Vol 14 October 2016
The Alumni Magazine of UWC South East Asia
JAXA Astronaut Akihiko Hoshide returns to UWCSEA
Graduation 2016
Updates and Profiles
(c)JAXA/NASA
Our alumni community
Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bermuda, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Curaçao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dutch Caribbean, Egypt, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Malvinas), Faroe Islands, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guam, Guatemala, Guyana, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Laos, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Macau, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, South Sudan, Spain, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor Leste, Trinidad And Tobago, Turkey, Turks And Caicos Islands, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zimbabwe
Alumni services
Every student who leaves UWCSEA, regardless of how long they were enrolled, automatically becomes a member of our alumni community. Some of the services we offer include: by both UWCSEA and our alumni. Watch the alumni website for updates and details, and let us advertise your events!
The UWC Hub
Launched in September 2016, the UWC Hub is a web platform and mobile app that brings together the UWC community around the world.
Alumni and Parents of Alumni eBriefs
These are emailed to alumni and
One°North
parents of alumni throughout the year, containing news and information to keep you updated and informed.
Old Interscols
The alumni magazine is published annually. Please send contributions and/ or suggestions to: alumnimagazine@ uwcsea.edu.sg.
Let us know if you would like a soft copy
of your Interscol(s).
Mentor opportunities
Visits, tours and other requests
Volunteer to be listed in the mentor section of the alumni site if you are willing to be contacted by current students or other alumni for information or advice regarding your university or career, or visit the pages if you have questions of your own.
We are happy to help in any way we can. If you are in Singapore and would like to drop in for a visit or a tour, we would be more than happy to show you around, any time. Send your requests to us at [email protected] or just drop in!
Alumni website and mobile app
Our password-protected alumni website and mobile app allow you to maintain your own profile, search for and contact other registered members, stay informed about news and events and more.
Alumni website:
- Reunions and get-togethers
- Career services
http://alumni.uwcsea.edu.sg
A reunion of the 40, 30, 20 and 10 year
anniversary classes is held each August in Singapore. Additional class reunions and alumni gatherings are held in various locations throughout the year, planned
Check this section of the site for career opportunities or candidates, or post your own job opening or resumé. You can also set up alerts to be notified of new postings.
Alumni email:
Please stay connected!
Contents
Message from the Head .......................................... 4
The path to happiness in a forest monastery
Pramoad Phornprapha ’85 ............... 18
Note from the Alumni Office and physical changes at Dover .............................. 5
From Engineering Physics to Visual Artist
My post National-Service experience
Nitin Natrajan, Ethan Barnes and Vinay Mitta, ’13 travel to South America ...................................... 6
Elaine Kuok ’95 ...................................20
Recent alumni events
Worldwide alumni get-togethers and Reunion 2016! ............................. 22
An interview with Dr Kling Chong ’79
One of only three full-time Paediatric Neuroradiologists in the UK .............. 8
From UWCSEA to Entrepreneur in two years!
John Nnamchi ’14 creates an
Graduation 2016
500 students across both campuses graduated in May with an impressive average IB score! ..... 10 interactive and intuitive degreeplanning tool at McGill University ...................... 24
Alumni giving
Thanks for the support! .........................................26
Adapting Permaculture in Ubud
Roku Fukui ’07 introduces a venture by Nathan Pflaum ’07 and Inochi Fukui ’10 ...................................12
The human cost of fossil fuels
Savannah Carr-Wilson ’08 embarks on a book about the human impact of fossil fuel extraction .....................28
These Circuses that Sweep Through the Landscape
Tejaswini Apte-Rahm ’91 describes her creative writing journey ..............14
In Memory of Kay Louise Everett ’91
A tribute to an amazing human rights lawyer and humanitarian ......30
Cover story
JAXA Astronaut
Upcoming reunions
Don’t miss out! .........................................................31
Akihiko Hoshide ’87 returns to UWCSEA and speaks to almost 3,000 students ............15
Year in review
A sample of the huge variety of events and activities that take place at the College ..............16
One°North is published by UWC South East Asia anually for alumni, staff and friends of UWCSEA. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited without written consent. Send your address change to [email protected] and/or update your profile on the UWCSEA alumni website or through the alumni app. We welcome your feedback; please send comments to [email protected]. Please send your articles and/or suggestions for articles, for the next issue, to [email protected].
