Matthew Eng
WEST ORANGE, NJ — Matthew Eng has a few more finals and three weeks at home before he gets on a plane to Thailand to spend two years there.
The 21-year-old West Orange native will be a Youth in Development volunteer with the Peace Corps on Jan. 8, just after he graduates from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He’ll be in San Francisco for a training day before going to the Southeast Asian country, where he’ll spend 10 to 12 weeks doing more training before being placed in a community to begin working. This will Eng’s first trip with the Peace Corps, but not his first time working for the organization.
“Work-study programs usually have you work on campus, but mine allowed me to do internships in D.C.,” Eng said in a phone interview with the West Orange Chronicle on Dec. 13. “I worked at the Peace Corps Headquarters. I met amazing people there and got really inspired.”
Usually the Peace Corps sends its volunteers wherever they are most needed, but because Eng worked at the organization’s headquarters, he knew how the program works and was able to request a specific location.
“Southeast Asia has always been a passion of mine, mostly because of the food,” Eng joked. “But also because I’m Chinese-American and the culture and religious diversity is so interesting.”
An international affairs and political science major with a concentration in security policy at GW, Eng hopes to one day become a diplomat. After his two years in the program are up, he plans to go to graduate school, possibly through a fellowship offered by the Peace Corps. Until then, Eng will be working on community projects, and gender and youth empowerment in Thailand.
“You’re pretty much dropped into the fire there,” he said. “I’ll be doing four to six hours of language training a day, and I’ll be with a host family.”
The language barrier is the most obvious challenge that will present itself in Thailand, but Eng has had to take many language classes as part of his international affairs major. Six semesters later, he’s almost fluent in French and has learned some Chinese. A 2016 graduate of West Orange High School, he was able to take Chinese language classes and go on a WOHS trip to China.
“I picked up some Chinese, which is different from Thai, but has some tonal similarities,” Eng said. “That’s what I’ll be doing at home for the next three weeks, getting ready with language immersion.”
Learning the language is not the only challenge Eng will face in Thailand.
“Asian Americans have some biases in those countries,” he said. “They might not recognize that there are cultural barriers. There are sometimes preconceptions that all Americans are white, and I don’t necessarily look Southeast Asian.”
Eng doesn’t know where in Thailand he’ll be going yet, but there’s a chance he won’t be in a heavily populated area. His work will follow the Thai school schedule, but when children are not in school from March through May and in October, he plans to travel throughout the region.
“I grew up in West Orange, which is fairly suburban, and then moved to D.C., which is one of the biggest cities in the world,” he said. “I definitely think it’ll be humbling for me. I think it’ll bring about a personal change. It’ll be a challenge and I’m not ignorant to that, but I’m excited for it.”
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