Shipboard Interview with Ying Chung
Her
Future and Roots
by Tatsuru Kimura
I
interviewed Ying Chung at the AFT of 6th
deck. The interview took about 20
minutes. I mainly asked about what took
her to Semester At Sea.
Ying is a
senior student at University
of Colorado, Boulder. She learned about Semester At Sea from some
of her friends at the college two years ago. She
was getting tired with ordinary college work at that
time. Five of her friends participated in SAS and two of them were on
the last voyage. All of them told her
their precious experiences
about their own voyages. She
decided to sign
up for SAS about a year and a half ago. Her
parents objected to her
decision. Her father was mainly
concerned about the cost for
the voyage. So she persuaded her father
by getting a scholarship and financial aid. Her
mother was simply anxious about her safety and she
insisted that
Yung already had an international experience because she had been to Australia. So Ying explained her need to have more
experience for her future job. She has a clear goal for her future,
becoming
a teacher of elementary school. She
thinks the experience at this voyage will help when she becomes a
teacher. She thinks that it is very
important to teach
kids about global perspective.
I
really
respect Ying because of her ability to plan her future.
When I interview someone or hear
someone
talking, I tend to compare to myself and sometimes find something I
lack. When I get objections I tend to stop
my
thinking about the issue to avoid conflict, unlike the way Ying
persuaded her
parents to let her come on SAS. By
comparison, I am
living
a haphazard life and sometimes regret my decisions.
Among the
countries that we will visit, she is especially interested in China and Vietnam, since these
countries
represent her roots. Her
great-grandfathers moved to Vietnam
because of the China-Japan War. Her
grandfather still lives in Vietnam.
Her father moved to the USA
and her mother moved to Australia.
These movements make it difficult to trace
her roots. Ying seems very interested in
her own roots. She is learning Cantonese
and is looking forward to using it. I
had a little bit of an odd feeling when I heard this story. The beginning of the movement of her ancestors
was caused by a war against Japan,
my own country. We were talking so
friendly, though our grandfathers fought against each other. I was so interested in her life and her
roots.
I really
appreciate
her kindness and patience to sharing time with me.
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