Cover photo: The ‘selfie’ taken by JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide ’87 outside the International Space Station.
Editor Brenda Whately Design Nandita Gupta
MCI (P) 156/07/2016
Photo credit: (c)JAXA/NASA
Message from the Head
A few weeks ago I was sat in Harvard University’s Graduate School of
Back at the ranch we are this year opening Ideas Hubs on East and
Education as part of a UWCSEA team. We were explaining to Harvard’s world renowned Professor of Cognition and Education, Howard Gardner, what we had been up to in terms of our work on assessing just what impact a UWC education has on students and the world into which we send them. The meeting was another step of a journey we are on to move from anecdotal to research based evidence so that when we are asked “What’s the big deal about UWC?”, we can do more than tell stories.
Dover, sipping coffee in a seriously cool Heritage Centre on Dover (East’s equivalent will be up and running before the year is out) and basking for the moment at least in another set of tremendous IB results. (Conveniently— for me at least—the two campuses managed to secure virtually identical averages, and thus a line of furious parents is kept at bay for another year). I’m constantly told we are the biggest international school in the world (I’m sceptical as there always seems to be something bigger in China if you look hard enough) but the great thing is it just doesn’t feel like that. The UWC spirit seems to make the campuses, indeed the wider world, not small exactly, but connectable. It’s no village school, but neither is UWCSEA a leviathan: our intimacy is not borne of small numbers but rather a prevailing bias for ethical action in the furtherance of the mission.
But sometimes stories are best. They make real what research shows merely to be true. And so I wish I’d had this magazine when I was with Professor Gardner. Yes, in terms of our extensive alumni diaspora it represents only a few people, but I suspect it has measured the pulse of that larger demographic very well. Rich, varied and riveting, we have here tales of art, forest monasteries, asylum seekers and much more. The accounts are shot through with passion, deep thinking, empathy and success. UWC alumni don’t have all the answers, but you’re asking essential questions.
Thank you for staying in touch. We appreciate it. Do check out those funky campus cafes when next you are in Singapore. I recommend the mushroom quiche.
I am enjoying and learning from my meetings with you. I’m not a UWC graduate, so these encounters mean a great deal to me as I try to understand your UWC experiences and extrapolate how those experiences have affected your own ethical dispositions in later years. If truth be told, though, most alumni prefer sharing the hairy rule breaking episodes that all of us look back on with greater clarity than any lessons or lectures. Current students listened in wide eyed disbelief as some alumni at our recent reunion shared tales of derring-do that would most likely now lead to dire retribution.
Chris Edwards Head of College
Note from the Alumni Office
Welcome to the October 2016 issue of the alumni magazine. the foreseeable future. The alumni office moved into the new High School Block in November—we are now much easier to find. We also have a two-story Heritage Centre on Dover where we can buy you a coffee and by January will have one on East as well.
The UWC Hub, an online networking platform for alumni of all UWCs, was launched on UWC Day, 21 September 2016. We hope you have, or will sign up and take advantage of the news, events, networking and mentoring opportunities therein.
Another academic year has begun for the nearly 3,000 students at Dover and approximately 2,550 at East Campus, Graduation saw another 500 students across both campuses become the newest members of the alumni community, and notably, the five-year building plan at Dover is now complete! No more major construction, at least for
We’ve met quite a few alumni on campus in the first week of classes, settling their own children into the school. We must do an article on second-generation alumni and alumni who are married or partnered with other alumni. Prepare for a survey!
We are looking forward to seeing many of you at upcoming alumni events this academic year. All the best.
Warm regards, Brenda Whately Director of Alumni Relations
Some physical changes at Dover …
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The new High School Block opened in November 2015 on the footprint of the original Languages Block, Small Hall and Library. It houses the Library, Exams Hall, Black Box Theatre, Art Gallery, Conference Centre, University Advising and High School offices, English, Drama, Admissions and the Foundation and Alumni Relations offices. Please do drop by and have a look next time you are in Singapore.
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The Dover Heritage Centre is an informal meeting place located at a focal meeting point between the Main Hall, the Tent Plaza and the High School Block. It features some old photos of the campus, some posters of former students and the original stone tables that used to sit along the side of the Main Hall. It’s open late and on weekends, making it a great place for our community to stop in for a coffee and snack!
