In the HC class last week, Dean told us the information about the study aboard next year and the requirement of certain universities in America. (Although I missed that part owing to work, some helpful classmates kindly volunteered to tell me afterwards.) Undoubtedly, we need to take the TOFEL but I am not very nervous about it and I don’t think we need to be very nervous. Just relax and be well-prepared, then everything will be okay. Nonetheless, I suggest we should read more news – international news – to keep us more informed about what happen around the world and to broaden the vision.

Furthermore, this class was also an honour forum sharing series and a guest speaker – Dr. King Keung Wong – was invited to share his experiences and stories with us. Dr Wong is a prominent engineer and a successful entrepreneur, who is also one of the three founders of University of East Asia (the former of University of Macao).

picture from http://image.wenweipo.com/2008/03/07/ch0307d2.jpg

In the sharing series, he talked about his experience stories in building University of East Asia, meeting with officials from China’s Republic, and his passion in Chinese culture. What I can’t agree with him more is about being humble and courageous. Being humble is really important as there are always some people who are better than us and chances to learn from others. If we are so self-centred or conceited, we may not be able to seize the chance to improve ourselves. He also talked about courage in communications as he said that his mandarin is not very good but he dared to speak with the Chinese officials in mandarin and they understand him. I think this is the key in intercultural communications – it is not about how well and fluent we can speak in the lingua franca but it’s about our bravery and sincerity to express the message.

By the way, my group mates and I also submitted the VIP project this week. Even though there is still room for improvement in the product, we are proud of what we have done.Thanks for my fellows and the interviewee, Ms. Ho.

Last week is another quite busy week for me as I had a speech, a research assignment, a design project to prepare and submit. Nevertheless, I am glad that it has passed in a smooth way with my patience and others’ help and cooperation. Anyways, every week is busy in different sense.
In the HC class of this week, we were taught that being a leader, we need to try to show WHAM, WHAW, SHARE and CARE. They just look like simple acronyms but they all have a deeper sense in meanings.

WHAM stands for Whole Heart And Mind

I think it’s absolutely correct as whenever and whatever we are doing, we need to devote our body and mind to it so that a good outcome can be reached. Furthermore, when we are doing like this, the other members in the group can feel our enthusiasm and zest, and they may be induced and evoked to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the work, too.

WHAW stands for Work Hard And Well

Needless to say, working hard does not guarantee our success but finding a way to do things fruitfully and productively is more important. That’s what I am trying to improve.

SHARE stands for Smile, Help, Advice, Resource and Ears

It’s important for us to listen to others – to listen to their needs and their complaints. Moreover, it’s more important to listen to others without any judgement. We tend to judge others and reach a conclusion of an event before listening to others; we tend to judge others basing on our own frame of reference; we tend to listen to the judgement made by ourselves but not others, when we are supposed to listen to them.

So Reserve Your Judgement and Listen to Others More before You Fully Understand the Whole Thing or Somebody.

CARE stands for Concerns, Acceptance, Respect and Empathy

We should not only be self-centred, but also care for the others by showing concerns, acceptance, respect and empathy. It’s not only about how we say it but about how we do it.

We also celebrated Cathy and Shelly’s birthday by singing a birthday song and sharing chocolates (owing to Ray’s surprises). Happy belated Birthday to them!

In the end of the class, an American stand-up show about differences between women and men was shown. It’s always good to know and understand the difference between people but what we need to be careful is not falling to the trap of stereotypes. Don’t judge anybody before we have fully known them and understood them. Furthermore, it’s not really big deal for somebody not finding this video funny and humorous. You can fully understand the clips without finding it interesting. It’s not the problem about the language but the culture. Without interrupting your routines and communication, you don’t need to force yourself to be in love with every aspects of a certain culture. Even with your own culture, there is an area you like the most while there is an aspect you hate or you feel boring. So I can assure some of you that it is just okay.

Besides, we were also what we have changed after joining HC. Well, after some deep thoughts, I think one of the changes of me is about the wordings in speech. Before, I tend to say what I want and think directly. After joining HC, I become more careful with the wordings in speech as I care the concerns of the others - it may hurt somebody’s feelings or cause somebody’s embarrassment without my noticing. Thus, I am more careful in speech. There are some more and I may share it with all of you next time.

At last, I think every HC students have received the news about Prof. Doris Mok. So I want to say you have my best wishes and I really admire and enjoy your lecture.