How many of you don’t like to have pleasant surprises in your life?  Raise your hand.  OK, nobody!  That means I’ve chosen a good topic!
　

I love to eat oysters.  Raw oysters with cocktail sauce and a hint of lemon.  Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, I had a friend, Christine, who hated them.  She thought they were gross. 

But later I learned that she hadn’t even tried oysters before!  So I said to Christine, “Hey, this is really unfair… to oysters.”  And I decided to bring her to a restaurant called Joe Fortes that served all kinds of delicious oysters.  To her own surprise, Christine discovered she really liked the taste of oysters.  She even asked me to bring her to the restaurant again.  And I agreed… as long as she was paying.

Since I was young, I’ve always thought of Chinese herbal medicine as unscientific.  If I got sick, I would always go to a hospital or clinic that practiced western medicine. 
　

But it just so happened, I had an allergic reaction that caused me to sneeze in the mornings.  And it was a condition western medicine could only control, rather than cure.  So my grandmother said “James, go to a doctor that practices Chinese herbal medicine.”  And I said, “No!”  “James, go to…”  “No!”  But then I thought to myself, I’ll try Chinese medicine, and if it works great, if not, at least my grandmother would stop… nagging me.
　

So I went to the doctor, he looked at me… felt my pulse… really didn’t seem to do much.  Then he gave me a prescription for dirt… sorry, for Chinese herbal medicine that looked like dirt.  When I got home, I poured myself a glass of water to take the medicine with… and then another glass of water… and a glass of juice… just in case the medicine really tasted like dirt.  After taking the medicine for a couple of weeks, however, my condition not only improved, my allergic reaction was gone.  That’s some pretty powerful dirt, if you ask me.
　

Life has a funny way of teaching us things.  Eleven years ago, my parents asked if I would like to go study in Canada.  At the time, I had just gotten into a top high school in Taiwan.  All of my friends were here, and everything was familiar.  Canada, on the other hand, would be different and full of uncertainty, but also exciting and full of potential.  Maybe the potential to meet beautiful, blonde girls in bikinis.  Don’t pretend like you haven’t thought of this, guys!
　

Anyways, after much deliberation, I chose the unfamiliar but potentially more rewarding path, to study in Canada.  And it paid off more than I could have expected.  I made even more friends in my new home, and became president of the Taiwanese student club at my university.  I learned new language, new culture, and new perspective.  I also learned that it’s too cold in Canada for women to wear bikinis all that often.
　

Contest Chair, fellow Toastmasters and guests, the moral I learned from these experiences is to give yourself the chance to be pleasantly surprised.  Be open to trying new things, and don’t be afraid of change.  When you jump at the opportunities you get, you’d be surprised at how often you’d be surprised – in a good way.
　

Now, this isn’t just limited to things like food or medicine.  It also includes people.  Is there a coworker at your office that you’ve always kept distance from because he always wears the strangest-looking ties?  Or because the way he speaks is really funny?  Well, maybe this person likes golf just like you do, or Korean TV drama just like you do, or Jay Chou just like you do, or money just like I do.  But you would never find out, if you never talk to or interact with the person.  You would never find out, if you never give yourself the chance to find out.
　

So give yourself the chance to be pleasantly surprised.  We’ve all heard this message in some form, but not too many people are really open to fresh experiences.  But you know who’s really good at trying new things?  Children are.  As we get older and supposedly wiser, perhaps we start to think we already know what to expect from life.  We think we have it all figured out, only to look back one day and realize how little we knew at the time, and how much we can still be surprised by what life has to offer.  So go ahead and break up your routine.  It doesn’t have to be something drastic, like quitting your job, or eating fried grasshoppers.  But take a new road home from work tomorrow.  Go to a restaurant you’ve never been to tomorrow.
　

Here’s a quote that I like very much.  It’s by the French Writer Marcel Proust.  He wrote, “The true voyage of discovery exists not in seeking new landscape but in having new eyes.”  It doesn’t always have to take something new to surprise us.  Our daily lives are full of things waiting to be discovered with new eyes and enjoyed.
　

So let yourself be pleasantly surprised.  Just say yes to things.  Taste things, sample things, try things.  And love to try things.  Treat life like an adventure.  Be like children.  Life is like ice cream.  There are too many delicious flavors to be ordering vanilla all the time.  That quote was mine.