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Volume 4, Issue 4, April 2017

Dear scholars,

Sometimes the best teacher or lesson learnt does not come from a formal learning in a classroom set-ting. Sometimes you gain insights

through your surroundings, experience and observation. Like the Malay proverbs “Jauh perjalanan, luas pemandangan” (Asia scholars – ask your Malaysian friends what it means).

Coincidentally, whilst writing this I’m having a short break in Kuala Terengganu – enjoying the sea breeze while sipping my Teh Tarik and eating Keropok Lekor. Kuala Terengganu is a modern and developed city but it retains its strong Malay influences that are inter-mixed with other cultures from its long histo-ry as a port. I had the luxury of time to go on the River Cruise along the Terengganu River

during my stay and I’ve learned a lot about the life of a fisherman from the 45 minutes boat ride. Also interesting to know that you can have your own island in Terengganu - as there so many tiny islands along the Tereng-ganu River!

For me travelling is not necessarily going to famous destinations or tourist attractions – it is more than that. It is about exploring places and learning new things, appreciating the old and new architecture, experiencing new cul-ture and savouring local foods. Only when you travel, you will be able to appreciate what you have and expand your horizons and perspective on things. I learn to appreciate my own culture when I see how people in other countries work hard to preserve theirs. And how they are proud of their own culture!

Technology has helped to make travelling cheaper and easier. With the existence of budget airlines and companies like Agoda, Booking.com, Airbnb, etc – now everyone can travel. And just refer to Mr Google when you search for travel tips, places to visit, and etc.

If you have the opportunity to travel and see

the world during your semester breaks, go out and travel. But don’t just go to Instagram-mable spots in those areas – explore the area, learn the history and talk to the locals! Create your own adventure and see how the experi-ence shaped your life and worldview.

So, what are you waiting for?? Start planning your next trip now!

Me in front of Masjid Kristal, Kuala Terengganu.

XOXO,

Eymie

Scholar’s Studio

Natasha Ariana Muhammad Ariff Tasnim Waeto Syakirin Al-Husna

In the limelight Alumni Stories Activities & Happenings Snapshot of the Month Upcoming Event YKPSP Corner

In This Issue Highlight of the Month

From the Editor’s Desk

Travelling: Buckle-Up & Explore

Journey to Kolej Yayasan Saad

By Natasha Ariana Muhammad Taufiq Form 1, Kolej Yayasan Saad

“Tasha! Come on! Wake up! You’ll be late!” whispered my father. That episode was 6 months ago but I can still remember it clearly. That was the first time I would be travelling to Malacca. Yes, I have often travelled south to Johor Bahru, where my father’s kampong is. I have only Malacca’s Ayer Keroh Rest and Relax during stopover. But that day’s visit would be different!

Well, travelling to most people is about visiting. Visiting to desti-nations other than where they are from….And coming back home after the visits. Travelling is a to-and-fro thing. However, my travelling to Malacca that time would require me to somehow be a temporary resident to a place I would be travelling to. It would also be the most significant point in my young life which would have a bearing on my life and future. Entrance to Kolej Yayasan Saad (KYS)!

Coming back to current day, I am a student of KYS, thanks to Yayasan Khazanah. Six months ago, I was merely a student of SK USJ 12. Before I took my UPSR examination, I had always dreamt of entering my dream school i.e. KYS. So, my mother took me to KYS where I was given a tour of the school by Mr. Shaha. I imme-diately fell in love with the environment and how amazing the students were. From that fateful day, I had only one goal and one goal only, which was to score straight As for my UPSR Trial Ex-amination in order to secure a place in this wonderful college. I know it is not an easy feat, so I put my ultimate effort to guarantee my spot. I went to a lot of extra classes which were held from a.m. to p.m. since I had only started my school year in the month of May. This was because I was occupied with several netball tour-naments, extra curricular activities and other school-related pro-jects. With all these activities, obviously, there were struggles in my academic input and output. But with the support of my be-loved parents and family members, I managed to pull through and get the results that I had aimed for.

