Yes or no, that’s a question!(C4 Speech Script by April Chung)

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,

In our life, we can heard someone persuade somebody to do something every day. Excuse me; could you do me a favor? Could you hire me? Could you lend me money? Or when could you deliver your speech? Are you afraid of being rejected, too? Don’t worry; just give them a good reason for your purpose. Because, the meaning of persuasion is to make someone decide to do something, especially by giving reasons why they should do it. Yes or No is depend on your question or reason.

One day, my supervisor gave me a task to count the customer complaints from our Japanese customers. I told him, “I only can read simple sentences in Japanese. Could you ask Ms. Kao who speaks fluent Japanese to deal with the document and I still have to do something important and urgent.”
He said, “But it’s a good chance to improve your Japanese ability.”
I said, “Thank you, Sir. I know it’s a good chance to improve my Japanese ability, but my ability is not good enough to deal with those documents. I have to look up the dictionary word by word, analyze the grammar, and ask others to help me. I will spend too much time on this matter.”
At that moment, my supervisor seems a little angry and said coldly, “…………hum, let me think over your suggestion.”
After working, I received a call from my supervisor, he was very angry and shout at me, “April, I want to tell you something, if you can’t accept the assignment, please tell me in private, not in public. Remember that I’m the supervisor in this office, you refuse to do my order quickly in public, how can I have the power to lead the team?”
I said, “Sorry, sir, I don’t have that meaning. I apologize to you for my rude action. Next time, I will notice my behavior.”

General speaking, persuader doesn’t have advantage of psychology. Before the communication, you can follow the word “5P”: Patience, Personality, Position, Pride, and Place. You must have the patience and know the personality, especially his or her position is higher than you, please take care of their pride in a good place to make them feel free. Then, make sure 3W: What happen; Who has the connection to the case; and What’s the effect of this matter. In the end, take the good timing to persuade them.

When you discussed how to promote cooperation, please don’t criticize each other, please find out the advantages of each other and balance point. Please be clear, simple and forceful. You have to get the point in a short time, otherwise the listener not only feel confused but also hit back at your point easily. Yes or No is to depend on your question and good reason. Guess what! What happen to those hot potato documents? I persuaded my supervisor successfully; I passed the difficult task to my coworker who speaks excellent Japanese.

Love (C4 Speech by Trinity Cao)

Without love, life is the seasons with no summer. Without love, life is like rock ‘n’ roll with no drummer. Without love, we have nothing. Have you ever thought what love is? Now Hollywood wants to make you think they know what love is, but I'm telling you what true love is. Love is not what you see in the movies. It is not the ecstasy. It is not what you see in that scene. Do you know what I mean? I'm telling you right now. True love is sacrifice. Love is thinking about others before you think about yourself. Love is selfless not selfish. Love is laying down your life for another whether for your brother, your mother, your father or your sister. It is even laying down your life for your enemies. That's unthinkable, but I’ve heard a touching story about this kind of true love.

When I studied in elementary school, there came a transferred student. Her name is Amy. She was quiet. Amy laughed and ate less than most classmates. She sometimes suddenly cried loudly in class and made everyone shocked. Most of my classmates thought that Amy was a freak. Someday I heard two of my teachers whispering about Amy. Amy was one of the survivors in 921 earthquakes.

My teacher asked me to take care of her because I was the class leader at that time. I tried my best to chat with her and eat lunch with her. At last, she told me what happened about her horrible experience of 921 earthquakes. In the midnight of twenty-first September in 1999, Amy fell asleep. She was woken by a severe shake. She heard many people shriek because of fear and despair. Amy’s grandmother took her hand and rushed out of their houses. Amy meant to save her pet cat in their house, so she struggled to go back. Amy’s grandmother stopped Amy to do so, she herself dashed into the caving house without hesitation. After Amy’s grandmother ran into the house, the earthquake became more and more violent. All of a sudden, Amy’s home collapsed. Her grandmother didn’t escape from their house in time. Amy broke down at once because she thought that she killed her grandmother. Fortunately, Amy’s parents survived this devastating disaster because they worked in other county. After the earthquake, she felt guilty deeply for her grandmother’s death. Although Amy’s parents tried their best to comfort her, she still wept every day. Finally, Amy’s parents sent Amy to another elementary school in order to help her to forget the misery.

