Most of the time, people will see me as a quiet and not very talkative person. That’s quite true. I am not a very sociable person when in a crowd of people, especially among strangers. But sometimes I am quiet because I prefer to listen to other people’s opinions instead of expressing my own. This quiet side of me originated from the time when I was still in high school.

I was a member of the high school debate team for four years. Debating is a competitive sport that requires you to participate in intensive training and countless mock debates before making improvements in debating skills, whether it is the skills to present your case or the ability to make impromptu rebuttals to arguments. I didn’t really give many thoughts to what exactly debating could bring me. I did it simply because it was fun. But looking back, my debating experience has been very beneficial to my career in the film industry. Like I have mentioned in a previous article, pitching plays an important role in the process of kickstarting a film project. A new director will often pitch for his or her project to explain the film concept clearly to investors and attract capital support. My experience at the debate team helped me a lot in this aspect. Another important ability I got from debating is the ability to look at the world from different perspectives. In debate rounds, you don’t get to choose to be the proposition or opposition. The matchup is done by a draw. That means you can’t really predict whether you will be the proposition or opposition. Then there is no absolutely right stance for you as a debater because you will be defending whatever stance is given to you. You can disagree with the motion. But at the end of the day, you still need to find a case that you believe in to win the debate. When you realise there is no absolutely right or wrong value in the world, you learn to see the world with open eyes. When we are discussing film stories, we also often say there is no entirely evil character in the film. If a character is born evil, then the character will be very plain. The audience won’t be able to find any justification for the character’s wrongdoings and therefore can’t feel empathetic towards the character. This is a process of building empathy. You don’t have to agree with people’s stances, but you need to understand why they hold such stances and why they make certain decisions.

Debating also taught me to listen. In a debate, the argumentation and engagement are evaluated in accordance with a set of formal adjudication rules. Your case, your argumentation will all be assessed and scored. In real life, it’s another story. No matter how rational and how persuasive you are in an argument, no meaningful result will come out of it if the other person is being irrational and emotional. Bitching and swearing in a debate round can only get you penalties. However, if you are in a confrontation, you will lose the fight most of the time even if you are being rational and try to explain the rationale of your stance in a calm manner. Or sometimes people just wouldn’t listen to you. When people are just being stubborn about their opinions without any evidence except for sentiments to back them up, you can’t really achieve anything by presenting evidence and data. For example, on one occasion I was involved in a discussion on gender roles. The other person believed that the gender roles we have nowadays must be intrinsically correct as they wouldn’t exist for thousands of years if they are wrong. However, this sort of argument fails to address the discussion between gender and biological sex. Men and women are naturally different in terms of their biology. But it doesn’t mean the current gender roles are correlated to the biological differences. Social norms are artificially invented where human errors are unavoidable. Besides, social norms inevitably neglect minority and individual needs. All men are born different. We should enjoy the right to decide our own future. The ill part of social norms is that they limit people’s freedom to make decisions. We need to break these norms. It’s not about revolutionising the way how the world works, but rather, providing people with the freedom to choose alternatives without having to worry about being discriminated. But irrational people won’t be able to take in these arguments. They won’t even make refutation to your arguments. What they will do is just repeatedly telling you how the world works in their perception. This upsets me because I just can’t figure out why people won’t spend some time really thinking and analysing certain issues and why so many people aren’t willing to tell others how they truly feel.

If eloquence and logic can’t change stereotypes, then perhaps emotions are a good tool to do so. Films are another way out for me. I can integrate my opinions and values into my films. But of course, people might not agree with my values anyway even after watching my movies. Still, it’s not really a problem. At least, I am able to voice my opinions through my own channel. For me, it’s already enough.