Getting the (right) experience

World Vision was in town for their well-known inter­na­tional One Life exhibit at The Spring.

One Life exhibit at The Spring

With all those good reviews of how inspir­ing and touch­ing it was pour­ing in, I only had to try out the highly-acclaimed expe­ri­ence. Had to wait until the very last day before I could drag myself there though.

I was already impressed the moment I found the exhibit, with the deco and all. More so on the idea behind the whole thing, how they utilise head­phones and mp3 play­ers for nar­ra­tion, music and sound effects, how it gets you fully immersed into being inside the lives of HIV-positive individuals.

There was this turn­ing point in the story where your char­ac­ter gets diag­nosed as being HIV-positive dur­ing a visit to the clinic:

HIV Positive stamp

I felt a crunch in my heart when the nurse stamped me as HIV-positive.

What works so well about the One Life exhibit is that it takes you on a jour­ney through the lives of real-life indi­vid­u­als from dif­fer­ent loca­tions who ended up being HIV-positive. So for 20 min­utes, you’ll be ‘in their shoes’, going through exactly what these indi­vid­u­als experienced.

Thing is, I was try­ing pretty hard to get myself into the whole thing because I was walk­ing the path of a girl in Cam­bo­dia. There was this part when she ended up in a brothel and when you’ll be stand­ing in a rather dark, red-lit room, with lin­gerie all over the place, when the nar­ra­tor said along the lines of, ‘You had sex with many men’

I shrugged.

It felt so, so wrong. I’m a straight guy man.


Edit: Just realised I sounded as if I was pick­ing on the whole thing. Don’t get me wrong, as I’ve said ear­lier, the One Life exhibit is really an amaz­ing event. Enlight­en­ing, an eye-opener, it touches the soul and makes you think twice about how you live your only life. I really liked the part when you get the oppor­tu­nity to write notes of encour­age­ment that would be dis­trib­uted to real-life HIV patients, I would very much love to be able to put a much-needed smile on their faces.

10 thoughts on “Getting the (right) experience

  1. Pingback: 6 ???????? ?????????? ??????????

  2. ember Post author

    @Eli James, Woa, that busy? I see you may not be much a of a mall per­son (is there such an adjec­tive? lol) judg­ing from how you actu­ally timed yourself.

    The only time I would time myself in a mall is when I’m stuck on one of those drop-dead bor­ing shop­ping trips with mom and sis. =(

    @Pink Cot­ton, Oii, I was inno­cent okay? It was the nar­ra­tor who’s naughty! =P Seri­ously, they should’ve let me through the life of a male indi­vid­ual instead. >.< Twice? Gosh you really should’ve walked in! I went to the Spring specif­i­cally for the exhibit and went back right after.

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