The Hagues Model United Nations Singapore 2008 was a 4-day event held at Hwa Chong Institution. Thimun-sg saw the arrival of high school students from all over Asia to participate in debates on different issues, as members of the united nations. As the delegate of Interpol, I had everything except voting rights, which kind of killed the fun of sitting in General Assembly 1.

My issues for my council, GA1 (Disarmament and International Security) are

1. Fostering democratic progress in Myanmar
2. Maintaining international peace and security in South-east Asia in response to climate change
3. Combating the illegal small arms trade in South Asia
4. Rights of national sovereignty against incursions by neighboring states in light of the Colombian incursion in Ecuador.

I felt that i had no say in the myanmese issue because the interpol does not interfere in political matters. Small arms trade was the only issue that this delegate looked forward to.

19th November

Day 1 of Thimun. I was looking forward to the first day although it is for lobbying and i did not prepare any resolutions. I reached Hwa Chong pretty late, but I missed only the briefing by the chairpersons of my general assembly. Due to the hot weather, I was only in business pants and long sleeve tshirt, with my tie in my pocket and jacket in my bag. So i reached the CO room, a little unkempt, and immediately tidied myself up. Oh, and my jacket and pants dun match. Black jacket and navy blue pants, black pants were in the washing machine. But I wore a baby blue shirt and a nice grey tie which matched perfectly without my jacket. But thimun still requires formal dress, so i still had to endure the unmatching suit.

Lobbying was noisy, everyone wanted to read everyone’s resolution to see if they can merge and submit to the approval panel. I, having no resolution, started to walk about and read people’s reso. The first guy i talked to was from Weland International School. We clicked when i started speaking to him in mandarin. It shocked him, but soon we had a group of mandarin speaking people crowded around. One more chinese, one taiwanese, and an american with japanese-chinese blood. I stuck to the chinese dude for quite a while, helping him correct the grammatical stuff in his resolution, and adding a few clauses that involved the interpol were lacking. Then i met the singapore girls and we just sat down to talk. It’s surprising how singaporeans feel out of place in a local event. We got sp bored tt we started playing hangman. But you can’t blame the foreigners for being so on, they paid at least a few hundred sing $ to come here, they did their resolutions, of course they want them passed.

Opening cem was placed before lunch. It was a bloody long waiting outside the college auditorium in full suit and in the warm singapore weather. i couldn’t take it and removed by jacket, took off my tie, unbuttoned a few buttons, and folded up my sleeve. if i’m not wrong the wait was an hour long.

Lunch was shocking. The queue (wait, there was no queue, just a mess) was terrible and we were given coupons for hwachong canteen food. But the food still passable lah.

After lunch was more hangman, Inkball, and further chatting amongst the few of us. Everyone was merging their resolutions to come out with the best possible one they could, but we were sitting there with pen and paper, playing away. Until dismissal.

20th November

Morning was still lobbying time, while the “ambassadors” of each delegation went to make their opening speeches. Ha, i was supposed to give the opening speech for interpol, but because nations go first, followed by NGOs, i decided to stay with my coucil until it neared my turn. I waited from 9am to 12 and they were still at ‘B’ nations (the list is arranged alphabetically starting with iceland), so i went for lunch. i just finished my lunch when they said the speeches were over, which also meant tt i missed my turn.

General Assembly starts session after lunch. I forgot the debates that went on, but i just know that certain ppl just like taking the floor to speak. Like Peru with his indian accent (the dude was from some indian international school). India with his american accent (from shanghai american school). Columbia from taiwan (i think). We didn’t pass any resolutions, they aren’t very good anyway.

21st November

I freaking tried to get the floor three times. The first two times i raised my placard, the chair picked some other delegations (first was for POI, second was for the floor to speak). The third time was when i submitted an amendment to the resolution, and just as the amendment was brought by the admin staff to the chair’s table, the chair announced that due to time constraint, they are not entertaining anymore amendments. Damn! third day at thimun-sg and still not a single word from my golden mouth.

Oh and I missed dinner and dance. Sad, but cousin’s wedding more impt. And i met bben and jane at the dinner, my cousin just happened to teach in RP too.

22nd November

Last day. We still had to debate resolutions in the morning. And i finally got a chance to speak. POI though.

Superlatives was fun.
“most likely to enjoy himself/herself last night” went to some ang-moh girl.
While “most likely to sing for the council” went to the delegate of iran, from india.

well, the girl was required to dance to the guy’s song. but apparently he chose to sing “heal the world” which makes absolutely no sense to dance to. dinner and dance had a DJ, playing music for the dancefloor, and the genre played do not include “heal the world”.

closing cem was stunning. i like the percussion performance, vibrant and lively. but too bad, i couldn’t get the name of the group, so i don’t even know where they are from, except tt they are singaporeans.

End of thimun. Brain drain. listening to debate, refering to myself in the third person, following parliamentary procedures is tiring.

Most memorable sentence: Quote Hsien “Hey, vatican! are you abstaining from this vote? abstinence is the way of god” (something like this, i can’t remember the exact words he used)