Trip with KNCT students

A group of students from Kumamoto National College of Technology (KNCT), Japan visited Temasek Polytechnic on an exchange programme from 4th October to 5th October 2010. IIT students from the Diploma in Financial Business Informatics and Diploma in Mobile and Network Services hosted them. It was an enriching experience filled with fun for everyone, although it lasted only for two days.
During the first day of the exchange, the Japanese students visited our school. They presented a video on their school and the type of Co-curricular Activities (Club Activities) they would usually engage in. The students study subjects related to Informatics and Engineering. They will take five years to complete their studies and then they will proceed on to either the University or the workforce. For the first two years of their studies, they will learn English, Mathematics, Physics, and all the other general subjects. For the rest of their years in the college, they will be trained to be specialised engineers.

Figure 1

Figure 2

On the first day of the exchange, the Japanese students had a chance to tour around our labs and also played games, such as Five Stones and Chaptek (a well-known Malay kampong game) as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2 respectively.

Figure 3

On the second day of the exchange, we had the opportunity to learn about the Japanese culture, and the Japanese students, about our culture. We had fun bringing them around Singapore - from letting them try out our local food, to bringing them to the various tourist attractions (refer to Figure 3).
We went to the Singapore Flyer with the Japanese students and they went on a thirty minute ride in the capsule. They got to admire and take photos of the Marina Bay waterfront and the historical landmarks in Singapore such as the Singapore River, Raffles Place, Merlion Park and even the Padang. They found the ride fascinating as they do not have such rides in Japan.

Figure 4

We also brought them to the Esplanade, Marina Square and Orchard Road as well as taste our local delicacies. Majority of the Japanese students tried Hainanese chicken rice, which is a well known cuisine in Singapore and they enjoyed it very much. The photo in Figure 4 shows the Japanese students savouring their delicious lunch.

Figure 5

The Japanese students also had a chance to ride on our local Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), which is different from theirs. They commented that their train is not as fast as ours. I believe they are not referring to their Shinkansen (Bullet Train). They find it interesting that our MRT has songs alerting passengers that the train is arriving and even songs to remind passengers to move to the centre of the train and to give up their seats to those in need. (Refer to Figure 5).

Figure 6

The Japanese students enjoyed themselves very much during the outing around Singapore. We hope that there will be more opportunities like this for us to open our eyes to the different cultures of the world (Refer to Figure 6).

Posted by Kee Yee