Confessions of a Corporate Shopaholic

After my secondary school education in Hong Kong, together with a number of my classmates, I was nominated by my secondary school counselor to apply for an international school scholarship.  I didn’t know much about what it was at first except that our school had a pretty high acceptance record in the past years.  There were only 10 seats per year for Hong Kong graduates to compete against each other based on school merits, extra-curricular activities, and personal presence.  The scholarship was not widely known except for a few rather prestigious private and subsidized secondary schools in Hong Kong.  Our Hong Kong alumni comes from a dozen well-known schools who truly understand the value and mission of the scholarship.

“The United World College (UWC) schools deliver a challenging and transformative educational experience to a diverse cross-section of students, inspiring them to create a more peaceful and sustainable future.”, the brochure says.  The current President of UWC is Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, and its Honorary President is Nelson Mandela.  During my days, the President was HRH The Prince of Wales.   The UWC concept was conceived in the 1950s, and it has now 13 colleges and schools across five continents, offering the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma.  It was like the UK A-Level in my days.

After submitting my school records and a number of other papers and recommendations, I was invited to attend a face-to-face interview with a panel of judges who were tasked to screen and select the students representing Hong Kong.  I recall that the panel was headed by Doctor Man Wui Ho (何文匯博士).  I don’t recall much of what happened during the interview, but it was mainly an attempt to select young people who were eloquent, had common sense and open minds.  Just before the Hong Kong Certification of Education (HKCEE) results were out, I got notified by my school that I was fortunate to be selected as one of the 10 that year.

In my days there were only 7 schools within the network, and we applied to this network instead of each school individually.  We could put down our preference and rank them in order, but there was no guarantee.  Some schools have slightly larger student bodies and could accommodate 2 or 3 HK students every year.  Some schools can only take 1.  Each school is committed to have a student body representing over 65 countries every year like a mini UN, so they have to be extra careful in filtering each year’s applicants by personality, country of origin, and gender.  Like many of my fellow scholarship applicants, I picked the supposedly safer bets of UK and Canada as my preferred choices in my application.

I was notified by my school that I was selected to be the only 1 Hong Kong student to attend the UWC in the states that fall.  The school was in Motezuma New Mexico.  Like almost everyone, I flipped out my atlas with my parents and simply couldn’t find it on the map.  At the time when HK people are only familiar of east coast schools and west coast Hollywood and California beaches, anywhere in between was utterly non-existent and unthinkable. 

The school is named Armand Hammer United World College of the American West.  It has one of the smallest student bodies in the network, just over 200 students.  The 2-year IB program means that each year there will be around 100 new students from all over the world.  Being the school in the states, US students occupy about 50 seats each year, leaving the rest to be shared amongst 60 plus countries.  It’s easy math that the school will never have more than 2 Hong Kong students, one of each school year.  I was the only one attending that college from my home country.  The scholarship covers all room and board, tuition and books, as all students live on campus.  Everyone needs to pick up two languages, and will be responsible for plane tickets and incidental expenses particularly during winter and summer breaks. 

So that fall, I waved goodbye to my family, friends and classmates.  I packed my whole life in two super sized luggage that weighed more than myself, bought a one-way ticket that would need me to make 3 stops across continents, and left Hong Kong for the very first time in my life.   I got no friends or relatives anywhere in the States, and I had a million questions and thoughts on my mind.  However, everything happened so fast that I simply had no time to be scared.  I just knew that I would not be able to see my sister and parents for a whole year.  In an era without cell phones, internet, Skype and e-mails, that thought was utterly horrendous.