It’s been three years now. Studying
in Taiwan, this experience has been like a roller coaster ride. Sometimes I wonder
what if I had not been brave enough to accept the challenge of living alone
several thousands of miles away from home.
In mid December 2008, it was already
a month after I finally graduated from high school. The result of UEC, the transcript
that we use for application for universitiey, was announced a few days back and
I got the best results amongst my friends. I felt like being on top of the
world. I decided to apply for one of the world’s finest universities in the
field of engineering, Nanyang Technology University in Singapore. Confident
about my results, local universities were not in my consideration, nor were
Taiwan’s. One day when I went back to the school to deal with some paperwork, I
saw some of my friends starting to fill application forms for admission to universities
in Taiwan. And I thought, “Why don’t I apply as well? It causes no harm anyway.”
So roughly a week after dealing with the paperwork, the application process was
done. In the form I only filled in eight of the national universities in Taiwan,
because frankly I was not really taking the application seriously and NTU was the
only choice in my mind. My sister was working there, my dear aunt was living
nearby and Singapore is near to home yet I still get to “study abroad”, these
were the perfect combination. With my fingers crossed, I pushed the envelope
encasing the application form into the mail box in front of the post office. It
was early January, a merry period with Chinese new year celebration around the
corner.
And I was hopeful.
4th March, it was my dear
sister’s 24th birthday. As usual, I woke up, switched on the
computer, brushed my teeth, and sat back at the computer desk. I was going to
send a birthday email to her when the title of one email in my inbox attracted
me at once. My heart raced and I got a slight goose bump. The title read
something like “Results of Admission Application” and the email was sent by the
admission committee of NTU. Nobody was at home: Mum went out for grocery
shopping. Dad was working while my brother was at school. I sat up straight, drew
myself closer to the screen, clicked the mail, then closed my eyes and waited. I
could not bear failure. Ten seconds later I peeked, carefully scanning for the
key words. I was ready to jump and scream in excitement.
My heart dropped. “No, they can not just do
that to me,” I murmured to myself.
For the whole month, I gasped every
time I thought of the perfect but ruined plan. Then I applied for admission to
a local private university that was just an hour drive from home. It was merely
a desperate move.
Early April 2010, I received a text
from my friend who had applied for admission to Taiwan’s universities as well. She
sent me a list of our names who got admitted by respective university. I
scrolled down the text and saw my name: “Ng Zhen Yoong – National Cheng Kung
University”. I was glad but wasn’t too excited. So I was torn between two
extreme choices at the time: to stay very close to home and study in a small
university or fly to another country and study in one of the best universities
in Taiwan. There wasn’t the perfect “in between” plan anymore, though I was
still mourning for it.
Deep down inside, I was eager to try
new things. But when I thought of the kind of life so far away from home and
had to start everything from scratch, I flinched. My parents were anxious too. Though
they told me it was all up to me to decide, I could still see from their eyes
that they wished I would stay. For three weeks I kept thinking about this
question, and had not been able to made up my mind until my dad started to rush
me. He said he had found a shared
apartment for me near the local university. If I chose to stay I would have to
sign the contract for it in a week’s time. He gave me three more days for
making the final decision. Great, a dead line now.
Two days later the family headed out
for a dinner. Sitting on the backseat of the car, I looked out at the street
and the same old town through the window. I was immersed into the stream of
thought again. For 18 years, I had been playing everything safe. I dared not do
anything outrageous. I was a teacher’s pet and followed every rule in school. I
did everything within my comfort zone. The night was warm, the breeze from
outside was cosy. And out of nowhere, I felt a sudden urge inside. I needed to escape
from this small old town; I should explore some other places, not just merely
visiting foreign places as a tourist, but living in a foreign land and enjoying
the whole experience of “living abroad”. I must get a taste of it. I was young
and should go on an adventure. I knew it would be hard but there would be
trials and tribulations that will make one grow. This was the only chance, and
college life should be the most important stage of my life. “It will be worth
it. Let’s do it,” I thought to myself. And while my dad was still driving and
my mom sitting beside, I told them my final decision. For several seconds, there
were only sounds of the car and the traffic outside. But at last, they let out a
resigned smile and nodded as a gesture of approval.
And from that day onwards, I did not look
back. I have had the best and worst time of my life. What’s more, I even feel
glad that NTU did not grant me admission. And if I had chosen to stay in
Malaysia, I would not have tasted so many exotic foods, to have experienced a
whole new culture, to have met my besties and had the blasts of my life. Good
or bad, they are all precious. I will never trade them for the world.
It was hard, but I believe I had made
one hell of a good decision.
