this theory and feels that smartness is just the sum of all our cognitive abilities that help us navigate through this complicated world. Viewed from this angle, I would say I am just smart in some areas but not necessarily in others.

You have written some wonderful things on Quora.com, which is how I “met” you. Is it ok if I include a couple of your answers there in this interview? 

Yes, Quora is an open Q&A site and whatever I write on it is meant for people to read, so I will be more than happy if my views are shared with a larger audience.

Yulin and her fundraising team

From Quora, Yulin wrote an answer to this question: 

How do Singaporean students view the foreign scholars? Do you view them as an invasive competition for grades and placement, or something else? https://www.quora.com/How-do-Singaporean-students-view-the-foreign-scholars

Speaking from my experience as a foreign scholar studying in a local JC, (and previously, a secondary school) I find Singaporean students very friendly and welcoming. Although there is competition, the Singaporean students I have met generally understand the rationale behind having foreign students in their country, and accept us as classmates and friends willingly.

One interesting thing is that to avoid having too many foreign scholars in top JCs, the admission standard for us is quite different from that for local students or even self-sponsored foreign students. For example, for a local student to get into RI or HCI, one only needs to score an L1R5 of less than or equal to 3 points. However, for us scholars, we can only get into RI or HCI if we attain 10 A1s. (yes, most of us offer ten subjects for O-Levels) Personally I scored 10 distinctions, but two of them are A2. Therefore, although I had an aggregated L1R5 of 2, the best school I can get into is VJC. (which I now like tremendously anyway, but this is just for the purpose of illustration) This difference in standards is not explicitly stated anywhere, but if I use my results to apply for RI/HCI, I will just be rejected and put into VJ.

What's all the more interesting is that while we are aware of the importance of this difference in standards and do not really complain about it, many local students become quite indignant at this admission process once we explain it to them. Many of them actually reply something like " But it's unfair to y'all". I feel heartwarming whenever I hear this.

Her Quora answer to the following question is honest and received a lot of upvotes from the community:

Why are Chinese students all quiet and shy in classes? There are always exceptions of course, but for the most part. Also I'm talking about students who are born and grew up in China not those who grew up in the US or other places.

I will answer this question from a personal perspective so it can be a highly limited response. For me, it's mainly due to three reasons.

1. My command of English is good enough for me to communicate with you but not good enough to joke around. Therefore, I tend to keep my mouth shut unless necessary since I know if I attempt to make jokes, there may be the period of awkward silence before someone fakes some laughter to reduce the embarrassment. Of course I will try to learn and assimilate, but the awkward moments can really be discouraging.

2. Due to cultural difference, what you find interesting may not necessarily be what I am passionate about. For example, I don't really enjoy Western pop culture but obviously I cannot ask all of you to read Chinese literature with me, especially if our bond has not already been strong.

3. Everyone needs friends, so if we are really alone in a foreign country, we will try our very best to adapt and fit in, even if it involves something we don't really like. But the reality is that the Chinese international students community is so large that we can have our comfort zone even in a foreign country. Therefore, especially for an introvert, the incentive to assimilate is very small. Thus, we may prefer to put on our silent facade in class and only show our real talkative self to our close friends, who are mainly Chinese.

Yulin and her dorm mates 

You have discovered that for students from China to get accepted to the top junior colleges in Singapore (Raffles and Hwa Chong), they need to have higher grades. Have you ever felt that teachers give preference to Singaporeans rather than foreign scholars?

All teachers in Singapore whom I have met have been impartial to all their students. Some teachers even take special care of us because they feel that it must be hard for us to adapt to a new environment, especially without the company of our parents. I am sincerely grateful to these amazing teachers.

Do Chinese students in Singapore believe that it is harder to get in to highly selective universities in the US because they are from China or because they are Asian?

Well, frankly, the requirements are definitely more demanding. I guess even Asian Americans feel this way. But some universities argue that they have their logical considerations when making these decisions. For example, they believe that Asians generally spend more effort studying and thus may be weaker in other aspects and may have lesser potential to yield once they are on a level playing field with other students. This of course may not necessarily be true, but there is a famous saying in Chinese which roughly means “We should do whatever we can and let the fate decides what we cannot change”. OK, this sounds fatalistic again, but it is a comforting thought.

