From the 15th to 20th of November I had the unique privilege of participating in the 8th Model ASEM in Myanmar. ASEM stands for the Asia-Europe Meeting which is a meeting of the various foreign ministers of 51 (member nations) Asian and European nations. So the Model ASEM mirror-ed the entire process and coincided with a few days of the actual meeting. In all honestly, when I had secured my spot, I did not really appreciate the magnitude of what I had signed up for. The participants were all of incredible calibre and I was a bit overwhelmed initially haha. Other than the host nation (given roughly 40 participants), every other nation was ONLY given 2 participants, which made the competition to participate rather fierce to say the least.
The first two days were pretty relaxed and was actually not part of the actual ASEM process but an exposure to diplomacy in general. After all my travels, a three-hour flight to Yangon was pretty easy and once I arrived, I realised the weather as actually not too bad (less humidity). To my surprise, there was actually three other participants on the flight as well, Scarlett, Michal and Trish (who would become close friends of mine by the the end of the conference). Along with Melissa (got in at the same time but diff flight), we explored Yangon with the main highlight being the Shwedagon Pagoda, which was AWESOME. The comedy of the day was us looking for a nearby park, getting lost in the park and eventually being late for the first activity of the entire programme HAHA. The evening was an ice-breaker session where I got to meet Gabriel (another addition to the Singapore crew hah), the other Singaporean at the event (he’s freaking smart btw 😜) and Julia, the head of my delegation. In addition, I got to meet Marcin, a Polish professor in Krakow and my roommate for the rest of my stay. Day 2 started early with the embassy visits! So everyone got to visit an embassy in Yangon as well as meet with the ambassador of said embassy. Luckily for me, Singapore has an embassy in Yangon so we got the chance to meet our own Ambassador to Myanmar. I was relatively intimidated at first but he was very accommodating to all of our questions and I learned a good deal about the life of a diplomat. Another plus point was that I got to know fellow delegates Kim, Farid and Nina during the embassy visit 😀 From there, we had a really long 5 hour drive to Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar and where ASEM and Model ASEM was going to take place. The magnitude of the event really hit me when we got of the buses at Naypyidaw. There was a huge welcoming party with dances, singing and even kid waving flags!! I was totally awestruck…..
Day 3, 4 and 5 were way more intense and fun at the same time.
Day 3 marked the first day of the ASEM process. The day began with a panel session (not part of ASEM process) and the opening ceremony. The opening ceremony was a 1.5 hour process where Hilary (the Chair of the event) shook the hands of all the heads of delegation and took a photo which every delegation. After which everyone took their seats in the amazingly beautiful plenary room which helped to set the tone of the event because it was sooo professional. There were like 20 cameras taking both videos and photos of everything so basically everything that happened was being recorded. As I was a delegate of the Czech Republic I sat behind Julia (head of delegation) as only the heads of delegation were allowed to talk during the plenary sessions, although there would be an eventual rotation of roles. The structure of Model ASEM was an opening plenary followed by small-group discussions and a longer plenary to discuss the chair statement (a document listing agreements and outcomes of the ASEM process). The opening plenary actually took about 3 hours in total (had to be broken into two sessions as it took to long) where every nation was given the chance to convey their stand on various issues. The day ended with a dinner reception at the hotel that was pretty fun with the performances put up by our gracious hosts and the amazing food. This was where I got to meet Emily (Scarlett’s roommate), someone who would become a dear friend to me by the end of the conference 😀
Day 4 was basically an entire day of the small group sessions. Every delegate was assigned to one of 6 groups to discuss various, specific issues. For me, I was representing the Czech Republic at the “Joint Efforts in Combatting Terrorism” discussion. It was an entirely new and exhausting process for me as the entire discussion took about 7 hours in total. It was a real eye-opener on how difficult it can be to get agreements with so many differing viewpoints and how difficult real diplomats have it. Nonetheless it was fun and really nice getting to know new people like Rivka, Javier, Marketa and Christopher. The evening was probably one of the best few hours of the event. We had a cultural night where everyone shared pieces of their homeland through food, performances and stories. It was really quite incredible with everyone being so involved with all the dances, skits, poem-recitals and singing. It was really a night I won’t ever forget (I LOVED IT SOOOOOOOO MUCH AHHHH)
Day 5 was the last day of the ASEM process with the last, but tough plenary session. So all the discussions and agreements of the previous day (small group sessions) was compiled into a document (chair statement) and was to be re-discussed with every nation and delegate present. This session took a gruelling 10 hours with every single point was challenged and debated. It really took a good deal of energy, effort and stamina from everyone to get this done. This was where I got a chance to be head of delegation and it was really fun 🤗. I was really amazed by Hillary (Chair) and the way she lead the discussion. There were times where we were all tired and some of us zoned out but not Hillary, she was super focused the entire time. She listened to every point being made, mediated for common-ground and kept everyone on task, for 10 hours!! It was incredible. The ASEM process officially ended with the closing ceremony after the chair statement was completely agreed upon. After the closing ceremony we attended a reception with various foreign ministers and it was…. super formal (that’s considering the formal nature of the past few days). It was interesting getting to speak to a few foreign ministers and it was pretty fun hanging out with the friends I had made over the past few days and taking LOTS of photos. After about 2 hours we were brought back to the hotel and the bar had finally been opened (no alcohol policy for ASEM days). As our bus was at 5am, most of us basically stayed up all night at the bar till the 5am bus and it was so fun/sad at the same time as we all knew that it was probably a long time till we saw each other again 😢. The last day was basically just hanging around Yangon till our 5pm flight (Scarlett, Trish and I flew back on the same flight)
This Model ASEM was really a once-in-lifetime opportunity and I am so so grateful to have attended. Hats off to Oscar and Leonie for being such incredible organisers (I have no idea how they pulled this off because there was just so much work involved).
To Scarlett, Michal, Emily, Gabriel, Trish, Farid, Rivka, and everyone I had the privilege to meet (really too many to name), y’all are really special, awesome people and I hope to meet y’all again, sooner rather than later 🤗🤗🤗
Don’t Cry Because It’s Over, Smile Because It Happened 😀
Batmar :) 
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