On July 2013, I went to Taiwan and it was a journey full of discoveries. Here are the 4 things I learned throughout my 6-week experience as Global Citizen.
1. Discover my strength & weaknesses
Throughout the 6 weeks exchange in Taiwan, I spent time to get along with myself alone and also with people from different nationalities. This made me to be better aware of my strengths and weaknesses.
For example, I realized that there is still room of improvement for my communication skills. Even though the other people and I can communicate in English, there are still times that we do not understand each other. For a same English word, it might have different meanings in different countries. Thus, we have to be understanding about the difference among each nation and learn how to communicate more effectively with people from different backgrounds.
2. Embrace different language, culture & history
The cultural difference is the most interesting part in my 6 weeks exchange. I learnt more about the language, culture and history of countries like Taiwan and Czech Republic. By having more understanding towards the countries and people there, I can better adapt myself to the culture shock I experienced in Taiwan, accept the difference and enjoy my life in Taiwan.
3. Live beyond Malaysia – be a Global Citizen
The world is so big that there are still many things awaiting us to discover and experience. We shouldn’t just live with our own and forget how other nations are moving in the other parts of the world. It is time to learn to understand the difference and uniqueness in each other and get ourselves improved.
4. Leadership in myself
As the project I have participated is a small project and there are only two Exchange Participants(EP). Thus, I did not learn much about team leadership. Instead, I learnt more on how to lead myself well in my everyday life and work in Taiwan. After these 6 weeks, I learnt that before we are able to lead a team of people, we must first learn how to lead ourselves and always LEAD BY EXAMPLE.
“A journey of thousand miles starts in front of your feet” and it is time to start creating your journey of thousand miles now!
This is a story from Chan Chin Ming | Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (Chemical Engineering) | All the best!
