UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH BLOGS
The Office of Undergraduate Research sponsors a number of grant programs, including the Circumnavigator Club Foundation’s Around-the-World Study Grant and the Undergraduate Research Grant. Some of the students on these grants end up traveling and having a variety of amazing experiences. We wanted to give some of them the opportunity to share these experiences with the broader public. It is our hope that this opportunity to blog will deepen the experiences for these students by giving them a forum for reflection; we also hope these blogs can help open the eyes of others to those reflections/experiences as well. Through these blogs, perhaps we all can enjoy the ride as much as they will.
EXPLORE THE BLOGS
- Linguistic Sketchbook
- Birth Control Bans to Contraceptive Care
- A Global Song: Chris LaMountain’s Circumnavigator’s Blog
- Alex Robins’ 2006 Circumnavigator’s Blog
- American Sexual Assault in a Global Context
- Beyond Pro-GMO and Anti-GMO
- Chris Ahern’s 2007 Circumnavigator’s Blog
- Digital Citizen
- From Local Farms to Urban Tables
- Harris Sockel’s Circumnavigator’s Blog 2008
- Kimani Isaac: Adventures Abroad and At Home
- Sarah Rose Graber’s 2004 Circumnavigator’s Blog
- The El Sistema Expedition
- The World is a Book: A Page in Rwand
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Research Summary
I will write my Kuala Lumpur and Melbourne research summaries in a much more condensed fashion, as I am already in the last half of writing for my final paper.
– Kuala Lumpur’s center, EMS Languages, offered a diverse selection of courses for me to observe, from absolute beginners through fluent speakers. I enjoyed the class of absolute beginners in particular–what a fun group, and what an amazing teacher!
– I got a lot out of the audio materials that EMS Languages’ textbooks offered. Though audio practice is only a small part of the coursework for an ESL class, the kind of audio material (how many accents, how long, how many listens) matters.
– Unlike at other schools, the teachers had almost no warning in advance that I was going to be there to observe. I always have a question about how authentic the teaching, the class discipline, and the lesson plans are when the teacher and students expect an observer.
– In KL, I got experience with a school where I observed all “non-native” instructors of English. This difference makes the school have a good balance with Máximo Nivel, which employs all “native” instructors.
Cheers,
MEG
Excitements in Melbourne, Australia
I packed in more than a dozen activities during my time in Melbourne this week. Because I only had a 10-day trip, I did not see as much of the city as I saw of, for example, Kuala Lumpur. However, Melbourne was my favorite city on this trip. I came here with no expectations and the city did not disappoint.
My zoo adventure! I needed a sure way to see kangaroos and the all-reaching emus for the first time, so I went to the Melbourne zoo. The kangaroos were small, the emus big.
On my way to the LUME exhibit, I walked across the Queen’s Bridge that overlooks the Yara river near the CBD city center. It offered one of the best views of the entire trip.
My friend Jessi invited me to the LUME, which showcased a huge digital exhibit on the life and works of Vincent van Gogh. I enjoyed learning more about the painter and seeing his work come to life in the vast exhibit hall.
On a rainy day (of which there were many), I took a jaunt down Chinatown. Next time I visit Melbourne, I am getting hot pot.
Queen Victoria’s Winter Night Market: it was the last Wednesday of winter here in Melbourne and therefore the last day to attend the Winter Night Market! I tried some excellent bao and watched some of the amazing performers who attended.
Mary Eats Cake offered the high tea with the best savory items I’ve had. I go to high tea whenever I can, so it was comforting to find just down the street from my accommodation here.
I’m not a drinker, but I went to my first-ever chocolate and wine tasting. It was fun to taste some Australia-grown wines and–my personal favorite–Ecuadorian chocolate.
Last but not least, the kayaking tour!!! I have wanted to hop in a kayak since I visited London–and saw people kayaking in the river Thames–for the first time in 2016. I was thrilled to find a tour group that allowed singles to join in.
Cheers,
MEG
Hiroshima, Japan: Research Summary
Though I did not travel to Japan as per my original itinerary, I am grateful to the director of Ark Foreign Language Academy, who agreed to an interview. Below, I detail my reflections. (Note: Some bullets pertain not to the interview in particular, but to general reflections about the trip and my research.)
– Certainly, my difficulty entering into Japan showcases the impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on international travel. I often experienced friction when I moved between countries. It guts me to remember that I planned to leave Japan today. The interviewee noted further impacts of travel restrictions on ESL teaching: without much tourism, the Japanese economy suffers; additionally, the lack of tourism contributes to a dirge of teachers who would otherwise travel into the country for work.
