This summer I helped out as a campaign volunteer for one of the candidates who is running for the Engineering Functional Constituency seat in the Legislative Council election on the Civic Party ticket.

I remember how I was fairly skeptical or, to say the least, didn't expect anything prior to my volunteer, because I wanted to approach it with an open attitude. Prior to this I had not much, if not, minimal knowledge about Hong Kong politics and governance in general.

Working with Civic Party turned out to be a very memorable experience. On the one hand, I got to try out various things from the mundane office jobs, filling out application forms, following up on email correspondences, as well as helping out with canvassing. I now have the purple polo shirt for memory's sake.

As the campaign unfolded, I got to watch first-hand almost from start to finish (I was able to attend my candidate's official announcement of his candidacy) the inside of a moderate size campaign and a thorough experience of helping an accomplished person run for office. But it's funny how (and this is quite true), that like any job, staying all the way till the end matters. And, it's also quite true that a lot of these just takes time.

The legislative council election comprises of two bodies: the general body (where candidates run for geographical functional constituencies), and the professional functional constituencies. In itself, the legislative council is a somewhat outdated government body in the sense that there is very uneven distribution, much less skewed representation of the civic person. Everyone is eligible to vote for the geographical representative, eligibility determined by Hong Kong residency and having registered as a voter. However, those who belong to a professional class and are therefore eligible to vote for that functional constituency representative therefore have an additional vote to cast for the Legislative Council election. Insofar as number of votes per person is concerned, the present voting system clearly favors person of educated background, or to put it in another word, have acquired sufficient qualifications to practice and pursue their profession.

But back to my experience. I especially appreciate being able to watch and take part in various campaign activities as well. For example, on the very first day when my family friend took me to the CP headquarters to meet up with Christine and Albert for the first time, I was surprised to see how nice everyone was at the center. Later on, I had the pleasure and privilege to be introduced to Professor Kwan, a respectable and distinguished scholar in Hong Kong, retired professor of CUHK, and chairman of CP. Just meeting these people made me realize the sheer amount of teamwork and leadership involved in running a successful campaign. I also appreciate meeting various people from diverse backgrounds but who obviously share enough passion for politics, if not, the civic duties and responsibilities as a citizen. In this respect I had an amazing amount of exposure to people from 'all walks of life'. Let me give a brief introduction of these people:

Christine: campaign manager, close friend of A.L., and member of CP. Christine is a very thoughtful, not to mention intelligent person. She is a branding consultant and part-time lecuturer at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Christine also keeps a very well-informed and well-read blog, mostly commentaries on the plight of things. It's not hard to tell that she is very involved and a very caring person.

A.L: LegCo hopeful and chartered engineer. A.L. is very involved in NGOs, having served as Chairman and Committee member for several non-profit organisations. His focus and dedication is his efforts to promote sustainable development, especially and in particular applications and practices that promote environmental conservation and sustainable development. From what I have been reading up on A.L it's not hard to see that he has many genuinely good ideas to bring to this year's election. Must be nice for a change and a breath of fresh air. Having worked for him these two months, it's not hard at all for me to wish him all the best of luck, as I do support him and hope he wins this election. (In fact, I will positively say that this decision was made after I had attended a debate held for all Engineering FC candidates hosted by RTHK).

I'm also including people who work at PC (that's the think tank that periodically publishes reports and recommendations on sustainable development projects).

CPL: noted journalist specialising in documentary films. CPL recently received a grant from CUHK to produce her upcoming feature documentary that follows that lives of 10 people who have exceptional stories to tell following the Tiananmen massacre. CPL will select a handful of subjects who has the most compelling stories who will make the strongest impact on the audience. She will also be interviewing, amongst various people, Wong Dan, noted student activist expelled from China and who fled to the U.S. to study at Harvard University. This feature film is to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre.

Jeffrey: Friendly, and outgoing colleague from PC.

Angel Tam: also an exceptionally outgoing person. She is a communications specialist and has done various translation works at the PC.

Zoiee: Although Zoiee joined about a month later, having her around makes my volunteer work so much fun. And, I'm happy to have made another friend here. Plus, she "knows how to eat" so I also really enjoyed going to some eating places I would not have known myself. Plus, Zoiee is a good in explaining to me about living in Hong Kong.

Kelvin: another team member who's also doing academic research. It's nice to know that there are people involved in these kinds of projects.

At the end of the day, what I strongly believe that makes each of us a responsible civic person is to care enough about politics for our own good, but not too much that it starts to politicize our whole lives. Just a healthy dose of politics (and I emphasise care rather than interest in politics) is suffice to make us aware of our choices and make us aware in the sense of taking my Sosc class that we are a part of society, and this revelation is as profound only if we choose/allow it to make an impact on us...I'm admire these people who are involved in some ways or another, because it shows a lot about their passion and the fact that they care. And, it also shows that we can also be optimists (sorry if this is starting to get cliché).

True, there are some things that I wish I could have done better, but it's over now and the least I can do is think and learn from what I've been through.