Publicly Speaking

Herbert Lee, ATM-G, Area Governor of Macau Toastmasters wrote in verse of a recent visit by a couple of distinguished Sing Toasties. We know Herbert is a talented speaker and now we know his poetic skills.

"Tonight we welcomed DTM William from Singapore
He taught us a lot but we wanted more.
With many years of experience under his belt
We could see how his words & ideas melt
He told us everything we wanted to hear
How to craft a talk and overcome our fear
He touched our mind and also our heart
And encouraged us to make a flying start
And instead of giving us the usual show
He motivated us to get ready and go
His style is unique and in a different class
He puts things together like playing jazz
He humbly asked me to evaluate his talk today
But it's rather hard for me to say
He is fluent in English and poutonghwa
And his words have meaning not blah,blah,blah
My point for improvement would be to go deep
Give us some ideas to use and keep
His words & message have great merit
And exemplifies the tm spirit
We're anxious for William to come again
And take us to another plane
Please come again with another tune
We'd welcome you to Macau-real soon!"- Herbert Lee, ATM-G


Do 'class' and 'jazz' rhyme? Perhaps in a Amerian accent. And 'belt' and 'melt'?? Hmm...I should allow some creative licence here. May I suggest instead 'gel' since mesh doesn't rhyme?

BTW, in the photo, Herbert is on the left and the other dude on the right is not William Lim. Thanks, Neil!

I see that Graduates & Professionals Toastmasters Club are promoting an event titled
"South African Toastmaster visiting GAP". See details.

Is that it? Now, if she were from Mars, that may be worth announcing to the world, but she was last spotted in Central and an appearance in Wan Chai is really not all that earth-shattering!

Having visitors from overseas - or for that matter, other clubs - is surely a healthy practice and something to be encouraged always.

But...

Why promote this as some special event? It makes the idea of having visitors almost freaky and something extremely out of the ordinary. So, you have a GE who is not your member? OK, good! No need to send out a press release.

One with inaccuracies, too. In fact, I know the lady in question and she's visited our club several times. She is not South African!! She is Indian and lived in Hong Kong for many years - she is like many of our members: a global Toastmaster. From Earth, that is!

Well, it's been a while. What's been happening in the world of Hong Kong Toasties? Most notably, the Division contests were held producing some interesting results.

Now, I have to confess I wasn't there, but here are my thoughts on the results...
Matchy Ma makes a comeback (where has he been?). Always a popular speaker but a little theatrical for my tastes, though it's been a while since I've seen/heard him. A shame Jimmy didn't make it this time. I enjoy his speeches a lot; some great humour . His style is just so natural and unaffected unlike so many of our so-called 'good' speakers.
As for Division K, I did hear PC's speech at Area level and I reckon he's doing great for a relatively new Toastmaster.

So how come the Evaluation H Champion of Champions only came in 3rd?!!

I am always suprised by contest results. This year, the organisers went to great lengths to select judges who were impartial. But that excluded anyone who had competed even at club level and been knocked out. It excluded - as always - area governors and all other organisers. And it excluded - of course - other contestants. That doesn't leave much choice!! And it still can include members of Chinese language clubs, which I believe is barmy. If we have no official selection citeria, let's at least exclude those who do not choose to use the language of the contest in their club!!

OK, let's see what happens in Singapore. Please send in your reports!

Contests are well underway and I am happy to publish those results I am privy to here. If I have enough info, I will sort by area.

TGIT :
Humorous Speech Contest
1st: Christine Lau

Teresa Lee, Area H5 Governor of Oasis Toastmasters, with her 8 month old daughter, Natalie & Neil Sy, Lieutenant Governor of Marketing, with his 2 month old daughter, Sabrina (having a nap or camera shy).

The Honky Toasties of tomorrow!! AAhhh....

It is generally accepted wisdom that what may be funny in one culture is not necessarily so in another.

A Toastmaster from Singapore, Eric Feng, wrote an article for a blog for Americans. Read it here.

He's talking about speaking to Singaporeans from the perspective of a 'foreigner' speaking to a homogeneous group of Mandarin speakers. That would almost never happen - either in Singapore or in Hong Kong!
,
Unfortunately, it's very easy but dangerous to make assumptions about your audience. We don't know what languages they speak, whether they are foreign, local, married, divorced, straight or gay.

Anyway, reading that article prompted me to reflect on the quirks of "Hong Kong Humour". As I see it:

Physical humour is more effective than verbal humour. Word play, sarcasm, irony, satire and the like do not go down so well. Costumes, props, exaggerated body language and drama do get lots of laughs.

Humour in the context of boy/girl relationships is funny. Most speakers choose to situate their story in a torrid love affair or a failing relationship. If not, the boss/employee partnership comes in second.

And, as mentioned in previous posts, speakers sometimes pokes fun at others because of their differences - in looks, origin, sex, etc, which, to my astonishment, often gets the audience laughing.

Going back to Eric's article, we have to remember that humour is culturally bound. And, therefore, to be funny when speaking to an audience outside of Hong Kong, or even Asia, requires knowledge of their culture and, ideally, experience.

What do you think?