– Exam preparation continues to be the hallmark of students’ motivation to learn English in some countries. Therefore, the way students interact with English is more like the way they interact with a code, rather than a living langauge. In other words, English is a means to an end, or a way to pass a necessary exam. This trend also directly affects the way classrooms look at accent, which is often not at all.
– Teachers can have charged opinions about “the correct way(s)” to teach accent at each level. Every school and every classroom that I observed has a different philosophy about accent. Because the factors around classroom accent training are complex and innumerate, it is difficult to parse the weight of teaching experience against (or with) the data that linguistics offers. Ultimately, there is no “correct” solution; only a “best” solution for each individual case. (I give a non-answer to this issue of classroom environment vs. research environment in this post; read my final paper to gague my real answer.)
Cheers,
MEG
Melbourne, Australia: The Good and the New
It is the end of my first (and only) week in Melbourne, Australia! Like I did for Peru and Spain, I thought it would be nice to reflect on some of what I learned and experienced throughout the week.
- Australians drive on the left side of the road. I knew that intellectually before I came here, but I constantly had tp remind myself to look the other way before crossing the street. My experiences in England and Malaysia before this week helped, but old habits die hard!
- I am a tea nerd in a coffee oasis. Yes, Melbourne is known for its coffee brewing!
- Melbourne’s most direct method of public transport (for my purposes on this trip) is trams! Trams are also my favorite method of public transport.
- I had a crash-course in geography when I realized that Australia has such large influences from Asia and Latin America. Geography was never my best subject.
- I accomplished such a range of activities during my stay, including a chocolate and wine tasting, bookstore hopping, Queen Victoria Market, and kayaking. My next post will explore more of what I’ve done in Australia.
Cheers,
Mackenzie
Antics in Kuala Lumpur
All of my extra time and moving about to different accommodations in Kuala Lumpur led to some fun antics. I detail them in the photo gallery below.
After an evening walking around the famed Pavilion shopping center, I went to Calia restaurant.
Outside the Pavilion mall, amidst the Times Square-esque screens and the beautiful fountain.
With the piranhas at Aquaria KLCC. The coolest underwater aquarium I have ever seen.
I stumbled across an anime convention?
There was an upright bed display in the middle of the mall?
Sleepy bear ramen! Featuring a polar bear!
Cheers,
Mackenzie
Kuala Lumpur’s Greatest Hits
Due to unforseen circumstances, I visited Malaysia for the longest amount of time out of all the stops on my trip. It only follows that I would have some “greatest hits” from my time there.
Tsutaya Books – A bit far from Bukit Bintang or the downtown area, but well worth the journey. Tsutaya is a Japanese bookstore chain known for its collection of Japanese artisan goods and stationary. Since I was not able to visit Japan, I got my brother’s Japanese gift from this bookshop. I would also recommend Kinokunuya if you are staying nearer to KLCC.
Wu Di Cafe – My favorite cafe, and one at which I became a regular. The staff is friendly, there is a resident cat, and the matcha lattes are delicious. Therefore, it checks all of my boxes for a good cafe.
Batu Caves, Elephant Sanctuary – If possible, I would recommend that the #1 activity you prioritize in Kuala Lumpur is the Batu Caves. The native macaque monkeys who live there, as well as the 19th century Hindu temples, make for an unforgettable experience. I also added a side trip to the Elephant Sanctuary, which I loved. The Sanctuary houses 26 elephants with 8 rescues. The oldest elephant is over 85 years old and mostly blind.
KLCC Park – Touristy, but worth the visit. The park rests behind the KLCC Suria mall and the Petronas Towers. It offers a beautiful retreat from the noise of the city, as well as a vibrant array of tropical plants.
So much more to share, but I will stop there for now.
Cheers,
MEG
Melbourne, Australia
What a week! I spent an extra five days in Malaysia to figure out a viable contingency plan for Japan. Thankfully, I was able to sort out Melbourne with the help of my friend Jessi, who was kind enough to help map out train routes and activities for my arrival.
When I sat down at Cafe Court in Melbourne to write this post, I experienced some culture shock. The first thing that I noticed was how clean Melbourne is. Clean, despite the muddy winter weather. My partner asked me over the phone, “What do you mean by clean?” I mean that there is a distinction between grimy (select American cities, for example) and unsanitary (underprivelaged parts of the world).
