No need for hard skills

“I was told at the beginning of the Mentorship Programme that my mentor, Mr Steve Loeb, is a music lover just like I am. I am a huge fan of rock and heavy metal music while he is a jazz lover. We share our love and passion for music through our interactions. He invited me to a jazz bar where we chatted with the performers there. And later I invited him to the Annual Performance of the HKU Jazz Big Band. I also send him songs that feature a crossover of Chinese traditional music and Jazz music. Through our interactions, I got exposed to more Jazz and other types of music that I would not normally explore myself. As I am a guitar player, these ventures into other realms of music benefit me too and it is definitely enjoyable to share music with my mentor.

One thing I learnt about him is that he is not afraid of trying out new things. He recently went to a trip to Vietnam where he explored the largest cave ever found in the world. It was a physical demanding journey and was not one without dangers. Still, he was more than willing to accept the challenge and went on this adventure at the age of a retired businessman, not a young man in his twenties. It turned out that the trip was well worth it. I appreciate that he has the courage to be adventurous. I also shared with him and shown him photos of my trip to Poland.

Through this Programme, I really make a new friend. Steve is definitely a gentleman who is nice and willing to share his ideas and experience with me. We chatted about literally everything, from music to sports, from social issues to our families. It was a treasured opportunity for me to befriend a person who has a very different background from my other friends. He is more senior age than most of my friends, he comes from a foreign country, and he worked in a business field that is different from my background of medicine studies. It is not like that I learnt any hard skills or immediate practical knowledge, but it was a very enjoyable experience that let me learn more about different aspects of life of a person who is so different from myself and my other friends.”

Mentor since 2016-17: Mr Steve Loeb
Mentee (2016-17): Henry Wong Cheuk Pang, MBBS Year 2