Saturday, 3 May 2025
Thanksgiving is the theme of this month. Speaking of thanksgiving, a speech given by a singer immediately comes to my mind. Her speech had even made headlines in various news media. The speech that I am referring to is the speech given by the Hong Kong singer Joyce Cheng in the Chill Club Awards in April.
She said, ‘I have always been brooding about my title reported by the media. They always call me “the artist Joyce Cheng”, but actually, I have always been working so hard to earn the title “the singer Joyce Cheng”. I did everything to prove myself. I tried everything in return for a chance to sing on stage. I appeared on TV dramas, movies, reality shows. I tried to be the TV presenter, or even putting on costumes as The Majin Buu from Dragon Ball Z. It was a fun experience. However, everyone still recognizes me as “the artist Joyce Cheng”. Therefore, I started my own Youtube Channel and vlogged every part of my daily life online to try to gain your recognition as “the singer Joyce Cheng”. No matter how hard it is to gain your recognition, I will keep trying until one day, I will be called “Hong Kong singer, Joyce Cheng.’
After listening to her speech, I started to think back on what she had gone through. Joyce was a girl who grew up with the harshest criticisms from the public. Being the daughter of the most influential TV presenter in Hong Kong, every move of her was criticized heavily. She was being told she was ugly, she was fat, she was a girl relying on her family’s fame etc. All the negative comments you could have received as the daughter of a celebrity. Probably on this day, you can still hear some negative comments about her on different media. Looking back at her journey growing up, her success today was a result of multiple rejections and failure in life. Even though she had a remarkable family background, she could not escape from failure. In her speech, she thanked the most was not the people who helped her, but the failing experience which led her to today’s achievement.
At times, we all have experienced failure. During this exam period, I can see some worrying faces outside the staff room after the exam. It is true that having failure is an unpleasant experience. No one would enjoy it in their life. It doesn’t feel good at all when people keep pointing out the mistakes that you have made. We all try to avoid it. However, it is also true that failure toughens our soul. It is failure that educates us the most. It is failure that scaffolds our path to success. In this thanksgiving month, let’s be thankful for our past experiences. No matter if they were good or bad, always be thankful for having these experiences to shape who we are today.
Ms. Leung C. Y.
6 July 2022