The theme of the evening at our last meeting was Lies. As part of his wonderful preparation, Toastmaster of the Evening Jürgen and Table Topic Master Nikolaos coordinated in advance, thus both the prepared speech session as well as the Table Topics session used this theme. Moreover, Jürgen contacted the speakers in advance and collected three statements about each of them, two true statements and one false. The audience had to guess which statement was not true. It was a great opportunity to learn crazy new things about our members.
The first speaker was our new Romanian member Petronela. She told us about an international geography conference where she saw that Romania was known only for Count Dracula. Knowing that Romania has much more to offer to tourists, this event changed her life. She became a cultural ambassador, fighting against stereotypes and cliches and promoting cultural exchange and tolerance by organizing intercultural events.
The second speaker Ting-Yi told us about the Chinese language and its influences. She observed that China transformed itself from a sleeping giant to a world economic power. As a consequence, western people are trying to learn Chinese, children go to summer Chinese school, young people make New Year resolutions to learn it. Actually 15 million people are currently learning it. In the UK there are now 100 public schools where Chinese is taught as an optional language. The influence of the language goes further than that. Even our mentality changes, i.e. how we eat or how much money we save. For instance, because Chinese is futureless – meaning that the language does not have a future tense form – people tend to see future as being close to the present. Thus they tend to save more. In her opinion, speaking a futureless language makes you more conscious of the future.
Marina delivered Project 9 entitled “Thanks, I prefer the Mojito”. She persuaded us to seek the positive and not complain, because what we seek in others is what we seek in ourselves. Using a lime metaphor, she told us that it is our choice if we take the lime and squeeze it in other people’s eyes or use it to make a Mojito cocktail. She mentioned her “granny test”: imagine yourself when you are 90 years old; would you say to yourself “I wish I would have spent more time complaining?”
Manjana delivered Project 2: Let’s Get Personal from the advanced manual, Storytelling. Her title was “What was I (drink)thinking?”. Using fabulous storytelling skills, she told us about her swimming event during one of the coldest springs in Berlin. Her friend convinced her to participate in a triathlon team, where she “only” had to do the swimming part. On a gloomy rainy day, she managed to stay on track and swim the 750 meters, despite the cold water, people kicking her in the tummy or not being used to swimming in a neoprene suit. She is a model not only in her storytelling skills, but also in going over the edge.
Word of the Day: Sophrosyne
Lesson learnd: Visit Romania! 🙂