With the results that I had ob-tained, I begin the arduous jour-ney to fulfill my dream. From the entrance exams, I was shortlisted to participate for the KYS RBS, under Yayasan Khazanah. We had to go through four solid days of group work activities and interviews which was gruelling and intense. On the last day of the RBS, it was really nerve wrecking because only 12 shortlisted potentials would be called for the final interview. One by one the names were called, except mine! The minutes ticked away, and so did the 10 spots for the YK scholarship. By the time it reached the eleventh spot, I felt like bursting into tears. But I kept listening to the names being called and finally I heard my name “Natasha Ariana binti Muhammad Taufiq”. WHAT A FEELING!!It was such a huge relieve and an accomplishment for me to even get shortlisted, but an even big-ger attainment was when I found out that I made the cut to be one of Yayasan Khazanah’s scholars, but still, before I knew the results…. my name was again being called last. Well, as the say-ing goes… save the best for last ;)

Fast forward to the present day, I still keep doing what I love in college, which is playing netball. Two weeks back, I travelled to Sabah for a Netball Tour. During my journey to Sabah, I was giv-en an opportunity to play amongst the top three best netball teams in Sabah. Besides playing netball, I had an educational learning experience about the local dialects, customs, tradition and their daily activities. Up next will be the Netball Inter-District tournament where I made the cut and will be represent-ing the Ayer Keroh district. Little did I know, from someone who has never been to Malacca, now I will be representing Ayer Keroh. Another feather in my cap! And THANKS to YK again for giving me THAT one opportunity which had opened doors for my “travels” and I hope for many more “travels” to come.

My journey o far has been tremendous. It is a journey that I share with many of my friends. All that I can say is, I couldn’t have gone through all these obstacles without the pillars of my strength, which is none other, my parents. And all I wish for now, is a little help to ensure that these “travels” lead to a mean-ingful journey.

“No student ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him; It is the amount and excellence of what is over and above the required, that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction”. -Charles Kendall Adams-

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Let’s Travel & Explore!

By Muhammad Ariff bin Rizal Bachelor of Engineering, With Honours (Electrical & Electronic Engineering) Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

You have not truly lived if you never travelled to a foreign place. That beautiful feeling when you’re boarding a plane knowing that you’re going to someplace new and checking ‘travelling’ off of your bucket-list, is irreplaceable. Travelling and exploring differ-ent part of the world and experiencing their unique culture or listening to their native language or explore the wonders of the places to offer, not only makes your heart fill with joy but it changes you.

Travelling to different countries opens up your world and your view towards life. For me, stepping out of my country for the first time was scary and exciting at the same time but when I set foot on a whole new country, that’s when I realize, that the world is bigger than I once felt it was. It’s strange and yes, all this time I knew that there are so many places that this planet has to offer but to actually be somewhere other than your hometown, the re-ality kind of hits you. And all of a sudden, everything changed.

I once only thought about my family, peers, neighbours and the society that I always knew but never had I thought more of the people outside of Malaysia than just their mere existence. So, be-ing lucky enough to visit several countries and seeing other peo-ple from all over the world, it dawned on me that, I am more than a Malaysian. I am more than a person in this world to just help the people close around me. The phrase I once heard before sud-denly become more true and important which is, “being a global citizen”.

And that’s what the most impactful moment that travel has had on me which is making me realize that I am not only a citizen of Malaysia, but I am among a larger scale; global citizen. But what’s so important about that particular phrase you may say. Well, be-ing a global citizen means that you try to act and make an impact that would benefit all of humanity living in this very planet. Being a global citizen means to act with the world and its people as a whole as your objectives.

In a nutshell,, travelling is a won-derful thing, it’s fun, exciting and sometimes it even teaches you a thing or two about life. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s travel and explore!