Amy also told me that she was a stubborn girl before the earthquake. She rebelled her parents and didn’t care about if she hurt her parents’ feelings or not. She often argued everything with her grandmother though her grandmother

brought her up hard. Amy was a picky eater, so she was skinny. When she was little, her grandmother needed to use a spoon to feed her during the meal. She took her grandmother’s love for granted. Amy didn’t understand how much her grandmother loved her until she lost her grandmother. Amy also realized that her grandmother loved her so much that she went back to the crumbling building to save the pet for Amy. After earthquakes, Amy learned that she has to cherish her people around her. Amy is not selfish anymore. She is considerate now. She is also willing to help others.

What is love? Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, it always perseveres. Love never fails. Love is everlasting. It is eternal, it goes on and on, it goes beyond time. Love is the only thing that will last when you die. But ask the question why? Do you have love?

Two Education Problems in Taiwan’s Secondary Schools (C4)

Charles Lu

August 4, 2010

When I taught at a junior high school, one day I asked my students, “Why do you study hard?” I got some funny but weird answers. One student said,” If I don’t study hard, my parents would get angry with me.” One student said,” If I get bad grades, my neighbors would look down on me.” Another student said, “If I don’t study hard, some day in the future I may roam in the streets like a stray dog.” Almost all of the answers were negative. Only one student answered in a positive way. He said,” I want to make a lot of money.”

When I think about this scenario, I realize that students having this sort of thinking are common. There must be something wrong with our education. Why do students study hard just because of outside influences instead of having the desire to learn? Why do students study hard just to make money instead of helping others? I think about these two issues for a long time and finally reach to the following conclusions. The problems are the curriculum and moral discipline. Here is the reason why.

1. Students get bored with their studies because the curriculum is rigid.

Here in Taiwan, all textbooks in secondary schools are edited by the Board of Education. They hire experts to compile the textbooks. These specialists focus on the system of knowledge, ignoring the students’ interests and abilities to learn. Students spend all their time on these textbooks. They memorize the contents to get good grades. If they can get good grades, they can go to better universities. If they can graduate from better universities, they can get better jobs with higher salary. That’s the goal of their whole lives.

2. Students lack moral and ethical disciplines.

Most of our secondary schools in Taiwan neglect moral and ethical teaching. When students enter the workforce, they care only for themselves. In many workplaces, you can see people who just work for a paycheck instead of a purpose. They have no vision, no dream, and no ambition. They float along in life with a lot of complaint. This phenomenon is a failure of our education system. In our educational philosophy, there is no big-picture thinking, no inspirational and philanthropic spirits. Our education has created a lot of selfish, arrogant, short-sighted, and narrow-minded monsters. That’s the reason why our society is full of apathy and disorder.

The education system operates like a running train. Though there’s something wrong, it’s impossible to stop its momentum immediately. Yet if we acknowledge the problems now, when the train comes to a junction, we can change its course. It’s time to reform our education system.

It is possible

C4 speech by Kevin Chuu

Ladies and gentlemen, today I want to tell you a story about success. "Sailing to success?" Of course not! I am not going to repeat the theme of last year’s fall convention. But it did inspire me to make this speech.

What is it? Wait a second. Look! Here's the picture of me three years ago, and this is the picture of me right now. Yes! It is possible! Can you tell the difference? 20 kilograms plus! Right! I am telling you how to loose fat successfully.

As you can see I got 20-kilogram extra weight before. Do you have any specific idea of 20 kilograms? Here's the 2 liter bottle of water which weighs 2 kilogram. 20 kilograms means ten of them. It’s just equal to this 20 liter water tank.

