Subject: kolkata
Date: Sunday, September 9, 2007 3:00 pm
To: tzeyong@sph.com.sg
Dear Mr Ng
Congratulations on a very real, touching and heart-warming report on Kolkata.
Your story comes at the very moment when I think I have to take a break from my 10 years of teaching. I've just came back from trekking in Lombok, Indonesia and last December I was in Nepal and India. Recently I've also been contacting marvellous and beautiful people working in Kenya and Thailand.
Mother Teresa's story is all inspiring but what's more important is what comes after. I'd be very grateful if you could share some of your personal experience while volunteering at the House and advise on how I may be able to embark on a similar journey.
Anxiously,
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Subject: Re: kolkata
From: Ng Tze Yong
Date: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 4:31 pm
Hi,
I don't think I can enlighten you very much on a similar journey. I'm pretty sure that with what you've done and where you've gone, you are already experiencing much of what I experienced. People ask me why I go abroad to help and I cannot really explain why. Not that I don't help here, but I feel that, as politically-incorrect as it is to say this, there's really no comparison. There are poor people here and you cannot compare pain, but at the end of the day, none of the poor people here eat tree bark or starve to death, as they do in many countries.
When I go to these places, I am not trying to change the world. I'm just a volunteer with one or two weeks at most. Maybe I'll share this story someone once told me to explain.
In this 50s, there was a big hoo haa about nuclear testing in america. One particular big test was coming up, and in San Francisco, a big crowd of people protested. The govt listened, but proceeded with the plans anywhere.
On the day of the test, one man turned up in the desert, holding a placard, still protesting. A reporter went up to him and asked: "What are you doing? Nothing you do will change anything. The test will still continue, whether you hold up this placard or not."
The man replied: I'm not trying to change the world. I'm trying to stop the world from changing me.
Hope it inspires you as much as it did for me. Keep in touch!
Ng Tze Yong
Journalist
The New Paper
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