I spent over a year planning to visit Onomichi City in Hiroshima, Japan. My contacts there were settled, as were my bullet train tickets from the airport. Yet, here I am in Melbourne, Australia, a week and change before the end to this circumnavigation. (Life, as I learned on this trip, is itself circumnavigation; it is a constant negotiation between countries and people and languages.)
The shift is jarring. And: I know I will do great work here for my project. I know that my great adventure is not yet at an end. In a week, my contacts were settled, as were my AirBus tickets from the airport. Here I am in Melbourne, Australia.
Cheers,
MEG
Headed Home
Hi! I wanted to do a quick update since I am almost all packed up to head to the airport and start my 24+ hours long journey back to Chicago. I can’t believe how time has flown. I’ll fill in with more pictures and details about my last week when I’m more settled, but I visited the Gardens by the Bay and the MINT Toy Museum on my last couple of days here. The gardens were gorgeous, and the toy museum was quite fun since I am a big fan of vintage items. As I stared at the Singapore skyline for the last time, I got emotional reflecting on this trip’s impact on my personal and professional life. I am so grateful for this experience, through the good and bad, and I can’t wait to share my final report. See you on the other side!
Visa Trouble…and Monkey Business
My first update from Kuala Lumpur (KL)–and I have bad news to share. I had trouble with my visa application to enter Japan, so I will stay in KL for now. Chaos. I am working on where to stay and what to eat day-to-day until I have plans in place for a fifth country. Equally, I will play a waiting game and a game of intention for the next week. I wait on my visa; I intend to travel to a fifth country and kick butt on the rest of my research.
I have done so much in KL, including finishing my research portion here. I will be thrilled to write more detailed updates to post tomorrow and Tuesday. For now, I thought I would share my trip to Batu caves. Batu caves is a late-19th century Hindu temple built within a cave system that is home to hundreds of macaques. The monkeys are everywhere, causing all sorts of mayhem.
When I was a child, I was obsessed with monkeys. I had about seven stuffed monkeys that had velcro arms so I could hang them on my neck as I walked around. Probably, one of my future children will inherit the monkey I kept. They are such beautiful, sneaky animals. They remind me of the world’s mischief.
Cheers,
Mackenzie
Introduction of Family Planning in Singapore
Hello hello from Singapore! I am really enjoying my time here, and I would definitely say it is one of my favorite stops this summer. The culture is very different than America, but I appreciate the exposure and feel comfortable.
I started this week by visiting the National Museum of Singapore because I found out there were some family planning archives there that would be interesting. The entire museum was pretty impressive, and it was heavily focused on viewing Singapore chronologically which helped piece together my understanding of the country’s history and how it has influenced my specific research topic of sexual health/contraception. I saw a few archives that caught my attention, and I included pictures:
- “Put Some Years Between Us” campaign poster – In the late 1940s, a voluntary association called the Singapore Family Planning Association was formed to promote family planning counseling and services. This was a fairly new concept in Singaporean culture since limited information about birth control was popular, and the cultural norms promoted larger families. During the late 1960s, due to population control concerns, there were large campaigns including the “Put Some Years Between Us” to encourage spacing out time between having children and the “Girl or Boy, Two is Enough” campaign to promote smaller families of only two children, regardless of gender. Some of the policies even pushed this shift in a more legal sense by offering incentives for sterilization and public housing applications favored smaller families.
- “Teenage Marriage Means Rushing Into Problems. A Happy Marriage is Worth Waiting For” poster – This poster was created by the Family Planning and Population Board as part of the Singapore government in 1978. The poster is discouraging teenage marriages (under the age of 20 years old) which they thought heavily contributed to social problems of raising children in poverty and negative impact on women.
- Questions & Answers on Family Planning pamphlet – A 1960 pamphlet answering common questions about family planning. It is clear in the language that they are promoting birth control as only a positive choice. They mention how simple it is to use contraception, emphasize that people have been doing this for a long time, and mention that it will have no impact on someone’s life. I noticed that they mention either partner can utilize contraception to protect themselves from unintended pregnancy which is unique from most family planning initiatives during this era that focused on how this was a woman’s responsibility.
I’ve also visited multiple pharmacies in different neighborhoods to check out over-the-counter available methods. There are condoms everywhere! I am pleasantly surprised to find a variety of condoms and lube available at 7-Eleven and pharmacies, and I even saw them at the cashier’s check-out area recently in case you need to grab a candy bar and condoms in a rush.
Singapore’s sexual health history reminds me of the textbook case of family planning history and initiatives, but I see differences based on the region and their own historical development. I am excited to continue exploring in my last week here and of traveling. 
