Cherish different perspectives

“Andreas is a very vibrant individual who was very willing to provide me guidance on various aspects of life. In particular, he squeezed some precious time from his packed schedule to spend time with me and share his views on what I am doing. I remembered there was one time when I was talking about my family issues to Andreas and he paid very close attention to what I was saying, suggesting solutions for me to adopt. This is an issue that I would not usually talk about with people outside my family, but given Andreas’ role as my mentor, I decided to open up to him. It was quite interesting to listen to the views of a non-Chinese person regarded family, which was another benefit of having Andreas as a mentor. In his view, Chinese people often keep genuine emotions, or issues of intimacy, to themselves, which contrasts with Westerners who are less conservative in this aspect. Having Andreas as my mentor, I achieved the most important goal of the mentorship programme – to gain a new perspective on life, and on that I would like to sincerely thank Andreas.

Andreas is the Deputy Consul General of Switzerland in Hong Kong, so naturally he invited me to numerous cultural activities, such as concerts. As a business student who plays ice hockey, cultural activities are not anywhere near my area of expertise. For that I must thank Andreas for taking me to these concerts, because they definitely enriched my knowledge of arts and aesthetics. More importantly, because of Andreas I became more aware of art events and will now make more visits to galleries and museums. Nonetheless, my personal transformations were made possible because of Andreas’s inspiring and influencing character.”

Mentor: Mr Andreas Rufer
Mentee (2017-18): Keith Yuen, BBA(IBGM) Year 2