It had been a long time since I had felt so uncontrollably emotional. It is not my usual self to feel like bursting out in tears in public but I nearly did that today. Throughout the stay, I always thought I will not cry when it is time to leave Loong Zhi Village but I guess the impact of the 21 days really struck me at that moment.

Many things left behind deep memories, the children with their warmth and their unreservedness, the adults with their ever present care and concern, the 3 storey house where we stayed in with the replay of the 21 days so vividly in my mind and the entire village as a whole with its familarity we had got accustomed to, be it the numerous bumpy rides on the tuk tuk or washing our clothes by the well.

I believe this expedition had undoubtedly benefited us in all kinds of ways, especially in personal growth and development. Thinking back of our last facilitation session in NYC, we had asked ourselves this question: Are we there to learn from the people or are we there with the mentality to "teach" them?

Well, I think all of us agree that ultimately, we had both learnt from the villagers and had also shared with them what we know and what they wish to know. The dynamic two-way cultural interaction was the soul of this trip, both enlightening us and also bringing new knowledge and ideas to the adult villagers and young children at the same time.

The amount of knowledge and experiences that we gained is unmeasurable. The ineffable role of the oversea Chineses who made big differences in the village, the indefatigation of the adult villagers, and the adorable children all played important roles in our learning process at Loong Zhi Village. Living alongside them provided us with the best opportunity to appreciate the simplicity of lifestyle in the village, to understand how they view things, especially how they look at people like us who come to their village. Their sincerity can be seen through the way they treated us, and our hospitality can never match theirs. They have so little, yet they want to share them with us. They worried and fussed over us as if we are their children. The children eagarly shared with us their playing grounds and quickly helped us out whenever we faced difficulties in our daily chores. I believe what we had learnt from them really far superceded what we had brought to them. Leaving the technical stuffs aside, the intangibles that we had received from them are definitely invaluable, allowing us to be much more appreciative of things, empathising with people through standing in others' shoes. Most importantly, the expedition had allowed us to learn to appreciate through experienc and not just comfortably concluding from the words of a book.

Of course, I do not mean to denounce our own contributions, despite the clear awareness that the little things that we had done cannot match the degree of what they had done. Our expedition aroused the curiosity and interest towards city dwellers like us, about why we want to come to their village. Our ideals provided parents with greater hope for their children. Our stories inspire the children to dream. We answered their queries as best as we can and we impart to them what we know. But I feel that the important issue is the attitude we portrayed. For this aspect, I felt that our team had done a pretty good job, not displaying any arrogance and not mouthing any unfair comparison. We had humbly learn and share. By the end of the trip, the children can actually sing the songs that Singapore children can sing, simple English songs like "The more we get together". It is really incredible how all these were achieved during our 21 days of stay. Great memories as such were left behind, not only for them, but also for us. One little girl told me that the previous team did not play with the children as much. That was why she kept visiting us despite staying rather far away from where we stayed. I can already see the difference we have made.