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This is My Vacation Time

By Tasnim Waeto Bachelor of Science (Bioinformatics) Multimedia University

“Put your heart and your soul in the suit case Get out of the city life, get out of your place Heading to the mountain, heading to the sea, Live your life be free This is the vacation time It’s time to slow down your life Time to take a rest and relax Time to run away from painful fact This is the vacation time”

Vacation Time by Part Time Musicians

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2BPeBIaLuI

Above is some parts of the lyrics for the song ‘Vacation Time’ by

Part Time Musicians. I encountered this song while I was finding

ideas to write this article which should be under the theme

‘Travelling: Buckle-up & Explore’. This song was once my fa-

vourite song as its rhythm is very relaxing and calming. When

listened to it again after a long time, it gives me some energy to

continue my daily routine, to complete my tasks and to focus on

study. Therefore, when it all finished or when the holiday comes

I can reward myself with the best reward!

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Holiday! This word has different meaning towards different peo-ple. For some, it is time to be free, for some it is time to relax, for some it is time to enjoy and so on. However, there are some people whose their holiday does not give any significant effect on them. During holiday, they still think of their work, focus on their job and never give their own selves a rest. Sometimes it is good as they could be a very productive employee or a very excellent stu-dent. Yet, they forgot what the main purpose of working is. They forgot that they work to earn a life, not earning a life to do the job. Therefore, after gaining the money, we should figure out what we need in our life and how we can enjoy this life which we only live once.

The first idea that comes to most people’s mind when they heard about holiday and how to enjoy it is to take a trip and go travel-ling. Some prefers to visit their hometown, while others may like outdoor activities and enjoy the nature. From the lyric above, we can see that the writer prefers to enjoy his vacation time with the nature which suit most of us too. What the writer tries to convey through his lyrics is we don’t only bring our body, our luggage and our camera but most importantly, we need to bring our heart and soul. We have to really enjoy it, really feel it. Let the situation give some impacts to your life. That’s the real meaning of taking a journey and having a break.

Now, if you decide to spend your next holiday by travelling to somewhere interesting, let us discuss about the starter pack. The first and foremost is your own self. We should ask ourselves what we really need, where do we go and are we really putting our soul and heart into it? It is true that as a start, we should know how ready we are. Are we forcing ourselves to go just because our friends or our family ask us to join them? If yes, then later, we might end-up regretting and saying how awful the trip was. Thus, the trip would just be a waste of time and money for us. Therefore, always ask yourself first, are you ready? Next, after we are sure of taking a trip, plan on where we would like to go. Some place which is meaningful to us. The third step after deciding the location is to plan carefully your road tip, the itinerary, how to enjoy it the most? What to bring? Whom to go with? When is the trip? And some other required planning such as the transporta-tion, accommodation and foods. If everything is complete then let’s go!!!!

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The word ‘travel’ comes together with the word ‘explore’. There are a lot of things we can explore through travelling. Explore to know our own selves better even! Explore the new environment. Explore the new culture. Life is actually a journey by itself. Throughout this journey, we are exploring our own selves every single day. Exploring owns self; by travelling we could know the type of environment that suits us the most, the kind of friend we can stay with and the way you react in certain circumstances. Exploring new environment; every single place has its own fascination, we will find out how peaceful the nature is, how modern the city is and how cheerful the country-side is! Exploring new culture; different places have different occu-pant, from this differences we can identify how the local people communicate with each other, how they communicate with their nature and how the nature communicate with them. By understand-ing different ways of interaction from various sources, we would have better view of this world.

To the readers, after reading this article, do you have any idea on how to enjoy your upcoming holidays? There’s no better feeling than cruising down the open road, feeling the wind through your hair and admiring the gorgeous views — road trips are seriously the way to go. Therefore, take a trip and share your experience with me!

Beijing and Shanghai

By Syakirin Al-Husna Foundation Studies Beijing Language and Culture University

I know China quite well thanks to having lived there for the bet-ter part of a year. Beijing and Shanghai are without a doubt the two most-visited cities in China — and they couldn’t be more different. To begin with, Beijing has a rich of cultural resources and carries the age-old historical civilization.

Continue to next page>>

Although Shanghai is a modern, exciting metropolis and is evolving at an almost unprecedented rate, Beijing offers a better balance of the an-cient and the contemporary and is more aesthetically diverse from both manmade and natural perspectives.

