Agnes Chan, a famous pop singer in Japan, lectured on the 8th of October to the audience of more than 800 people at one of the biggest city halls on Sado. She was born in Hong Kong and came to Japan as a singer when she was seventeen. Now as a UNICEF ambassador, she is making a great contribution to the children who are forced to live in difficult situations in war, poverty, etc.
When she was a junior high student, she was involved in a volunteer activity to visit handicapped children, and experienced that she was warmly welcomed by them. She said she had a kind of inferiority complex, but this experience changed her.
She wanted to give food to them who are hungry. During the lunch time at her school, she started to sing, asking other students to give her a leftover of their lunch. In this way she obtained the food to bring to the handicapped children. It was the beginning of her career that she sang not for her self-satisfaction, but for the joy of the abandoned children.
She also talked about some children whom she met in Ethiopia, Thai, Cambodia, Iraq, etc. who were in extremely difficult situations to survive. What struck me was that she remembered the names and stories of them, and was continuingly working for them.
While I was listening to her story, I remembered that I also received a lot from the children who were living in particularly difficult conditions, in Bangladesh, the Philippines, Pakistan, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. I asked myself, "What have I done for them?"
Agnes Chan said, "When I was just thinking about myself I felt life was difficult. When I thought on my own, I felt life was beautiful." She noticed that she received a lot. So she is giving a lot. This balance seems to make her full of life. I think I received a lot, but haven't given enough. That might be the reason that I don't have enough energy. For me to write this web log is a kind of exercise to give, to take a balance, and to make a good circle.
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