A few days ago, my class went on a CIP (Community Involvement programme) trip to an old folk’s home during the school founder’s day. What we are supposed to do at the old folk’s home is to interactive with the old folks by chatting with them. There was also a performance for the elderly at the beginning of our visit and we were told by our teachers to bring our rags so as to clean up the home after our interaction with the elderly but the person in-charge told us that we need not give the home a clean up.

I can say that I was quite excited to go to the old folks home as it was my first time and that I was equipped with hokkien and I knew that it would come in handy when I am conversing with the elderly. I was also put in-charge as the translator and I was to give an introduction of ourselves before we began the performance. Although I had rehearsed my lines, I was shy and lacked confidence as I feared I might make a fool out of myself so I did not really perform well while giving the introduction.

When we first entered the home, I was greeted by about 20 old folks and some of them were sitting on wheelchairs. Although the place was quite clean and there were many nurses attending to the old folks, I cannot help myself but feel a sense of sadness. I did not know that so many ungrateful children are willing to send their parent to an old folks home. When I heard that that were more old folks upstair, I was stunned. I told myself that the reason we were there was to let the old folks have some fun and be happy and I got a hold of myself.

There were a lot of activities prepared for the elderly, to entertain them. However, we only rehearsed for the first time the day before only because a teacher requested it. Many did not want to cooperate with the organizing team in previous attempts to hold rehearsal. We were tasked to sing 4 chinese songs, two of which were taught during music lessons (满江红 and 细水长流) while the other two songs are 月亮代表我的心 and 城里的月光.Due to the fact that we did not practice a lot before hand, we did not know the lyrics like the back of our hand and thus, have to look at the lyrics on the paper which was not very professional. As for the two songs we had learnt during music lesson, we were confidence of singing it correctly and thus did not have any lyrics but in the end, we mixed the verses up and sang wrongly. However, with a few talented musicians in our class, Kang Le playing the piano, Darren and Jim and Jong playing the guitar, they made up for our mistake and the mass singing performance turned out quite well.

Next, we have the Magic show whereby Jun Mun performed a few magic tricks like pulling a blue cloth out of a handkerchief and making three ropes of different length into the same lengths. Till now I still cannot not figure out how he did it and I am sure the old folks enjoyed it.

Lastly, we have a wushu performance put up by Zhan Yi and Xavier who threw punches and kicks and execute their moves wonderfully.

All in all I think the elderly enjoyed it as they were clapping at the end of our performance and they were all smiling and appreciate what we have done for them.

After the performance, we had the interaction with the elderly. Although I was equipped with hokkien, I found it very hard to communicate with them. This is because of the language barrier between us. Most of the elderly spoke different dialects like Hokkien, Teochew Cantonese etc. And it is hard to find an elderly who speaks hokkien as some of them have hearing problems while others do not understand what exactly we are saying. However, despite all this, we still pressed on and managed to find out some information from the elderly like their age and what they like to do during their free time. We found out that the elderly’s age range from 60-108 and was surprised as I did not know that Singaporeans can live that long!

One elderly told my classmate that the nurses working there were very bad to them. It was only when guests like us come and visit them, did the nurses pretend to be friendly and kind. I do not know whether the elderly was telling the truth or she was just trying to let us know that the nurses are cruel and possibly ask her children to take her away from here. The person in-charge also told us not to lent the elderly our phone for fear that the elderly will use the opportunity to call their children as the children did not want their parent to call them or pester them.

Another elderly told me that I should not bring my parents here next time. I feel that this statement has a very big impact on me. Coming from someone who has been left at the old folks home, I think I will heed her advice and not put my parents in the old folks home.

This bring me to my next point that why did so many ungrateful children are willing to leave their parents in the old folks home, especially when their parents have spent so much effort and time to raise them into adults. However, all the thanks they get are being sent to old folks home. Although the children might have their reasons to leave the old folks in the home such as: there is no one at home to take care of the elderly or maybe they find their parents too much a trouble or a nuisance and decide to put them in the old folks home. Whatever the reason, they should also visit them frequently to show that they still care for their parents and let their parents’ mind be at ease by showing that they are doing well in life, because though their parent might be in the old folk home, they still care about their children and are constantly worried about them.

I have learnt many things from the trip to the old folks home like doing things ahead and not at the eleventh hour and that we should be grateful to our parents for enduring hardship while bring us up and let them live a comfortable life by not sending them to the old folk home. All in all, the trip to the old folks home is an eye opener for me and it is an interesting experience. I hope that the school can organize more such trips so that we can help more elderly by bring joy to them.

ewodkaskd[asdl﷽﷽﷽﷽ our rags so as to clean up the home after our interaction with the elderly but the old by ourhat we ew