My AIESEC journey 2.0: IGNITE conference 2016 in Vietnam

Date: 24th - 29th July 2016
Venue: Can Tho, Vietnam
Event: IGNITE Vietnam national conference 2016


I was stranded in KLIA2 airport for almost 10 hours to wait for the flight to Saigon. Then, I met these three people who were going together with me!
For the last night of the conference, of course no sleep was allowed. We stayed awake and went to floating market which is nearby our conference venue. People in Vietnam are truly friendly and full of humanity. I do not afraid of taking grab car or grab bike alone here, cause all of them are super friendly although most of them do not speak English. But still, they are friendly towards us who do not know how to speak Vietnamese.

Of course I felt super excited as this will be the first time for me to take a plane to go to another country. So if you asked me why Vietnam? So why not Vietnam? (credit to Vivek)

I didn't take much photo about the living place or scenery, cause what matter me the most are always the people. So of course I took a lot of photos with people here! (Actually I'm the kind of person who is lazy to take photo, most of the time I am waiting others to take the photo...)

What was different between the national conference in Vietnam and Malaysia?

Culture. VIETNAMESE really like to dance. Seriously. No kidding. Since morning, square dance for 20 minutes, until night activities still damn energetic to compete for ABDC (AIESEC BEST DANCE CREW). Dancing is not Malaysian culture I guess. No one treat square dance as their identity and put much effort on it. 

Culture. Not dancing this time. But the family culture. There is a guy from AIESEC HCMC, he said, when they recruit new members, they emphasize that "AIESEC will be your second family". 

At that moment, I started to reflect. Ever since I joined AIESEC, I always treat this place as my workplace, I have to strive for the excellence, to make my team proud, to make myself proud. And I treated most of the AIESECers as my colleagues, so if you asked why I seldom hang out with them, that's the reason. I do not feel connect and do not want to feel connect. I often withdraw with the groups as I see this solely as the workplace which allows me to gain all the knowledge and skills that I want.  

Then I started to reflect a lots of things. Sometimes we blame people for not caring us enough, we blame people for not cooperating each other, we blame people for being not considerate in a team. We blame people. How many times do we realize that we ourselves actually could do something to make things happen in a different way. Instead of waiting people to concern about us, we can be the one to give more care and support to the others. And how many of us actually do that?

Then I continued to reflect.  

I didn't get much input but, however I did get a lot of A-HA moments. People around here keep sparking the emotion and inspiration in the bottom of my heart, calling me to do something that I always want to do but refuse to do it. I agreed with Jia Wei that joining conference is always about meeting people to have conversation and make connections. The inputs that they gave in the conference, you will forget one day soon. But connections won't. It is a long lasting relationship.

I met this girl who named Alex, who is from the S.E.P project team of IGCDP in AIESEC in HCMC. We shared a lot of our own stories, the ups and downs of our life, and of course the dream that we are going to strive for. She is tiny, but I could see a huge courage from her, which let me believe that people live wildly and bravely because of dreams. And I wish all the best to her to turn her dream into reality.

The best part of the conference was mingle with all IDG (International Delegates). I originally do not expect that I could meet so many AIESECers from different countries. In fact, I met friends from Thailand, Cambodia, Canada and of course Vietnam. People are talking about the people in their country, the things they usually do, and the way the people act in their countries. To all of you out there, please master your English cause soon you will find out that it is totally amazing to feel connect to each other from different places around the world. And of course I do really appreciate this AIESEC platform for allowing me doing so many amazing things out there.

Crew from AIESEC in Penang! I felt proud and appreciated their presences in this meaningful conference. Watching them taking initiative and be proactive to share and learn, that was a great feeling for being one of the TLP in the conference. I do hope that the fire that had been ignited in their heart will be a long lasting one.

That was part of my reflection and emotions throughout this conference. The spirit of the AIESECers here ignite the calling in my heart, and now I know what should I continue to strive for in the future.