Can you imagine that I have kept carrying this water tank over my back 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for almost eight years? No matter when I walked, ran, climbed the stairs or even slept, I had to carry this tank. My heart, blood vessels, and other organs also had to support it every second without any break.

Eleven years ago I was a 66-kliogram young man with bright future and perfect body shape. I married with the woman I loved and got two lovely daughters. Everything went fine except my gradually increasing waistline. When I first noticed it, my wife and I had a thorough discussion about how it could happen. Here are the conclusions we've gotten:

1. Cook by ourselves
Being a newlywed, my wife and I cooked together to enjoy the romantic and harmonic feeling between husband and wife. That was fine except we both were rookie cooks who didn’t know how to control the volume. We always cooked too much and, of course! It was me who had the responsibility to finish it—eat them out.

2. To be a garbage trunk
The situation was getting worse after my babies came out, because I also had to finish their leftover. Especially the nutritious baby foods didn’t taste very good, and most of the time my kids couldn't finish them. So, being a daddy with traditional value of not wasting any food, I always crammed those foods into my belly unconsciously. Then just as they were touted in the TV commercials, I grew up! I mean I swelled together with my babies.

3. Too much pressure and lack of exercise
Because we had to work during the daytime and take care of kids at night, we both were exhausted and lack of exercise. In addition, the more I felt tired and pressured, the more I wanted to eat, and the fatter I became. It was just a vicious spiral.

4. wrong concept
When I was getting bigger, my wife also got some vigilance and warned me "Do not eat too much." My excuse was always "Oh! Please, Honey! Not like other bad guys, I don't have any lousy habits like smoking, drinking and gambling. May I just keep the humble and harmful pleasure to enjoy a little delicious food after a hard day of work?" Of course! My wife couldn't reject this pitiful request. But it was absolutely wrong. I mean my fault, because food could also kill me, and even faster than the alcohol and tobacco.

Therefore, day after day my waistline had expanded from 32 to 41 inches, and all my clothes had been changed from size M to XL. However I didn't take it very seriously until one day I stood on the scale.

I can still remember that very moment of my life, just like a slow motion of movie, the pointer swept to 90, shaking over there. My daughter exclaimed "Wow! Daddy, you are 90 kilogram! When will you reach 100?" My heart sank. To a little girl like her, 100 was a magic word which meant perfect. To me, it was a spell of bad omen. I could tolerate 80, maybe 85. 90! Unacceptable! 100! I would rather die.

I am not kidding. Because when I got the health check report, I knew it wouldn't be long if I didn't take any action. The report was bleeding—full of red marks such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol level, high urine acid and other high indices of various chronic diseases.

At last I made up my mind to reduce my weight. Making decision was always simple and easy, however, doing it was another story. It was a long and winding way full of funny and terrible experiences, and that will be my C5 speech next time. Mr. Toastmaster!

Live in the right speed

C4 Speech, By Paulina Chao, 2006/8/1

Picture: what is the first thing you do in the morning when you wake up? Is it opening the curtains? Brushing your teeth? Doing exercise? Or worrying if you can complete today’s work? Actually, the first thing we do is looking at a clock. If it is still early, we would go back to the bed. If it’s late, we would jump from our bed and rush to work. We live in a time river and time flies. How can we fight against the clock?

The industry is doing us a big favor. We live in a world filled of machines. We have washing machines, vacuums machines, and dishwasher machines to save time from housework. We don’t need to wash all our clothes by hand like our grandma. We have telephones, computers, and fax machines to make our work more efficient. Airplanes and cars can take us almost anywhere we want. These inventions leave us more time to enjoy our life. They change our lifestyle and extend our life in a special way. As we can clearly see, machines are useful for fighting against the clock.