Beijing is set in the rolling hills of northeast China, a landscape that’s particularly pleasing from the vantage point of the Great Wall. Shang-hai, on the other hand, sits on the eastern Chinese coastal plain, it is China’s most Western city and is also home to one of its largest interna-tional airports, which would be beautiful if all the water that exists around it wasn’t so black and polluted.

Beijing is a big city to travel with, being that it’s essentially cross-section of China’s entire history. Most peoples’ first stop is at the For-bidden City and Tian’anmen Square, two structures whose close physi-cal proximity to one another belies the worldviews they represent. To

catch a breathtaking sunset views of whole Beijing city, it is recommended to climb up the JingShan (Scenery Hills) which used to be the King's place to rest in the evening. Up there, you could see every important monuments and build-ings built on the straight axis which

made up Beijing City today.

Other than that, to explore Beijing’s post-communist side, traipse through the grounds of the 2008 Summer Olympics (namely, the Bird’s Nest Stadium), or walk through Beijing’s financial districts of Chaoyang and Xicheng is recommended too! To be frank, finding a Halal restau-rant in Beijing is not one of the concerns as there are many Muslims restaurant with symbol of arabic Shahadah splattered across the city.

NiuJie old mosque lies in NiuJie street (means cow street named after its famous Halal and tender meat) is also a must to visit, especially for Muslims. Amidst the busy NiuJie street, Niu Jie mosque is considered as the oldest mosque in Beijing, built with unique China Islamic architec-ture. There, you can see peculiar artistic drawings and sketches on each pieces of wooden roofs which will make you wonder how articulated the painters are.

On the other side of the coin, 20 years ago, the eastern bank of the Huangpu River that runs through Shanghai was a farmland, with a few stray residential and commercial buildings just beginning to rise. Today, this area comprises Shanghai’s Pudong new district, whose

Lujiazui sub-district is home to some of the tallest skyscrapers in the world, as well as the city’s iconic Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

By comparison, Beijing’s new Guomao business district is tame, although the strange geometrics of the CCTV building provide an aesthetic to which none of the 4,000-plus highrises that pepper Shanghai compare. That being said, Beijing’s city-scape is ostensibly more diverse, an eclec-tic mix of ancient China, the utilitarian architecture of the Mao era and everything in-between. Beijing also juxtaposes its gritty look with lush rose bushes you find almost everywhere.

Of course, the most famous attraction in the Beijing vicinity isn’t in Beijing but rather, in the mountains just outside the city. Obviously, I’m speaking about The Great Wall of China, one of the seven wonders of the world. The wall is absolutely massive and has many sections you can visit. I personally recommend visiting Simatai, although many tour-ists go to Badaling, which is accessible by train.

It is worthy of note, that social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, Insta-gram is famously blocked in China, alt-hough you can use VPN(Virtual Private Net-works) to get around, and while Wi-Fi is wide-ly available, it can also be extremely slow. Lastly, being able to speak or read Mandarin Chinese

is really helpful in large cities especially Beijing, and absolutely neces-sary outside of them. Both cities, however, offer amble opportunities for exciting excursions and to be fair, Shanghai’s transportation infrastruc-ture is without a doubt superior and the city lacks Beijing’s oppressive traffic congestion.

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YK 10th Anniversary Special

Interview with Beh Ying Ying, Master of Engineering, University of Melbourne

The thing I like the most about Yayasan Khazanah (YK) is the constant communication. You will always feel like you’re part of the bigger family and never detached from it. I felt like Yayasan Khazanah has always had my back. It’s always com-forting when there’s someone to turn to when in need of as-sistance. I also love the ongoing programmes such as the YKPSP and the leadership conference which were great plat-forms to brush up interpersonal skills and also a great chance to meet the other Yayasan Khazanah scholars. This make YK so special and close to my heart.

There’s no doubt that I will highly recommend Yayasan Kha-zanah to my family and friends. Yayasan Khazanah offers a life-changing opportunity for me and I believe Yayasan Kha-zanah will continue to touch more lives.

