Coincidentally, on the Wednesday of the last week of Ramadan, I learned some interesting and somewhat exciting things about two religions, Islam and Christianity-from our exchange students-in ONE evening!
The TUF is a very small Christian group, consisting not more than 15 people. The members are all from the Tabernacle Bible Presbyterian Church.
The members were all very friendly. They welcomed me with great sincerity and asked me alot of questions about myself. I felt very at home with them.
Here are some pictures from the session that I participated in.
Practising songs before the sing-along session
Another exchange student from Japan-Kenta!(on the right). He studies in Tokyo, but his hometown is in Hokkaido. It was a great chance for me to practise my Japanese and share my homestay and exchange experiences with him about Hokkaido!!!
Time for some self-introduction!
You forgot to raise your hands! One shoe out!
Looking at the song lyrics before the sing-along
Sing-along session
Jonas giving his testimony
I know that you can't hear much from that video but actually Jonas is giving a testimony, and in it he talked about how he and his family (his parents and a younger brother) had moved to Indonesia when he was about 4 years old, and lived there for 5 years before returning to Switzerland. Because of a lack of Christian missionaries, his parents, as pastors of a church, decided to move over to Indonesia. Until that day I did not know so much about Jonas, although I had chatted with him before both in person and online.
It was no wonder now, that he was one of the few angmoh students I knew who loved spicy food (no offence to all angmoh friends! hehe). He could also speak a bit of the language, but the memory of the language of his childhood, he said had been gradually drowned in the new vocabulary of German and French when he went home.
He tried speaking a bit of Indonesian when he travelled to the country during the recess week, but he realized that it was difficult to recall the words and communication was not easy.
I then talked to Kenta, Japanese student whose hometown is in Hokkaido but is studying in Tokyo. He's great fun! He speaks absolutely great English and has travelled to places like Poland. In our excitement to share our experiences, we spoke too loudly and did not realize that the other members were waiting for us to keep quiet so that they could give thanks! Oops.
After giving thanks, a pastor from the Tabernacle church came and talked to us about relationship builders and destroyers. We discussed the different factors that could either make or break- the positive ones being friendliness, sensitivity and so on, and we even came up with funny ideas like BODY ODOUR and BAD BREATH for the negative ones.
HAHAHA...
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It was about 7.30pm that I had to leave halfway, and I must apologize for disrupting the session but I had heard about a pre-Hari Raya celebration at the International Students' Centre and I was really interested in going!
Now it appears that everyone needs a ticket to get in, and obviously I hadn't been invited, and so I was nearly rejected at the door! Then Jonas stepped forward and explained that I was his friend, and "couldn't I come in?". I gave a pathetic "I won't bite" look and the lady let me in.
When we reached there the event had almost ended. However, I did manage to talk to Ashraf, 22, a year 2 psychology student. Ashraf is from the Malay Society of NTU. I asked him to explain the origins of Hari Raya and what Ramadan signified.
I know I'm totally ignorant, by hey, don't pretend you know this! Ramadan is actually the name of one of the twelve months in Islamic culture. That means they have names for each of the twelve of the months, just like how we name our months January, Febraury and so on in English. Ramadan is known as the month of fasting, followed by Syawal, which refers to the victory month. The breaking of fast or the end of Ramadan is celebrated by the dawn of Syawal. At daybreak of the first day of Syawal, Muslims break fast.
Fasting is also known as "Terawih" in Islam. It helps to burn off calories and also to detoxify one's body. Contrary to alot of common belief that NOT eating is bad for health, it actually does wonders if done properly, such as reducing depression and helping you to sleep better!
I must try it myself one day.
Thanks to Ashraf for sharing this with me!
Pictures from the event!
Smile! Our foreign students from Iran, Suadi Arabia and India, as well as our local Muslim students! In the centre, dressed in green with a blue headscarf is my dear friend, Elham N. from Iran.
Guests preparing to leave the buffet dinner celebration at ISC
Arabian style grass mat...pretty design.
As the guests started leaving one by one, I found myself talking to Moussa, a French Muslim student of Algerian descent. He was really personable and sincere, and was funny at times too. I asked him how old he was, and when he said 22, I replied, "Cool, we're the same age." He grinned and said, "Oh, so you can be my girlfriend!" and we both laughed it off.
"I'm going to write that down in my blog!" I said. "No way, I don't want to be famous for the wrong things again," he answered. "I have already been featured on the Nanyang Chronicle (NTU's student publication) for saying something off the record! Haha."
Moussa, French Muslim student
"I have no trouble surviving here at all- in fact, I had my first MacDonald's burger here! Everything here is halal so it's very convenient for me. Food is not a problem at all," he told me.
It also turned out that, to Moussa, his religion is a little different from the mainstream Muslim culture in Singapore. There is no such thing as having a "girlfriend" to him, it's almost taboo-and a sexual relationship is a definite no-no. Close female friends are okay (I think he defined this as girls who are a little more than platonic friends but whom you maintain chastity with and do not go beyond certain physical limits-vague, I know, but this is what I gathered), but usually parents play a great role in deciding who your soul mate will be.
After chatting with Jonas and Moussa, I felt enriched. At the end of the dinner, Jonas was talking to Moussa as well, and sharing about each other's religion. It wasn't just me who was enriched, so were they.
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