Three hundred years ago, someone predicted that in the future due to technology, we would only need to work two to three hours per day. People will spend most of their time for entertainment. The words “fast, quick, rush or hurry” will disappear. Unfortunately, the prediction has been proven to be just a dream. The truth is the opposite. Life’s footstep is becoming faster than ever before. The word “karoshi” was coined few years ago. This Japanese word means "death from overwork”. People lead a life with such a busy pace, which they pay for with their health. Although machines save us time, we still overwork to fulfill our desires in a competitive world.

Increased pressures and anxieties are causing mental and heart diseases. People are starting to review their lives footstep. They find a slower life make us happier and healthier. The master coffee advertisement says “We should waste our life on the beautiful moments. Sometimes, just with a cup of coffee or tea to drink slowly, we can smell it by our nose and taste it by our tongue. Sometimes, just listen to a lovely song, we can imagine the world. In these moments, we can tell “this is life!” We can enjoy more about life when we slow down. More and more people start to lead a slower life and enjoy it. We can see this trend from the rage of yoga, meditation, jogging, and handicrafts. The Spanish slang says “Those who run faster will reach the grave firstly”. I believe no one likes to speed up under these conditions.

Now we come to one question: what is a suitable speed for living? The fact is, there is no certain standard on how fast or how slow you should be. Your speed should be whatever you feel is comfortable. We should learn how to control time, and not be controlled by time. We can combine a fast life and a slow life together, making it balance like playing music. Include allegro, moderato, and lento for the rhythm; working fast, while eating and reading slowly. These choices are all up to you. The life will be diversified and rich when it goes in different tempos. Let us play a right rhythm for our life.

Tsoying Toastmasters Club C4 Speech

My Secret Garden: Gmail box

Rebecca Chou
Have you ever been in some chaos, feeling exhausted, depressed or empty before? More and more working and other kinds of pressures, the phenomena of suicide and credit card debt happening everyday, negative news from the media including increased pricing, high unemployment rate and other political arguments or other incidents ever make you feel tired of your life, your job, your family or anyone even anything else because you want to find a real quite place, somewhere you can take rest, clear your mind or even not to think any problems or troubles at all? A secret garden is what you need.

My secret garden is a place where I can say anything I want to a stranger who is my secret friend on the Internet. I met him in a chatting room of Spanish studying website. At first I just hope to find someone to practice my Spanish or I will probably forget how to say it since I do not have any chance to use it after graduation. I apply a new email address in google and all our emails are kept in records because the gmail box has a huge capacity and you do not have to delete a single email.

The reason why I chose him to be my pen pal is because of age and gender. We are almost at the same age and I think I could understand more about different opinions from a male friend. I am sure that we do not have any generation gap but only cultural difference. In the beginning I did not expect that I would know such a nice person. As you know, only dinosaurs will make friends through Internet no matter under which purpose. However, I think I am lucky because he is a very considerate and mature dinosaur.

Calling him a dinosaur is unfair because I have no idea of his looking. I told him that it will be better that we do not know each other’s faces because when one day I go to Madrid, I will not be afraid that someone on the street will call my name. He agreed therefore I told him that he is a friend of mine without faces. You can imagine that what you will tell your friends is what I have told him. Surprisingly, he gave me lots of good suggestions.

For example, when I told him that I am not interested in working in my current company, he suggested me to take notes everyday to find out the good points of this company or of my job. Then I found I could be happier staying in the same office after adopting his idea. We also discussed about marriage and other things and he impressed me a lot because of his sincere attitude toward my question.

A friend in need is a friend indeed. Although he is not around me, every time I feel bad I will tell him. I also told him some secrets, which have never been told to others even my families. Sometimes I take time to write to him in my office especially when there is not too much work to do that day and I found it is a very good way to kill my time. Because he is someone who can listen to my complaints or strange ideas about everything and others will never know them.

Have you found your own secret garden where you can be relaxed and comfortable, where someone is there for you, where someone will listen to you and give you suggestions or comforts? After working a whole day, after your lows, I hope you all can find this place. It will make you feel full of strength and confidence again. Are you tired of current status? Try to find your secret garden and you will never know how much it will help you.