I am currently doing Master of Engineering. Being in the field of sustainable energy had always been my passion.

I strongly believe that a strong development in the field of sustainable energy will better the lives of people. So I hope that I will be part of the team that realizes that in 10 years’ time. Yayasan Khazanah had always given me the encourage-ment to continue on this path.

I am definitely a step closer to my dream because I had the opportunity to pursue my undergraduate study in a place where there is a vast exposure to the theme of sustainability. Coming from an underprivileged family, this wouldn’t have been realised without the support from Yayasan Khazanah and I am always thankful for the opportunity Yayasan Khaza-nah had offered to me.

My role model has always been my father. He is always work-ing hard relentlessly to provide for the family and constantly

motivating our family to be optimistic and realistic. If I were to be given a chance to lead, I would want to be someone who always have a clear goal in mind and would maintain a transparent and comprehensive communication amongst the team.

The most memorable moment as a YK scholar will be the time I received the notification that my application was successful. My family and I were overjoyed.

If I could describe Yayasan Khazanah in three words, it would definitely be: A life-changer.

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Getting to Know The Alumni

Dr Anne Marie Warren, Khazanah Scholar Alumni Association (KSAA)

Dr Anne Marie is a Manager at Securi-ties Commission Malaysia under the Human Resources unit looking after HR analytics, organization development, organization restructuring and labour market research. She has more than 10 years’ working experience within the Human Resources and Change Manage-ment portfolio both as an academia at

Department of Management & Economics, Help University & Vi-etnam National University in Vietnam and now actively putting theory into practice at Securities Commission. She holds a PhD from University of Malaya, Faculty of Business & Accountancy where she received the “Best PhD Student” award on her thesis titled Social Media Usage for Civic Engagement. Her vast experience coupled together with her passion towards employee development will surely benefit the nation as a whole and make Yayasan Khazanah proud to have a successful and accomplished alumnus.

We supported the Chow Kit Run 2017, by run-

ning, of course :) !! The inaugural Chow Kit Run

was organised as a fundraiser for the Foundation,

Yayasan Chow Kit (YCK)

Briefing on YK Scholarship Programme at SBPI

Gombak’s “Nadi Kasih Projek Khas” Programme.

Engagement with our scholars in the South - NuMed, UTM,

Reading and SOTON. It's always a pleasure catching up

with you guys

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Counsellor Programme 2017

19th—20th May 2017

Furama Hotel, Kuala Lumpur

Snap, Sketch or

Doodle!! And send to us…

This amazing artwork was done

by our Year 11 scholar at Marlbor-

ough College Malaysia, Iliya

Azfar bin Azhar. The title of this

artwork is “Beginning or End”.

L e t ’ s p lan for Y K CBL 2 01 7

Hi everyone!

YKCBL 2017 is coming soon and YKPSP Team is very excited in

planning for this most anticipated part of our programme.

As you know, we have always value your feedback seriously (very)

to ensure that you have an awesome, unforgettable & mind-

blowing learning experience.

Be apart of YKCBL 2017 planning by

letting us know..

Your Experience

How much have you been involved in community service, charity efforts or volunteering

works?

Your Interest & Passion

Which community that you feel most important to you? Which area that you are passionate in

to get involved and make the change?

Your Contacts

Share with us which organization or NGO that you have worked with or heard of. We will take

your suggestion and consider them for our collaborations.

Go to www.menti.com

And enter this code 59 58 98

It’s mobile

friendly too!

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YKCBL for Undergraduate & Postgraduate which

was scheduled to be held on

9—15 July 2017

Has now changed to

16—22 July 2017

We will send an email to all UG & PG for further

clarification and for your next action. In the mean-

time, save this date!

To all winners of e-card quiz 2016 & 2017

Please email us the following information for us to

send your gifts:

1.Full Name

2.Mobile Number (WhatsApp Active)

3.Postal Address (Malaysia address only)

Haven’t gotten your mystery gift? Announcement

We have a CHANGE of date: