China

Southeast Asia Report 1: Beijing Capital International Airport

by Ippei Tsuruga Views: 127

November 9, 2007 “Take-off” Osaka (Japan)

Guesthouse in Takeo
Guesthouse in Takeo

My flight took off at 2 pm. I’m heading for Beijing. At this midnight, I will be in Bangkok in Thailand. Just 2 days ago, I went back from New Zealand to Japan and stayed at shabby accommodation near the Kansai Airport before leaving for Beijing.

Yesterday, I met a woman from Bradford University in British education office when I looked up the internet about a counselling event for students thinking about studying in the U.K. She asked me why I wanted to study Development Studies. Actually, I didn’t have enough answers which made her understand me, but I gave some opinion to her, which could a bit show her the reason why I’d love to study it. I said that I hoped to find a different way of development from Japan’s or American’s which made people work hard and lose their precious time such as dinner with their family. Finally, she told me,”Many students say something about what development is, but their stances tend to be different from ours. However, your opinion is close to ours. Please let me know your IELTS score when you get it”. Then, she gave me her card. I hope my result will satisfy their requirement.

During this trip for 20 days, I’ll see many people and their lives in Southeast Asia. I’d like to have a lot of differences and use those experiences to step up to the next stage of my life.What and who do people work for? Where, how and why do people work for developing countries? I want to find as many answers for those questions as possible.

This great journey has just started.

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Author: Ippei TsurugaIppei Tsuruga is Social Protection Programme Manager for Indonesia at International Labour Organization. He has been managing programmes and providing technical contributions to social security reforms at the country level in Indonesia, Viet Nam and Myanmar, and also contributing to research and knowledge management at the ASEAN regional and global levels. He has been involved in various policy discussions and research activities on unemployment benefit, old-age, invalidity and survivors’ benefits, maternity benefit, sickness benefit, and the extension of social protection to workers in the informal economy. He has worked at the ILO Country Office for Indonesia and Timor-Leste, the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific and the Social Protection Department; and JICA Washington D.C. Office, Research Department, Country Office for Kenya, and Africa Department for Kenya, Nigeria and Somalia.

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