Victoria Junior College Logo

Can you describe what Victoria Junior College is like for those unfamiliar with JCs? You have indicated to me that you have a hybrid set of courses that mix both science and humanities. Why did you choose this and what is it like?

Junior Colleges are the equivalent of high schools in China, except that the course duration is two years instead of three years. There are two compulsory subjects that every student must take in JC, namely General Paper/Knowledge & Inquiry and Project Work. Other than these, students choose four subjects based on their own interests. However, there must be at least one contrasting subject in everyone’s subject combination. This means that there are only three possible ways to choose your combination: one science and three humanities (humanity students), one humanities and three sciences (science students), or two sciences and two humanities (hybrid students). I chose a weird hybrid combination of maths, chemistry, China studies in English and Economics because the field I am interested in are all quite interdisciplinary in nature and I think I shouldn’t restrict myself to just sciences or humanities. I would really like to choose biology if I can, but I didn’t choose it in secondary school as I did not know I would be passionate about so many courses related to biology three years before. Now I cannot choose it anymore since I lack the foundation.

What kinds of activities are you a part of?

I am currently a member of three co-curricular activities, namely Public Address Crew, Chinese Calligraphy and Chinese Cultural Society. VJC is a very open-minded school and allows us to take part in as many co-curricular activities as we can handle. Public Address Crew is a service group that operates the school sound and lighting system and helps in all school concerts and activities. It is a very enriching experience because it teaches you to strike a balance between performers’ requirements and your own interests. As far as you can, you should try to provide any services they request and prioritize the quality of the performances because that is your job. But if the requirements are really too much to the extent that you cannot handle, you must iterate your opinions, or else there may be serious screw-ups in the actual events that compromise the whole performance. Chinese Calligraphy and Chinese Cultural Society are where my interests lie. I spend a lot of my spare time reading ancient Chinese poems listening to traditional Chinese music or pop songs that incorporate traditional Chinese elements, so these two activities are really like activities of relaxation to me instead of tasks that I must accomplish.

In addition to co-curricular activities, I also take part in service-learning projects. For example, I am currently in a team of four to raise funds and social awareness for autistic children in Singapore. We conduct street sales and street busking sessions in central business areas as well as areas that attract a lot of tourists. My team members are relatively shy and not very sociable, so we focus on the quality of our products rather than creating a buzz as we know that we cannot compete with others in social networking. One of my team member is talented at drawing and designs all our products for sales, but everyone of us takes part in the preparation process and tries to share the workload equally.

Yulin and Public Address Crew

What has been your favorite course and why?

In terms of the subject I have studied thus far, I am most interested in Chinese literature because this is the place where I really feel my soul can rest. Unfortunately, VJC does not offer Chinese literature, so currently my favorite subject may be chemistry or China studies in English. I cannot exactly tell why I like them most, the same way I cannot explain why I will like my crush or my favorite colours.

If you talk about the courses I wish to take in university, it would be anthropology and environmental studies, the former due to an inexplicable desire to know more about our collective past, and the latter due to a sense of responsibility to help preserve the natural environment, especially the beautiful landscape that I have read so much about in ancient Chinese poems but is slowly eroded not because of the modernization process.

Do you have a favorite book and if so what is it?

Maybe not the favorite book, but the first book that came to my mind when I saw this question was A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I think Khaled Hosseini really has a knack to tell stories that can touch your heart, and A Thousand Splendid Suns is the one that I can relate to the most because its protagonists are two female characters. I was immensely moved by their struggle and their sacrifice for each other. It is the best story about feminism in my mind.

Where are you looking for university? And what kind of school academic program are you looking for?

As I said just now, I will be really glad if I can major in anthropology or environmental studies in university. Also, because my family is not very well off, I hope I can get a scholarship or financial aid. Other things like where the university is or its world rank do not matter as much.

You have said to me that you are interested in humanities? Are you going to study in liberal arts? Would you consider attending a small liberal arts college?

