On 24 June 2023, Melo Social members were very excited to have a half day visit at Yim Tin Tsai and a fireside chat with Louisa Mak. Yim Tin Tsai is a Hakka hamlet with 300-year history. Everyone here has the same surname - Chan. We started off the tour with a local geologist and explored the culture of the village. During the tour, we visited the Ching Po School, St. Joseph's Chapel and the salt pan.even happier when you think about the process rather than the outcomes.”
Surprisingly, it was a Catholic community, and all the villagers were baptized. Besides, women in the villages were responsible for farming and livestock, while men were responsible for fishing. All villagers lived here peacefully before moving away due to the growth of Hong Kong. The most memorable part of the tour was the salt pan visit. It is the only salt pan in Hong Kong today. Different from the traditional boiling method, salt here is produced through solar evaporation, which is more sustainable.
After the local tour, we enjoyed our lunch at Chef de Yim Tin. David, our moderator and a 2021 fellow, invited Louisa to share her personal journey.
Miss Louisa Mak Ming Sze, a Cambridge law graduate, started her entertainment career after winning the Miss Hong Kong 2015 pageant. Louisa left a TV broadcasting company and became a consultant at Mckinsey in 2020. She is now a co-founder of Project-Melo and aims to create social impact.
As a Cambridge law graduate and Miss Hong Kong winner, Louisa understood talented people were everywhere. It is hard to compete with those people who are innately qualified. Therefore, Louisa chose to crave out her special identity by pursuing careers in both management consulting and the entertainment industry. Her experience serve as an inspiration for us identifying our uniqueness and areas of advantage, given the fierce competition in the professional world and the possibility of someone taking our place. The key takeaway is to find our niche and establish our distinctive position in the professional world.
Many people will set goals to push themselves. It seems to be an effective way to reach a higher level of success. However, everyone has a chance to fail no matter how smart they are. Louisa shared her story about getting frustrated when she failed to achieve the desired outcomes. People are not always satisfied with their present achievements. Once achieving the goal, they will set a new aspiration again. The spiral is endless. The new goals are getting more difficult to be attained and people end up being frustrated. “It’s very hard to be happy if happiness depends on whether we achieve our goals. We always have new goals, and we may fail to achieve them.” Instead, she diverted her attention on the processes, “You will realize you gain more, and even happier when you think about the process rather than the outcomes.”
Making the right life choices is not always easy. Many people will question our choice and keep us stuck. Similar to Louisa's journey, from Miss Hong Kong to becoming one of the co-founders of Project Melo, the path was never a straightforward one. Most importantly, we should trust ourselves and know what we are pursuing. Remember – only you have the power to determine your future.
