At East and West Learning Connections, we have been holding an online salon for registered members once a month since July 2022. Members and their families are welcome to take the opportunity to meet each other on Zoom, share recent experience, encounters, thoughts, and hear a guest speaker’s stories. Continue reading “EAWLC Member Salon Minutes”
Category: Blogs
Notes for the 2024 Lunch Coaching Hour on Business Communication
Click to learn more and register this free coaching series and view coach Ric’s profile.
How to be an Effective Communicator for Presentations
October 24, 2024
There is an old saying in Chinese, “To stand like you are a pine tree (Zhan Ru Song),” symbolizing steadiness. Today, Coach Ric introduced us to a new tree to mimic during presentations: the palm tree. It represents both steadiness and natural flexibility. The session was packed with theoretical and practical advice, including RSVP (Rhythm, Speed, Volume, Pace) for voice and PPP (Pleasure/Pain Principle). My personal favourite, though, is his honesty about how he, a native speaker and communication coach, still practices his speeches and looks for improvement constantly. Check out this month’s material here.
Continue reading “Notes for the 2024 Lunch Coaching Hour on Business Communication”How to Order Chinese Cuisine Authentically to Get the Best of It
How to Order Chinese Cuisine Authentically to Get the Best of It
By Yang Wang
April 15, 2024
I hosted an eating-out for a blind women’s group last month on St. Patrick’s Day. In the group each member takes turns to organize an outing, usually to a restaurant of their choice.
I invited members to a Chinese restaurant, the Asian Legend in Scarborough. It was a bit of travel for some members who lived in the Downtown area or in the West end of the city. But hey, there were lots of authentic Chinese restaurants in Scarborough. And people in Scarborough spent that much time travelling to Downtown or further for work or entertainment all the time. I really wished we had had more subway lines extended to this east end of the city! The biggest truth was I had a ski accident in February, and was still having some headaches and dizziness so I took the advantage of being a host, and chose a good and relatively familiar restaurant that was nearby me. Anyway finally Five of us sat down at a Lazy Susan round table, and began to order.
Continue reading “How to Order Chinese Cuisine Authentically to Get the Best of It”
Notes for “EAWLC Dialogue with Ed Shiller”
By Ed Shiller at EAWLC, April 27, 2024
I’ll begin by sharing with you a few observations and experiences.
I believe that prejudice and racism are acquired traits, perhaps emerging as a consequence of the human instinct to form tight-knit communities of like-minded people.
Continue reading “Notes for “EAWLC Dialogue with Ed Shiller””EAWLC Outstanding Service Award Winners
East and West Learning Connections (EAWLC) is run by volunteers. Without their talents, commitment, and hard work, all the programs we have offered to the public just cannot possibly come into reality. Every year at our Annual General Meeting, our Board chooses a number of winners to receive the EAWLC Outstanding Service Awards based on time commitment, task impact, and organization involvement in the previous year. The award does not apply to board directors, advisors, or guest speakers, even though they are also volunteers to whom we are deeply grateful for their help. Each year there will be friends generously donating some cool items so we can give the winners as a gift. The winners are the representatives of all EAWLC volunteers who all come to help us with a giving heart for the community. Thank you so much, members, volunteers, and donors, for your great support and contributions!
2024 EAWLC Outstanding Service Award winners
Happy Loong or Dragon New Year and Family Day the Canadian Way
By Yang Wang
February 19, 2024
CCB Toronto Visionaries, a peer support organization for the blind, organized a trip to the Lunar New Year Reading and Tea at Montgomery’s Inn yesterday. The event was a celebration of the Lunar New Year (Feb 10-24) and the Family Day (Feb 18). Montgomery’s Inn was a museum in Toronto, turned from a historic inn built in the early 19th century. It was free for visionary members but was attended by a full room of people from across the city from all kinds of cultural backgrounds, age groups, and professions.
Continue reading “Happy Loong or Dragon New Year and Family Day the Canadian Way”
Living with Cultural Barriers: A Speech, a Poem and the EAWLC / 我的文化差异体验
By Yang Wang
I was invited to give a speech at Don Heights Unitarian Congregation on October 15, 2023 to introduce East and West Learning Connections (the EAWLC). I shared my personal stories and observations of cultural difference, barriers for first generation immigrants, problems the immigrant community face to realize the two-way diversity process, and what the EAWLC had been doing to help address those concerns. Thanks to the engaging audience, their frank and thoughtful questions, plus interesting stories made my wish for a meaningful conversation come true!
Continue reading “Living with Cultural Barriers: A Speech, a Poem and the EAWLC / 我的文化差异体验”EAWLC Business Etiquette Coaching on Executive Presence: Excerpt and Notes
The notes by Ellen Meng
Click the following link to download the high-definition file.
Business Etiquette Coaching Hour_Notes and Thoughts on Executive Presence by Ellen
The excerpt by Ric Phillips
Continue reading “EAWLC Business Etiquette Coaching on Executive Presence: Excerpt and Notes”
On The Spring Festival, Chinese New Year and Lunar New Year: Different Perspectives Compiled
The article I wrote, followed by comments from friends, gives some light to different concerns and perspectives around a recent hot topic in the Chinese community. Thanks a lot to my friends who have shared their thoughts frankly; their names are listed in the Acknowledgement at the end. I found the rethinking and learning process very beneficial to me.
–Yang Wang
EAWLC stories: Kai Black and Canada in music 东西联学社嘉宾故事之 Kai Black与“音乐中的加拿大”
作者：汪洋
Kai是我去年五六月间碰到的。那时我在上一门radio broadcasting的兴趣课，老师请了他来演讲。他在讲座最后播放了一个自己制作的广播小品，讲述小时候父母互不说话，父亲经常在家中放一首“让我走吧”的歌。长大后有一次和朋友去k歌，他唱了这一首，朋友们纷纷叫好。他第一次知道自己唱歌还不错，但其实也许只是因为这歌萦绕在他记忆里太深，让他太有感触而已。故事很短很简单，因为真实，在音乐中变得格外动人。Kai有视障，事业上倒并未受到多少影响，现在是加拿大广播公司CBC的音乐制片总监，开创了很多有影响力的节目和音乐节。他身边都是生龙活虎好手好脚的人，平时很少能接触到残障人士。有一天，他想到这个问题，就抓起电话打到CNIB（加拿大最大的盲人机构），了解其他盲人的生活和工作状态，看有什么可以帮忙的。后来他在CBC推动设立了CAPE项目，每年招收几名残障人才带薪实习，帮助他们积累工作经验。我当时并没有跟他交流，但印象深刻。Kai让我想起Tuesdays with Morrie这本书里的Morrie。他们都出身于有缺憾的家庭，缺少爱的环境，但并没有落入恶性循环，反而长成一个特别富于爱心的人。 Continue reading “EAWLC stories: Kai Black and Canada in music 东西联学社嘉宾故事之 Kai Black与“音乐中的加拿大””