Their eyes scroll from the top of the paper/my resume/CV to the bottom - it stops again at the top.
"So... You're a Geography Major? Why...Geography? What is... Geography?"
My lips curl into a grin, "Thanks for asking, I honestly love that question!"
And then I delve into my shpiel:
(Yes, this is what I say in interviews - although more concisely due to time constraints. Hence, I wanted to write this online post to dig deeper into this topic and what it really means to me)
"I can't explain Geography entirely because it is everything and anything. But what I can tell you, is what Geography is to ME.
And what it means to me, is that people are shaped, created, and dictated by our environment. And we, as well, shape, create, and dictate our environment."
How did I come to this conclusion? It was one of those courses you take in college - you know, the one that defines you and your thinking because everything clicks or starts clicking. You see the world in a different lens and how it interacts with each other and you can't look back the way you did before.
I was fortunate enough to have that Freshman Year Spring 2015.
"I took Professor Mary Ann Cunningham's Food and Farming course in the Geography Department." (Mind you, I didn't declare my Geography major until Sophomore Fall as I was still exploring options at Vassar College's liberal arts education.)
"I learned about how different climates and soils grow different natural resources and agricultural products."
At first, we concentrated on U.S.A. and I chose to research soybeans in Ohio. But "My final paper was: "Choose any agricultural crop in any country and discuss why it is grown there and how it affects the country politically, economically, and socially." (This is a simplified version of the question, of course.)
As I was deciding my agricultural product and my country - the options were endless.
"I chose to investigate Palm Oil in Malaysia."
Because I'm from Singapore and Malaysia, I wanted to know more about this crop that affects both of my countries and realised I didn't know much about it except that it destroys orang utan habitats (WWF, 2015).
I dove deep into palm oil's impact on carbon storage in Malaysia, its history as a West African crop brought by the British, its perfect acclimatisation into Malaysian tropical climate and soils, the policies Malaysia implemented to make the country the world's second-largest producer, and whether it is environmentally sustainable.
Not only did I answer those questions, wrote two more papers on it, but also made a discovery that geography, particularly natural resources (or lack of), dictate us. The way we live, the way we interact, the way we make decisions.
It all makes sense.
Why was China ravaged during the Opium Wars? Due to Britain's insatiable thirst for tea. Why is Nigeria's unofficial national food an Indonesian instant noodle?
Why I learned and remembered countries and cities by playing the video game, Chocolatier?Because I travelled to Madagascar for vanilla, Merida in Mexico for cacao beans, coconut from Sulawesi in Indonesia, and so on and so forth.
"So I realized that everything in the world - relationships, trade, conflict, war, cooperation, are all products of geography."
Still curious or not convinced? Read Tim Marshall's Prisoners of Geography or Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads: A New History of the World.
Both have great maps and highlight the ebb and flow of human interaction through natural features, religion, and trade.
Yet, while they are persuasive in explaining the crucial power of geography in the past, there are posing questions about its relevance today, especially with emerging technology and still contested political claims.
Tim Marshall addresses this epoch of technology and the increasing blurring of geographical boundaries that may dispute the "imprisonment" of geography compared to before.
1) With the increasing blurring of boundaries and borders, is there still national pride? Or increased combining of races and backgrounds?
Should there be an influx of immigrants and mixing between races and socioeconomic backgrounds, I think that human society would always establish inequality and human nature will always put others up and others down. Even if everyone looked exactly the same and possessed exactly the same things, I find that it is natural to always want to differentiate ourselves from others because it is always easier to find flaws in others and not in ourselves.
(Some may say inequality is essential for a meritocratic and productive society, but let's keep this topic on the burner for another time)
2) Are we prisoners of geography? Or were we?
Yes, we are still prisoners of geography: I personally think that even with technology, there are still differences in time and space. The time it takes to travel from Montreal, Canada to Sydney, Australia may be reduced, or communication can be done online. However, it does not diminish that it still takes more time to travel from Montreal, Canada to Sydney, Australia, than from Montreal, Canada to New York, U.S.A., nor does it lessen the time differences.
Therefore, although technology will continue to advance, I believe that the very core of geography will act similarly and continue to dictate us. Perhaps we can navigate the world on faster and larger scales, but the natural, physical, and geographical state we live in, will remain constant for the foreseeable future.
The Himalayas between India and China will not disappear anytime soon, nor will resources naturally appear in Singapore. Yet...
No, we are no longer prisoners of geography: Are we really prisoners? Or co-creators of the environment we live in?
Back to my previous point about how we equally shape, create, and dictate our environment. As we become more and more knowledgeable about the world and are able to map minute details to the dot, so are we able to control it e.g. using green spaces in New York City for bee habitation.
Technology: Perhaps I was also only looking into technology in the form of movement, transition, and communication, but what about other forms of technology that could release us from the chains of geography?
Singapore and other cities are delving into technological advancements to produce their own resources e.g. urban farming or aquaponics for local food or recycling sewage water (Newater), which holds huge potential for resiliency and less reliance on other countries. Read Shen Ming Lee's "Hungry for Disruption" book to learn more about how technology is accelerating in its role to help feed the 10 billion population by 2050.
As such, we are capable of innovating and influence our current environment to suit our needs as much as the environment influences us.
Environment: Speaking of resiliency and sustainability, what seems like a healthy, interdependent cycle is now an imbalance as we often over consume and over take. Today's drastic climate change and global warming rates are alarming and are evident of human's impact on the living world. Just as much as it is important to discover and devour what the world provides, it is just as important to sustain and maintain its resources, whether through technology, social empowerment, or financial means.
Hence, my discovery of geography not only illuminated the outlines of the past, but also paints the flow of the present and reveals the colours we need to work with for the future.
As always, happy to talk and discuss more!