By Tye Joel
To most people, history is a boring subject but not for an IT engineer like Jan Chan. His passion for history is indeed inspiring!
Uncle Jan’s appreciation of history has developed into a passion for the subject. “When I say it is a passion, it is because it gives me lots of inspiration,” he said in an interview with MiniZine reporters.
“It is something to enjoy as a hobby," he added. "We can engage in a conversation with friends during our spare time.”
Uncle Jan explained why he loves history. “History helps us to better understand more about where we are today and where society will hit in the future," he said.
When Uncle Jan started to develop an interest in history, he was inspired by the things he learnt. This motivated him to learn everything about history. Reading history books was a great way to acquire more knowledge about history.
Although he had a hard time remembering every single point of the topic for school examinations and memorizing the years of the events, he did not give up but kept persevering through all the hardships that he experienced.
Curious, I asked him what his favourite history book was. His reply, “It’s the book titled, `Ten Plays,’ written by Euripides, a Greek author of the same standing as Shakespeare." I have never heard of the name, Euripides. I guess Uncle Jan's interest in history is what makes him so knowledgeable.
In his concluding remarks, Uncle Jan told us that very often intellectual topics such as history do not get the appreciation and attention that it deserves. He made a comment which is very true.
“It would be a sad day if we lost all knowledge of history,” he said.
I think Uncle Jan has inspired me to learn more about history and about ourselves from the past and into the future. He is really an interesting guy, won’t you agree with me?
(Joel is 11 years old)