At our first meeting of 2015, our well prepared Toastmaster of the Evening Sunder smoothly introduced three speakers.
Ting-Yi delivered her Ice-breaker entitled Riddles of East Asians. She told us about the reason behind the Asian stereotype: the Tiger Mother. By Asian she meant only North Asians: people from Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong or Taiwan. Because of the Tiger Mother, Asians are overachievers, quite and shy. Asian women are submissive, quite and obedient. However, these are only stereotypes. She described herself as not being quiet, shy or obedient. She also shared with us questions that we should never ask an Asian friend, e.g. “Can you tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese?” or “Do you know Kung Fu?”
Marina gave Project 8 from the CC manual entitled #First World Problems. Her friend’s words, “I couldn’t find anything I could be grateful for” stuck in her mind. How is this the case? We are living in a world where we have the privilege to wake up, to clean our hands with clear water, to open the fridge and choose what to eat for breakfast from the multitude of choices, to easily and safely go to school or work. She enhanced her points by showing people who do not have such privileges. With her speech, she wanted to remind us that we take many thing for granted, but we forget to be grateful. She finished her speech with a nice quotation “It is not happy people who are thankful, it is thankful people who are happy.”
Our next speaker was Manjana, who delivered Project 1 from the Informative Speeches Manual. She told us the story of the Carpenter’s Wife from Tajikistan. The story is about how the wise wife of the carpenter stayed absolutely true to her love.
Word of the Day: Zealot, a person who has very strong feelings about something (such as religion or politics) and who wants other people to have those feelings.
Lesson learned: It is not happy people who are thankful, it is thankful people who are happy.
