Anyway, what’s happened since then? A lot. For one, the Sing Tao Grand Finals. Paul’s got a review of what happened, but here’s what REALLY happened in the prep room LOLOL
The motion was about the world cup (thanks to them, none of us can now watch the world cup without cringing), and whether it should or should not be broadcast live, free to air on TV. The clash was between South Island School and La Salle, with DBS chairing us (LOL we had 5 chairpeople)
During the week of preperation (or week of utter hell) I learned all about football, the world cup, broadcasting laws and whatnot. I remember the first thing I thought of when we got the motion was “crap. I have to debate about football.”
To say the least, I was not happy. We spent most of day 1 and 2 of prep teaching me about football and the world cup, because ironically, my speech was about national pride and personal love of football. Nice.
Thanks Paul and Ivan for the support and everything, we couldn’t have won without you :D It was an amazing week of prep (at times) and even with the frustration (we changed our case about 23939485 times) and seeming hopelessness of our situation, we made it. :D In the prep room, Ivan and I were totally freaking out, with me attempting to calm down by applying and reapplying random makeup, then taking it all off and Ivan getting REALLY annoyed at me for doing that, then going to the Chinese finalists and asking them for food :D :)

Then Saturday, Axiom! :D We went in with the aim of winning one match (“we” being Pavan, Saharsha and mee :) We ended up winning….LOL Epic finals debate :)

And in the news: Thailand D: THEY DESTROYED CENTRAL WORLD. I’ll try write about that soon :) There’s also the epic fail where the 5 masterpieces were stolen in Paris… and also NK and South Korea. I wonder how that will play out. It’s really time someone took a stand against NK -_-
I GOT NEWW SHOES! They’re SO PRETTY :D

Anyhowww – The Grand Finals will be held on the 4th of May 2010 at Queen Elizabeth Stadium. If you want to watch, go download the ticket redemption form and exchange for tickets with Sing Tao Daily mastheads or Standard Student mastheads. Go to http://www.singtao.com/debate/ There’s information there.

It will be between La Salle College and South Island School. I’m looking forward (not really…for the preparation) to a good debate!

For anyone that heard my Interp Reading- theres been another earthquake in China. There are probably other Xiao Pings stuck in there, please help them so they don’t have to suffer the same fate Xiao Ping in my story did. Thank You.

Overall
* 1st – Zenia Framrose – Canada – 745.33
* 2nd – Adam Litman – Canada – 740.25
* 3rd – Colleen McCutcheon – Canada -734.08
* 4th – Cameron Ewing – USA – 733.07
* 5th – Saad Sohail – Pakistan – 730.33
* 6th – Heather Pickerell – Hong Kong – 725.58
* 7th – Thomas Diment – UK – 724.47
* 8th – Easton Sheahan-Lee – Canada – 723.83
* 9th – Aidan Fishman – Canada – 723.12
* 10th – Lisha Jeena – South Africa – 722.83
* 16th – Sachin Srivastava – Hong Kong – 719.60
* 20th – Benjamin So – Hong Kong – 718.00
* 24th – Tiffany Chung – Hong Kong – 715.83
* 25th – Griffith Cheng – Hong Kong – 715.58
* 44th – Geoffrey Liew – Hong Kong – 695.93

Debating

* 1st – Jessica Hichens – South Africa
* 2nd – Cameron Ewing – USA
* 3rd – Adam Litman – Canada
* 4th – Aidan Fishman – Canada

Impromptu Speaking

* 1st – Thomas Diment – UK
* 2nd – Aidan Fishman – Canada
* 3rd – Adam Tohn – USA

Interpretative Reading

* 1st – Adam Litman – Canada
* 2nd – Jan Adrian Muller – South Africa
* 3rd – Zeenia Framroze – Canada

Persuasive Speaking

* 1st – Saad Sohail – Pakistan
* 2nd – Tamara Murat Khan Saleen – Pakistan
* 3rd – Adam Litman – Canada

After Dinner Speech

* 1st – George Alexander Charalambous – Cyprus
* 2nd – Cameron Ewing – USA
* 3rd – Marcus Ruddle – UK

English as Foreign Language

* 1st – Eglė Nefaitė – Lithuania – 697.75
* 2nd – Vykintas Glodenis – Lithuania – 696.88

Hong Kong Results :)

Results for Hong Kong following the 2 rounds of each category
Debate

* 2 – Heather – 186.83
* 19 – Griffith – 179.25
* 21 – Ben – 176.00
* 37 – Biffo – 173.50
* 46 – Sachin – 171.60
* 57 – Tiffany – 168.00

Impromptu Speaking

* 4 – Sachin – 186.25
* 5 – Heather – 186.063
* 11 – Ben – 183.93
* 14 – Griffith – 183.16
* 26 – Biffo – 179.3
* 30 – Tiffany – 177.916

Interpretive Reading

* 6 – Griffith – 185
* 12 – Sachin – 183.67
* 14 – Tiffany – 183.5
* 17 – Ben – 182.67
* 48 – