│MUN│What is Model United Nations?

Since English is one of the official languages of UN and we use English as official language in MUN conferences, I'm going to write this post in English. :)

Well, what is Model United Nations? According to our good friend, Wikipedia, it's " an educational simulation and academic competition in which students learn about diplomacy, international relations, and the United Nations. MUN involves and teaches research, public speaking, debating, and writing skills, in addition to critical thinking, teamwork, and leadership abilities. Usually an extracurricular activity, some schools also offer Model UN as a class."

Last September, when I received the notification of GLMUN, aka Ginling MUN, searching for new members, I immediately signed my name and went to the interview cuz obviously, to be able to get into GLMUN, you need to make sure you got an interest in international issues and you got basic English skill, since we talk in English when we're having MUN lessons.

The interview was quite creepy, I have to say. The interviewer, who is also the instructor of GLMUN, kept a really straight face and talked in a really serious tone. It was super quiet in the classroom that you could even hear a needle falling on the ground--well, there was no needle in the classroom. The first students went on stage and the interviewer asked her some questions. I couldn't hear what the girl was saying but I could hear what the interviewer was asking quite clearly. And the questions he asked were--let's be honest, it's super easy. He asked something like,"You said that you like to listen to music, what kind of music do you like?" or "please choose any random paper on the table in front of you and read the sentences out loud."  Easy, huh?

Well, the questions he gave me weren't that easy, though. I remembered almost every single details when I was on the stage and interviewed by him. I walked on the stage, he said hi, and obviously I said hi, then it started.

He looked at my resume and read out the things I wrote on my resume with an unbelievable tone, "Back-packed to SFO, Paris, Frankfurt and Singarpore?"

Yes, that's what I wrote on my resume. I remembered the first question was: What's your experience about English? So I wrote down the fact that I've back-packed to those places cuz I think travelling helps me improve my English a lot.

"Yes."I answered shortly.

"Tell me your experience of SFO."

"Well that was my first time to go to the USA, so I was pretty exciting." not 'til I finish speaking, he interrupted, "then why did you get British accent?"

I rose my eyebrow--nah this is too dramatic, I didn't and I don't know how to haha.

"Because my english teachers are British and South African, so I guess that's why I got British accent." that's true, that's part of the reasons why I got British accent. The main reason? Probably because I watched to many British films and videos, duh.

"And you said you're learning French, can you introduce yourself in French?"

"Oh, really. K, fine." then I DID introduced myself in French. And never did I imagine, a teacher filmed it and posted it no her facebook. You'll never understand how shock I was when I saw that video.

Then he asked me some other question that I have no idea about. So being an honest person I am, I simply answered, "I'm sorry I don't know what you're asking."

He shrugged, "Okay, then. That's why you wanna get into GLMUN, right?"I nodded. And after he giving me a comment, which is "impressive", the interview was over.

Then obviously, I got into GLMUN. The first semester was serious, because we were introducing UN structure, international relationship and etc. I tried to reach some goals in every class. For instance I tried to express my opinion of a specific topic in front of people, or I represented my team to go debate on whether we should keep death penalty or not.

After five months of MUN lessons, I participated my first ever conference, which was held by NanShan High School. I remember how nervous I was---I was literally shaking when I went speaking on the podium. And I even say "disguintished", which was supposed to be "distinguished". But in the end, thanks to my dearest partner Sid, we won "Best Public Speaking", and that opened our journey to participate in many other conferences.

Over 2015, I've participated in five conferences, and they are TCMUN, GLMUN Mock MUN, DYNAMUN, EMUN and THMUNC. These conferences all have different topics, and some of them even used different kinds of rules of procedure. I've learnt so many things and got many new friends(who are basically all older than me). What's more, these conferences opened my eyes and lead me to another level of caring about international issues.

Because of  the convenient internet and transportation, the whole world has been connected together. A simple thing that happened in a country could possibly cause a major disaster in another one. Being a kid that live in this era, we should care about what happened or what is happening in the world. Therefore, joining MUN is my way to understand every issue impartially, since we all have to represent different country in different conference. As we care about what would affect Taiwan and how to make Taiwan better, we should also stand on others' shoes and think what we can do to help make to world a better place.