I guess along the years, I slowly built up an interest in people. The change in perspectives was most stark after i became a christian, as something fundamental about christianity is not only to love God, but it is also to love your neighbours as yourself. I weave my life around these two principles.
A curiosity about people - what they think, how they think and WHY they think, in certain manners. In a group, I like inclusivity where everyone gets heard. I dislike stereotypes (easier said than done!). A curiosity, also because I like to try new things including food, visiting new places etc.
Second, the love for people necessarily leads to the interest in people. God's outflowing of love inevitably pours out thru us as christians, who are conduits of His love.

Whereas it was not so clear at the start, later as my horizons increased with meeting different nationalities, traveling to different places and reading books on different countries, meeting new people took on a different dimension. I find that it is quite difficult not to be fascinated by people from different cultures and lifestyles. Sometimes, Singapore feels like a comfortable bubble. Some say it is a comfortable construct, whereas 80 percent of the world lives much differently (which includes people in the villages, farmlands etc. ). I think we shd stop complaining abt Singapore, it is really one of the safest, cleanest places in the world. Working in SIF helped me discover all the integrated cool policies ranging from water policies of resevoirs and newater to sustainable urban housing to green cities..
We are nothing short of blessed.

But yet we cannot stay in a comfortable bubble or vacuum, because the world is larger than our island. 1 billion people live on less than 1USD a day. Poverty issues aside, the richness of cultures from different countries, including songs, writings, history, heritages, and mixing with them enriches us.

I am hence nothing short of a global vision, beyond the sunny island that is comfortable to stay in. I love meeting the chinese, the indonesians, the europeans, the americans etc etc.. And hopefully i can meet africans and south americans too! That would be most interesting. We can't help but meet internationals i guess, because 1.5 million people in singapore are foreigners. I hope we extend our hearts wide without prejudice to learn fr each other.

::Lois Travelled@7:24 PM::