IPM 2007 - AP Post Tour - Amzad singing Happy Birthday to Anisha after Nile Cruise on March 2, 2007

Taxi Driver in Taipei

If I'm not mistaken, I thought I've read a post in Brodie's blog about meeting with a taxi driver which turned out to be a really intelligent doctor with loads of experience or sth... (sorry that's a long post and the language is a bit difficult to understand... )

Anyway, I just want to say that I also have an interesting experience with taxi driver in Taipei! (and doesn't it look cool to post sth similar to ex-PAI? hahahahahaha)

OK, but surely you can expect that my experience would be not as high level as Brodie's. Actually the taxi driver I met... you could even call him a bastard, cos he beat his wife up. (OK now probably you would want to stop reading cos I'm just trying to copy Brodie to talk about taxi driver but I pick a terrible example... I would then tell you that cos this is my blog and my space to bla bla so I shouldn't really care whether you read or not...)

OK, back to the topic. Sphinx and I was taking this taxi at around 3am or sth at the street where the ex-MCP of @Taiwan Alan lived. There were two guys having a big fight and one of them is definitely drunk cos he's shouting loudly and he kept on smashing bottles onto the floor. We hopped on to the taxi and the taxi driver started to tell us off for watching them fighting on the pavement for such a long time (sphinx did!! I actually wanted to run....) Anyway the taxi drive kept on nagging us that it's really dangerous and what if they started to fight and dashed towards us and so on...

As he's talking (sometimes in mandarin sometimes in taiwanese), he started to change a topic abruptly and said "Hey miss I have a problem that I would like to share with you, would you mind listening to it and give me some suggestions?" We were like, wow, sure, would love to if we could help.
Then he started to say that his wife has left him for 5 months and moved to somewhere south in Taiwan. The reason was that he beat her up. He then said that he's very wrong in this but he was angry when he saw his wife being sent back to home by another man. He thought she had an affair. His wife explained that it was an annual dinner of the company and that man is just her colleague. He did not belive it so they fought with each other and he hit her.
He went on saying that he has a tough time to pay the installments for the newly bought house, driving taxi to earn money diligently, and also taking care of 4 children so he has great pressure. He knew that he's very wrong, and he talked with his priest and he regretted it very much. He thought his wife would come back because the children are here in Taipei, but recently he heard that his wife is going to open a store in the south of Taiwan and planned to live on her own there. He started to get nervous and he said other taxi drivers said that a mum of 4 children would not normally has an affair and would definiltey come back for the kids. But he's not sure, cos he found out that his eldest daughter (year 1 in university) is actually keeping in touch with her mum. She's not telling the father, so apparently she's not on the father's side and he could not count on her to find the mother. He now really did not know what to do and hence he asked Sphinx and me what we thought about that.
(at that time the taxi has already stopped in the destination but we're still talking) Sphinx and I said that he could first talk with his eldest daughter, but he should maintain this tone to his daughter as if he's talking to us, treating his daughter as an adult, asking her for suggestions on what to do, and sharing his feelings to the daughter. He seemed quite convinced and agreed that he definitely should not order his daughter to find her mother, but should really talk with her and convince her that he's really regretful and hope his daughter would help the family reunion.

Nobody really knows what would happen afterwards, but I feel quite emotional about this incident. The point is this taxi driver does not know how to handle relationships, does not know how to manage his family, he has a problem that he could not solved. He's so lost and desperate that he needs to talk it out in the middle of the night. He could turned to nobody, but two apparently naive and young girls (who forgot about danger and watched 2 drunk guys smashing bottles on the floor at 3am in the middle of Taipei) for advice. Talking to this regretful and helpless driver, I could offer nothing but some words of support and sympathy.

We all know that, there are endless pressure, misunderstanding, miscommunications, hardships in making ends meet, fights in family... several weeks ago in Hong Kong there are series of family violence and murder cases. They caught attention of media and society, but it has never been so impactful to me when I really talked to this taxi driver who was so lost and helpless in family relationships. Not sure if it makes sense, I hope there would be more education and more professional support on helping us in dealing with relationships, dealing with family. Math, English, Chinese, Science, History... are all important subjects in school, but why should not there be lessons on relationships, values, ethics, and love. I hope that we don’t just talk about relationship management as in a “customer” sense, as in a “business” sense, I hope we could talk about it in a family sense, in a personal sense.

I hope the taxi driver will be fine.

Why does it take so long?

I was talking with Ren Chang about the many stuffs that take such a long and painful process for AIESEC Hong Kong to get to while in most places like AIESEC Malaysia they are in place long ago... I found it quite interesting to list them out...haha (Don't get me wrong for grumbling, please look at the positive side that AIESEC Hong Kong is improving ourselves! Yeah!)

