On weekends, we come together to cook, eat and laugh, our own little family away from home. The kitchen is abuzz with the sounds we grew up with, the 'la's and 'loh's and the 'wah liao eh's. Here, we have created a space of warmth where we can be ourselves without straining to speak or to be understood without being conscious about the attitudes and mindsets we carry with us. Perhaps the unfamiliarity only serves to push us closer together for each of us carries something within which everyone else seeks, that sense of acceptance and belonging.
Maybe we're luckier than the other students who come to make friends, drink and party, for we enter into a community which receives us almost immediately with open arms, with people who genuinely want to help and care, and that makes a big difference.
So as people streamed to the late night snacks at the dining hall after getting suitably intoxicated at some random party, there we were in a kitchen making Japanese pancakes and having a laugh.
