THIMUN Singapore 2018

THIMUN Singapore is an annual conference held at the Hwa Chong University, Singapore. I have to admit that the level of debate there was not better than Indian MUNs, but my overall conference experience was great. Although we lived in your standard hotels on your standard streets, I made some good friends and memories and experiences that I will never forget.

The Conference

I was representing Mongolia in the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly, and had agendas related to vaccinations among children in LEDCs, promoting physical exercise in this Internet Era, curing depression and preventing road deaths amongst males. Although these are not topics I would like to discuss, I am very happy I was considered and chosen to represent my school.

The standard of debate was good in its own way, and even though I expected a bit more in terms of their overall preparation, it was exceptional to see so many people speak through the course of committee. Delegates did speak without the chair forcing them to do so, but most spoke just once or twice during our long sessions for four days. Some of the amendments we discussed were, in my opinion, not the level I wanted them to be, as we would often spend 10 minutes on an amendment for an error in the grammar. The questions (points of information) were good, and I enjoyed standing there on the podium answering them.

The chairs were exceptional. They were aware of what was going on in committee, and the three of them worked well together, having assigned themselves different roles through-out committee. They were active during our lobbying session and conducted debate with absolute regard to the parliamentary procedure and rules. They kept decorum throughout, and that is commendable as we were a committee of 80 delegates. Although they did not allow me to make dramatic speeches (which I consider myself to be pretty good at) I understand that it was part of procedure.

At some points I felt the energy in the room die while making a speech, and that is not something I like to see. So, I would leave the microphone and walk around the room, making rhetorical points or analogies, or pointing at specific clauses and screaming ‘Why??’ at the top of my voice. This was not looked favorably upon by the chair. To get the committee going I also sent in and co-authored many joke amendments, so examples being:

1. Calls for all member states to ban male drivers {Reversing Sharia Law} {Thus solving road traffic deaths amongst males}
2. Urges all countries to legalize marijuana {thus solving the problem of depression}
3. Strongly recommends all teenagers to be converted to Buddhism {Solving depression by using the four noble truths to end suffering}

An interesting part of this conference was the procedure on selecting the main submitter of the resolution. After logic and voting were tossed out the window, it was time for a coin toss. A toss of the coin was to decide whether I would be able to present my work, or someone else would end up reading my work.

The People

As we are not allowed to go for conferences in the 10^th grade (ICSE), we as 9^th graders were allowed to go. We were five boys from ICSE and 9 people from IGCSE. My seniors were great, and my classmates were also fun to be with. Old songs like ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘I want it that way’ were re-discovered and sang on almost every bus ride. We would often pop $2 into the Karaoke machine and sing away.

We had an evening of formal dinner and dance. We reached an hour late and all the tables were taken, so that left us eating our roti – sabzi (yes, actually) on the ground with soup spoons. During the dance, the DJ played a couple of Hindi songs like Chamakh Challo. We had a couple of more weird songs, but it was a night to remember.

I also made friends in committee. The British School of Manila attended the conference, and I quickly became friends with many of them – Michael, Atasha, Satchi, Caleb and Ryan. The delegates in my bloc were also brilliant and had excellent points during the conference. There were many from the French School of Singapore, including one of my chairs. The admins in my committee were exceptional, and I would often play hangman in chit form with them.

The City and Sightseeing

Singapore as a city is incredibly tourist friendly – as is evident by the sheer number of ‘Kesari Travels’ and the smell of khakra. We especially realized that when we visited Universal Studios. It was a Monday, but we still had to wait in line for 2 hours to go on its signature ride – ‘Battlestar Galactica’. We went on the Return of the Mummy and Transformers ride and spent most of our day in line. We also went to the Sentosa Sea World.

Every night we would either go out or order in when we had lots of work to do. Often, we would go to ‘Fatty’s Restaurant’ and eat a delight of squid, octopus and shrimp in our fired rice and noodles. One night we went to Clarke Quay, an open-air area with many restaurants. We ate pizza and churros dipped in white and milk chocolate. For lunch we were given a wide range of choices, and although many people complained about it, I ate it heartily, mostly because my mind would be on the next session. And for the times when it was not edible, there was always thepla.