Things that happened
1. MC team selection (by selection board incl. MCPe)
2. Full Time MC
3. More than 1 MCP candidate

Things that will definitely happen at the end of the term
4. Double Term LCP (LCVP with 2 years @XP, LCEB size of around 5-6, team members working under LCVPs etc)
5. Incorporation (legalizing AIESEC)

Things that are still yet to happen
6. PBoX (or issue-based exchanges)

Well these are basics stuffs... yea so I like the basics. Thinking through... although it takes so long (okay, just counting from when I joined @ in 2002, it takes 4-5 years, but definitely some of the stuffs above are in place in other countries before 2002) it's really great to be part of this change process, altering something that seems to be unchangeable and deep-rooted, something that I really didn't like, but have always been there since I enter AIESEC. I would have never imagined these could happen a coupld of years ago. ha.. I think I will never forget this experience. =) And thank you for being part of this experience with me.

Thank you ^o^

Intern

Being an Intern... a stage that every AIESECer will go through. Yet, how to be a good intern, a good AIESEC intern, seems to be a very hard subject. At least, I know that we cannot go into aiesec.net and search for a good AIESEC University document to tell you about how to be a good intern. And if you go to ask an exchanger, probably they'll only tell you to do a good job in the company and help them do re-raising. If you go to ask a PD person, they would probably ask you to join teams. What does that actually mean?

If we think back to the origin of Core work Re-design and then the AIESEC experience, it comes by two big concept: "Unification of members and trainees" + "Structured Learning Process". And everyone who has been an exchanger before will understand how a "good intern" will make a difference. As we believe AIESECer can make a good intern, therefore we advocate this concept of "unification of members and trainees".

Many people have asked me before: is an non-AIESECer definitely not a good intern? Is an AIESECer definitely a good intern?

The question is how do we define "good".
good intern = one who does not require any reception?
good intern = one who makes the company very happy?

In this NLDS, I finally have a better answer for myself. Not necessarily a final answer, but an answer good enough for me to strive for to become a good intern.

A good intern is one who will leave a great impact to the local members.

In NLDS leadership track, we have 2 very good interns as our facilitators - Egle and Ren Chang.

The commitment they have put into the conference is higher than many people. When we talk about @HK's reality, how to make @HK better, we can sense our same passion, seeing things through same paradigm, same mindset, striving for same goal.

Throughout the whole conference, they always have in their mind on how to make @HK better. Say LC structure, they always have that in the context, therefore even in non-AIESEC session, like Time management, or other free time, Egle and Ren Change could just easily link those sessions into the context of @HK, and using the session content to give very relevant advice to all the delegates. That makes individual session much more powerful.

And most important thing is that as they are interns, they could provide a more objective and external perspective on issues. It's opening up ourselves in new paradigm, and to the delegates, it's definitely more convincing than the MC talk talk talk... haha.

And Jacso and I keep on saying that in NLDS we have suddenly more MC members haha. Definitely we felt that Ren Chang is our extra MC teammates. And Yali and Egle definitely MC CEEDers.

I'm easily impacted by non-HK @ers who are so deeply cared about @HK. Few years ago like Chien, I would never forget what he told me. Now like Ren Chang and Egle. The reason why I'm deeply impacted by them, and got touched easily, is probably throughout my @XP in @HK, I always see HK ppl who don't put priority in making OUR own organization better. There are always OUR own ppl who simply don't care about OURselves. Sometimes it's even more ridiculous that they could loudly say they just don't think they should care about it. [This might be stemming from a mindset that Ah Wai and Yali just talked with us earlier, could elaborate on that later on]

Anyway, in this conference, I am definitely greatly inspired by our lovely interns. When I'm moving to the exchange stage, I really want to be an intern in a AIESEC environment with relatively lower capacity, and I could contribute the most and share what we have in @HK for AIESEC in another country. I could pay it forward - what Egle and Ren Chang have done to @HK. I hope there would be another country which can feel the strong support of an intern as if "having an extra MC teammate/ CEED".

I believe this is the true impact of exchange after leadership experience, the impact of unification of trainees and members, the impact of AIESEC experience.

Egle and Ren Chang, Thanks for inspiring me to become a better intern myself in the future. Thanks for letting me realize what's the true impact of an intern.

Congratulations Message from Ryan for UBS Award Celebration

Oh my god

Just before the conference, I got 2 emails: one video and one powerpoint which makes me really grateful and excited.
Thank you so much. Your support to us is just amazing.
>3<

Sex Bomb - Amzad, Gary and Ryan

It's My Life - Amzad, Gary and Ryan