Difference between an educated and a learned person

Yesterday night, had drinks with the whisky club and Neo Kai Xian. KX was an ex-regular attached to platoon 6 back during my active days. My previous recollection of him was pretty slack and seemingly to be a hockian beng aka uncouth Sargent. And in a way, I felt he was not like the officers whom are more educated, just like an uneducated person. Gangsta is how I viewed him in the past.

Now he is a first sergeant of my reservist company and is currently my acting CSM since the original one was away on course. As a result, this ICT was pretty slack and all, and we all book out pretty early compared to other companies.

At Mikkeller with him yesterday, he reminded me of Wei Xiang. Seemingly, loud and gangsta kind, the way both seat and talks, exudes confidence in themselves or rather their belief about themselves. For some reason, the conversation went from his holidays in South America to about the systems that we had in Singapore. ie CPF, HDB and COE issues. Hearing him debate with Samuel about it, was pretty interesting and in a way, kind of open my mind about people and all. He was able to argued with Samuel, not with pure aggression and " in your face" manner,but with facts and numbers that were off his head as he had spoke with various people around the world. His structuring and thought construction was quite good as well. Definitely not what I had expected from an Hockian Beng, He was also able to brought out the purchasing power parity to effectively compare living costs between countries. Wonders did he do any university degree during his NS days or not.

From him, travelling really does open one's minds to the other problems of other citizens, their cultures, their way of life. Whether one day, I will have the courage and money to travel to such places and really interact with the locals, I am not sure. As I guess I am more of a budget/safe traveler currently.  Truth be told, I do not have a strong desire to travel to exotic places and put myself in dodgy situations. I prefer to have my own space and travel as and when and where I like.

To end it off, education can only bring one so far, travelling and actually experiencing life is what makes a learned person.