Yes, I will definitely consider liberal arts colleges. For example, Yale-NUS is a liberal arts college that is a collaboration between Yale and the National University of Singapore, and it is one of my dream schools. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter which type of college it is, as long as it accepts me into the courses I like and gives me sufficient scholarship or financial aid, I will happily attend it.

Yale-National University of Singapore

What do you hope to gain from your education other than preparation for a successful future?

I hope that I can become more mature and emotionally stable throughout the education journey and also learn to think critically. I strive to be a person who can bring joy to myself, people around me and other people that I may not even know.

What would you like to be doing 10 years from now?

The most ideal scenario will be becoming a paleoanthropologist who travels around the world to unravel the mysteries of Homo Neanderthals and all other ancient humans, with my partner (I say partner because I haven’t quite figured out my sexual orientation) working alongside with me. However, this does not seem very likely because of many realistic constraints. Alternatively, I hope I can be an environmental scientist and spend my spare time reading Chinese classics. Some other possible careers could be a tour guide, a translator or a teacher of Chinese as a foreign language. Of course, a young mind may swing more often than it can now imagine, so I really don’t know whether any of this will come true or I will end up taking a job that I have never considered up to now. At the end of the day, regardless of what job I choose to take, I hope I still have contact with the amazing friends I now have and will continue to find new friends in the future.

What advice would you give to student who might want to be visiting scholars in Singapore?

I would advise them to choose wisely, weigh the pros and cons and decide for themselves the best path to take. For example, if your family is not very well of like mine, you might want to consider whether you are confident to continue to earn yourself a scholarship in university. If not, staying in China or your country of origin might be a better option as the university tuition fees can be substantially lower. Also, Coming to Singapore means I have basically sacrificed my dream of majoring in Chinese literature, so if you have some subjects you wish to take that are more relevant in your home country, do not come to Singapore. Otherwise, I think this is generally a good opportunity to help us realize our potential.

What drew you to Quora and would you advise others to spend time on the site? What about Zhihu?

I knew about Quora from Zhihu. Both are interesting sites, although both have opposing mainstream views on many issues. Quora tends to be more friendly and politically correct while Zhihu tends to be more sharp but sometimes too cynical. Spending time on them is a good way to relax and learn things at the same time, but do not get addicted to them until you cannot concentrate on your schoolwork or daily life.

Is there anything else you want to add?

Ah, this was really a long list of questions and it took me two hours to answer, but it was quite fun answering them. I tend to get sidetracked a lot when I talk so there may be a lot of useless information in my answers, haha. Thank you for reading my random ramble!

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At the ripe old age of 17, Yulin demonstrates a level of experience and wisdom that stands out among her peers around the world.  When I think back to where I was at 17,  I feel humbled by her accomplishments and understanding of the world. She realized that the way she was being taught in her school in China was not helping her to satisfy her deep and wide-ranging curiosity. Her interests cross disciplines and make her a perfect candidate for a liberal arts education.

She has also demonstrated her willingness to share what she knows by asking and answering questions in a substantive way on the websites Quora and Zhihu  (over a half a million people have read her answers on Quora). She has immersed herself in the culture of Singapore but also remained tied to her Chinese heritage and culture too.  Colleges and universities in the US underscore the need to instill global skills in their students. Yulin and other students who have been willing to challenge themselves at an early age will serve as leaders at the universities they attend. Yulin shows courage by leaving home at an early age, but also in seeking educational experiences that are not the norm in her culture. I want to thank her for sharing her words with us. I believe she will be doing great things in her chosen field as she has the character traits that predict success in ways that great grades and scores do not. Her words are anything but "random ramble". She's given us an understanding that the way life works is anything but straight and narrow. 

For those of us in the US, what are the ways we can encourage our student to approach learning about the world in ways that will expand the often "straight and narrow" approach? Are our secondary schools and universities producing global citizens? Enrolling students like Yulin will certainly help schools to concretely reach beyond their lofty sentiments and apply them to the real world. Yulin is both the woman dreaming of the butterfly and the butterfly, the dream that is our imagination, the dream inside the dream. 

Yulin in tradition Chinese costume