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Why MEI Academy and GoOverseas Are Stronger Together

Written by Chris Mei on Apr 01, 2026 | Education Info

Two Organizations. One Shared Mission. GoOverseas cuts through that noise and helps students and parents find their match. Their mission is to give people the knowledge and confidence to choose the right program for their next meaningful experience abroad. Their recent blog piece on what studying abroad in Asia teaches students captures something textbooks never […]

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The Punk Was Right

Written by Chris Mei on Mar 05, 2026 | Education Info

It Started With a Power Chord Picture a classroom of teenagers in Southeast Asia — notebooks open, faces focussed, actually paying attention, taking notes — being asked to name one belief they hold about what a “normal, successful life” looks like—then being asked: who benefits if you keep that belief? The space goes quiet in […]

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Silence Is a Verdict

Written by Chris Mei on Mar 05, 2026 | Education Info

What Do You Do With the Neighbour Who Did “That”? This is not a hypothetical; in Cambodia today, survivors of the Khmer Rouge — a regime that systematically killed nearly a quarter of its own population between 1975 and 1979 — sometimes share roads, markets, and village wells with men who ran the labour camps. […]

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“Why Can’t We Be Friends?” 

Written by Chris Mei on Mar 03, 2026 | Education Info

Combat Is Optional Somewhere between your 7 AM inbox and your kid’s eye-roll at dinner, a 1975 funk song holds the answer to everything. Why Can’t We Be Friends? by War — arguably the most deceptively simple question ever set to a groove — was born out of a brawl at a basketball game and […]

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Your Friend Group Is A War Map

Written by Chris Mei on Mar 02, 2026 | Education Info

Nobody Declared War. Someone Just Drew The Lines. You didn’t sign anything; nobody did. It’s not that formal. There was no ceremony, no formal declaration, no dramatic scene with a quill pen. But somewhere between September and November of this school year, the borders appeared. “Don’t mention that name”. “Don’t sit at that table”. “Don’t […]

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Phnom Penh At Your Dinner Table

Written by Chris Mei on Mar 01, 2026 | Education Info

From Angkor Wat to Angkar (And Home) At Angkor Wat, power is carved into stone—kings in the center, battles in the margins, everyone else orbiting around a single, elevated figure. The geometry is clear: one apex, many subjects. We have captured that in photos and video. Centuries later, Pol Pot kept the geometry and swapped […]

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Walls Are My Worst Habit

Written by Chris Mei on Feb 27, 2026 | Education Info

The Silent Block Button You don’t need artillery to start a war. These days, all you need with the right amount of power is an inflammatory post on social media.   For most of us, however, it can be as simple as muting, unfollowing, or blocking someone on our social media feeds. These are the […]

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When Your Gods Get Replaced

Written by Chris Mei on Feb 26, 2026 | Education Info

Angkor: When the Software Changes, Not the Stone Once upon a time in Cambodia, an empire built a stone love letter to its god‑king. Angkor Wat was basically a cosmic flex: five towers as Mount Meru, with a moat to represent the universe. The whole thing was screaming, “Our ruler is plugged into the divine—don’t […]

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Your Buddha Isn’t Mine

Written by Chris Mei on Feb 25, 2026 | Education Info

What Bangkok’s Telephone Game Teaches About Truth It’s 7:15 AM at Wat Phra Kaew, and your guide casually drops that the murals wrapping the temple—178 panels of the Ramakien—are “the Thai Ramayana”. You nod, figuring it’s the same story from World Lit. Then she points to Hanuman flirting with a mermaid princess who doesn’t exist […]

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