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The Tent Plaza received a nice new Tent this past summer that’s larger and higher than the previous one and the Plaza floor now has a flattened surface, making the space much more usable.
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My post-National Service experience
By Nitin Natrajan ’13
ever been to. This was also the best time for us to do it, as once we are all at university, who knows when we will be able to do such a trip again.
The time-period between finishing school or National Service (NS) and starting university can be one of the biggest unknowns you will ever face. In my situation, I ended up with a gap of eight months between the completion of my National Service and the start of university. I had received an enlistment date of December 2013 and although I then spent two years proudly working for the Singapore Police Force (SPF), the delay in enrollment and the two years of NS resulted in my university entrance being delayed by a solid three years. When my time in the SPF was coming to an end I was faced with a dilemma— what am I going to do between December 2015 and the start of university in August 2016? The university I been admitted to didn’t have a spring intake for freshman students. I had eight months of absolute nothingness and I had to make the most of it. I decided to go crazy and chart out an adventure which ended up changing my life for the better.
With a limited knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese under our belts, we set forth into the unknown with a jam-packed schedule ahead of us.
On this trip, we visited some truly beautiful places and we learnt that no matter how many photos you take, they will never do justice to the beauty that is out there. The trip took us through all kinds of terrain. We had to be prepared for climates ranging from desert fun to a desolate nightmare in the form of a glacier. With 20 kilos worth of clothes (and in my case, an extra seven kilos of camera equipment) we were ready.
In Bolivia, we got to experience the charm that the people of the Andes had to offer. We did a wide array of activities ranging from the salt flats at Salar De Uyuni to riding a bicycle down the most dangerous road in the world—the ‘Death Road.’ Afterwards, we explored the world’s highest navigable lake, Lake Titicaca, at the Bolivia-Peru border. In Peru, we got to experience a wide range of natural landmarks and Incan ruins. First, we celebrated Christmas in the town of Cusco where we not only took part in the local celebrations but we invented our own wintertime drink. The recipe is a closely guarded secret, but message one of us to find out what’s in this delightful concoction! After Christmas, we started what I named ‘Andean hell week’. This was due to what some might call our insane scheduling. We trekked for four days to Machu Picchu on the famous Inca trail. Not content with that effort, we decided to
This voyage came in the form of a six-week South American Adventure. I travelled with two fellow alums from UWCSEA Class of 2013 who had also just completed their National Service. These two characters were Ethan Barnes and Vinay Mitta. Ethan came up with the idea for this trip and when he pitched it to Vinay and I, we jumped aboard. We ended up planning a backpacking adventure that would take us through Bolivia, through the Andes into Peru and along the Pacific Ocean to Ecuador. From there we would fly to Rio in Brazil and then home. The trip allowed the three of us to really broaden our horizon as it was a part of the world that none of us had
The beautiful prelude to the most dangerous road in the world, in Bolivia.
Cycling fun in Bolivia.
take an overnight bus in order to climb a 5,800-metre volcano. After that, we headed to a beautiful oasis in the desert and then trundled up north on a 30-hour bus ride that would take us into Ecuador. In Ecuador, we experienced the adventure town of Banos, Cayambe (or as we called it, ‘Death Mountain’) and Quito, one of the world’s first UNESCO Heritage cities. Why did we call Cayambe, ‘Death Mountain’? All three of us fell violently sick there and it took us a full three days just to be able to walk again. Sadly, we explored only a bare minimum of the city of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. This was mostly due to time constraints, weather, and budget issues, and we owe it to ourselves to visit these wonderful places again.
Our view on New Years Day after summiting 5,800 metres to the top of a volcano in Peru.
Through the various pitfalls along the way that included a GoPro being stolen, we learnt some valuable lessons on this trip. We realised that there will always be places in the world that can stun you and that Ecuador was the biggest surprise of all, as we fell in love with all aspects of it. The main lesson from this trip however, is that you have to work as a team, especially when the times are hard. You have to swallow your pride during moments when you disagree and do what is right in order to ensure you have the most amazing trip ever.
At the end of those six crazy weeks, everything worked out fine and we came back with a lifetime of stories and a huge desire to travel more. This past year I have been trying to make the most of my time. My new mantra is, “Go crazy and say yes to opportunities that will change your life for the better.”
Salt flat shenanigans at Uyuni, Bolivia.
