A White Pebble: Kem Bina Insan

I have just returned back from another camp that I am required to undergo as a prerequisite for my scholarship. It lasted from Friday evening 'til Sunday afternoon. The camp was carried out in Lakeview Training Center, Sungai Tinggi, Selangor. It was by no means strenuous like the last camp that I attended but it was worse in some ways. I won't carry out a long critical analysis of this camp, unlike the previous camp, as this camp lacked the passionate rhetoric of that camp. However, it would be unfair to compare both camps directly using the same yardstick as each camp was designed with different intentions and objectives. My best guess on the objectives of the first camp, BTN, were to ensure that we return back to Malaysia after completing our studies in Australia and New Zealand. I would say that the second camp was aimed at encouraging us to hold fast to our "Asian" values while living abroad. I have no problems with such goals, but I did have a problem of the mode of implementation, which I fully intend to explain here. :)

The camp involved several modules whereby we had to undergo over the course of the 3 days spent there. Personally I was quite apprehensive before the camp, and after going through it, I conclude that I was right to feel so. The methods used to inculcate moral values include manipulation of emotions and implanting bigoted social theories, but I will not touch on the latter in public domain (contact me for further details if you are curious).

Most of the activities we had to carry out were pretty mild, except for two which I found to be quite repulsive. The first, which actually consisted of two separate events, but I'll lump them as one since they run along the same theme. It was basically some emotionally-charged charade in which it saw a large portion of the camp participants breaking down and crying. Even some guys succumbed to the emotional lulling.

The events basically started with some Dharmic-type of meditation (which I refused to participate out of personal beliefs) which dragged on for along time followed by some emo-music(I think!) being played and the facilitators sputtering and sobbing asking us to bring images of our parents and all that they have done for us. Oh, how pathetic was the scene when many of the camp participants started crying themselves. Not that I have anything against appreciating parents, it is one of the most fundamental duty of a human being. But as I have mentioned before, I do not like to be dictated on how I should love anyone, be it my parents or my country. More so in this case, when all this outpouring of emotions is little more than an artificially induced scenario. Love is to be given freely, not demanded or forcefully elicited. Furthermore, I must state that I thought of the facilitators as shedding no more than crocodile tears and running a Grammy-award-deserving show. Come on, you can't be weeping sincerely at every camp that you are running, and hope to con the participants.

The second activity which drew the ire of me and most of my friends was a module called "Emergency Plane". It was about 11pm on Saturday night when the module was launched. We were thrown into a scenario whereby we had to plead with the plane's captains (who were just the facilitators) to allow us to board the place to Australia (which is my actual destination next year). Plead is such a mild word... beg is more like it. We had to literally get on our knees and beg them to "let us fly to Australia". I found this exercise so degrading, humiliating, cheapening, mortifying, shameful and embarrassing. The words of one of those present there, Erica, rang so true in my ears indeed. I can't recall her exact words, but it goes along this line, "My parents are paying taxes to fund this people to degrade me!". It's not empty whining, because it is true; this camp was funded by the taxes paid by Selangorians, which include my parents!

At first, the few of us "pakat" to stay put and not go an kneel before them, 'til time ran out. But the facilitator was "unable" to keep track of time, and kept extending the "boarding time" so we had no choice but to eventually go and beg as it was quickly approaching midnight. I was actually fully prepared to received any amount of blasting from the facilitators instead of kneeling and begging. At least I would have retained some dignity and pride to face others. But it was not so... No, don't downplay the issue and say its nothing. We Chinese do not simply kneel before anyone. It is a serious insult to our dignity and evokes images of a condemned prisoner pleading before an emperor for the lives of himself and his family. It is a slap in our faces to be forced to do so. If we must kneel without shame, it would be before dignitaries and divinity. Do those facilitators qualify as either one of them? I do not have to provide the answer to such a ludicrous question.

I did not grasp the purpose of the activity, other than to directly humiliate us. Perhaps they can justify it by giving some weak reasoning.

Here are some pictures of the camp. It does not evoke much sweet memories, but I'll put them up anyway. After all, bitterness complements sweetness.