Read ME

Su-Rey Peng ( 彭書睿 ) is 31 years old and comes from Taiwan. On board for almost 5 years, he heard about the Doulos for the first time thorough a famous speaker from the UK who was in Taiwan for a conference. While being his host Su-Rey learned that that man himself had been on one of the ships for a year when he was young and he recommended it to him.

Su-Rey’s motivation to join the ship was that it was an opportunity to be a blessing. “I want to be a blessing to the people in the real distance. Many would dream about it or talk about it. But we, Taiwanese, need to have somebody go for it.”

His first job on Doulos was in the galley (ship’s kitchen) and pantry, later he joined the Public Relations team for two years as the coordinator. Then he became the Media Relations Officer and the assistant to the director for about a year. He recalls the lessons learnt on the ship: “You are not as important as you thought. The ship will not sink because you are not around. However, you are still a crucial part in the organic international community. Never say ‘I had experienced it all!’ The best and the worst are still yet to come.”
Since May this year, he accepted new responsibilities as the Partnership Development Manager, leading the PR/Tour and Communication teams.



About life onboard, he says that in spite of each other’s short comings, crewmembers learn to appreciate each other’s differences and to look for similarities in the diversity. “It opens the window to the world. You don’t read about these cultural issues from the textbooks; you live with it,” adds Su-Rey.

Su-Rey says that the benefits of working onboard as a volunteer is that people get much more than they deserve. “You get to know your limitations and get stretched. Someone used to say ‘the art of living is know how far to go. And then, to go a bit farther…’ Well, spending two years to know how far you can go and get much further with free accommodation and food. It wasn’t too bad, was it?”

This young man has experienced many things onboard the Doulos in these five years, such as real poverty in East Africa, witnessing the desperation of Dalits in India, facing the cameras of the world-wide media, shaking hands with both celebrities and the homeless on the same day. “Doulos is a story itself. The highlights and lowlights are all remarkable chapters of my life.”

The impact he wants to make in the world around him is through the book he is writing (in Chinese) for those who had been supportive to him, and also for those who had never known or experienced the wonders from the other end of the ocean. “That is the best contribution I can humbly offer for the 1.5 billion Chinese people. Other than that, walk the talk when no one’s watching as if everybody is watching. If you want to be a history maker, you need to start from your own history,” concludes Su-Rey.