An interview with Dr Kling Chong ’79
Paediatric Neuroradiologist and photographer
by Brenda Whately
Can you describe that impact?
W.K. ‘Kling’ Chong ’79
These were really the formative years of my life in terms of exploring the world, relationships and experiences away from home. I’m still in contact with several fellow boarders as life-long friends and remember very many more with fondness as family. My fellow boarders were in essence my family for those years.
Some time last year, on a flight to the UK, fellow alumnus Robert Milton ’78 happened to find himself sitting next to a man he thought he recognised. The man was Kling Chong—they had been boarders together in Senior House at UWCSEA from 1976 to 1978! Robert mentioned Kling Chong to us as an example of someone who has lived the UWC values throughout his life and career.
Dr Kling Chong is currently one of only three full-time Paediatric Neuroradiologists in the UK. Paediatric neuroradiology is the investigation of neurological diseases of the brain and spine in children, using diagnostic imaging.
Dr Chong attended the University of Sheffield UK where he received a degree in Medicine in 1985 as well as a degree in Medical Physics. Specialising in Radiology and then Neuroradiology, he completed his MD thesis, a higher research degree that is the medical equivalent of a PhD, in 1993 on the application of Quantitative Neuro-MR techniques. Since then he has worked at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London and has given lectures at numerous National and International courses and conferences. With a number of research papers to his name, Dr Chong currently conducts research in the application of
The teachers were all fantastic. Mr Wilkinson, a truly inspirational Physics teacher and Mr Kerr, Chemistry and Photography, both significantly shaped me for my career in Medicine and then Radiology. Mr Engmann was a larger than life father figure throughout those years. So very many others tried to round me off with a broader education. I remember them well for the various lessons in life which I still carry with me; Mr Butler for Maths, Che’gu Parwati for Malay, Miss Archer for English, Mr Burgess for Sports.
Dr Chong kindly agreed to an interview:
Where are you from, originally?
I was born in a small town in Malaysia and completed my primary schooling there before joining UWCSEA as a boarder.
How long did you board at UWCSEA?
I was a boarder from 1972 through 1979; first in Lim House and then Sharp House and Senior House.
The multinational, multicultural
Why did your parents wish to send you to UWCSEA?
understanding that came from the privilege of sharing learning and other experiences with scholars from many continents, formed the world view that I have had ever since. We should all thrive in the richness of diversity. In many ways, these values have guided my personal and professional relationships, my continued travels and also paved the way for making London my home. It was the reason why I chose to do my medical elective in Zambia, Africa.
magnetic resonance techniques to the investigation of brain development, as well as research into paediatric stroke, epilepsy and central nervous system tumours.
For my older brother Wui Kheong, my sister Su San and myself, it was the opportunity to complete our education in an English medium school whilst retaining most of the cultural aspects of living in South East Asia. I don’t think any of us realised at that time how much greater an impact our experiences there would have on our lives.
Dr Chong has taken up underwater photography in recent years, which he says gives him the opportunity to blend his passions for travel, diving, photography and love of nature.
Playful hawksbill turtle who came to check us out as strange invaders to her home, taken at Papua New Guinea.
What was that like?
It was in the early ’80s and a very good learning experience to see how to provide good medical care with limited resources. I witnessed many young people coming in to hospital and dying from unexpected illness. Years later, back in the UK, I realised that I had witnessed the first cases of African AIDS.
Soon after starting basic training in Radiology, I undertook a higher research degree (the equivalent of a PhD) in MRI. I applied the MRI technique to investigate and understand AIDS and its effect on the brain in the UK population. I continue to apply what I learned then in my daily practice and teaching, so you could say that much of what I do was inspired by what I saw in Zambia. I also collaborate with research teams in Kenya and
Tiny blennie peeking out from its home in the reef, with huge eyes and long eyelashes, taken at the Similan Islands, Thailand
Vietnam and to analyse scans for them.
I understand that you are an avid photographer?
Two of the UWCSEA friends that I have stayed in contact with over the years, Shahrin Merican and Zain Willoughby, share with me a common love for photography, which really developed whilst at UWCSEA. Zain shared my passion for Physics and IT. Shahrin, like me, continued into medical school and then subspecialised in Radiology. Perhaps it has something to do with visual memory, but it is amazing to note what a large proportion of Radiologists have photography as a hobby!
