Fay Xu is the Training Support Officer for the WomHen Project at MCWH.
What are you enjoying doing at the moment?
I am just enjoying the time of year it is. Autumn is my favourite season. It also happens to be my birthday in Autumn and I usually celebrate by going somewhere like Bright, to look at the lovely, coloured Autumn leaves. This year I wasn’t able to travel and I was feeling sad about it until one day, was driving in my neighbourhood, I found these trees along the quiet road turning into gorgeous colours. It was more beautiful than lots of attraction spots! Sometimes a joyful and peaceful moment can be as simple as driving down a road with one piece of nice music playing in the car.
If you were a super-heroine, what powers would you like to have?
I was going to answer that if I had a super power, I would want to be able to erase people’s unwanted memories. By coincidence, my daughter asked me the same question, and she gave me her answer. I found it more interesting:
“If I was a super-heroine, my power would be teleportation because I could go anywhere in the world and never be late. I could also teleport to different countries and visit without having to pay for an airplane ticket. I could also discover new parts of the universe because I could just will myself to teleport to an undiscovered part of the universe. Also, to teleport, you need to have some control over time, which basically means, if I could teleport, I could time travel as well, so it’s basically two in one.”
What’s your favourite word in the English language?
My favourite word in English is empathy. I don’t think we have it in our language originally, the one that we use in Chinese is the translation.
I like this word because it means more than people just feeling for others. The more precious part is the willingness to support other people on their level wherever they are in life to make them feel comfortable and accepted.
There are other ways to say this, like “walking in another person’s shoes”, or “seeing a situation through their eyes”, or even “listening to other perspectives instead of jumping to conclusions”. I like the fact that a word can contain all these meanings, as a way of explaining a key ingredient in effective diversity, equity and inclusion.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a woman from an immigrant or refugee background?
I miss my parents. Last year was quite hard for me, for many reasons, and I really missed that I couldn’t have my parents physically beside me with their unconditional love and support. Their care and comfort have always been my strong backbone whenever I am feeling weak and vulnerable. I wish I could fly back to visit them some time soon.