Elesin Teo

This is Li Xin, more commonly known by her English name, Elesin. She grew up in Singapore where she has always been taught about the importance of racial harmony. However, the multicultural approach of her country has highlighted her ethnicity as a Chinese, which made her feel closer China than the region of Southeast Asia due to shared Chinese heritage and values. She would like to examine her identity outside of something that is just tied to Singapore. Over the Summer, she had the good fortune to attend the Model ASEAN Meeting and was surprised by how much the other ASEAN delegates love ASEAN. This made Elesin reflect about her knowledge of ASEAN and the region as a whole. She hopes to learn more about Southeast Asia through a Modern SEA course in Yale-NUS College this semester so that she can have a deeper conversation with her fellow ASEAN citizens in future, beyond just sharing places of interests to visit in their countries. She hopes that by studying Southeast Asia in detail, she can better understand her position in the world politics by first understanding her role in her region. As a prospective Global Affairs major, she feels lucky that the course she is taking is an Anthropology/Global Affairs module, as she can explore anthropology while still pursuing her interests in global affairs.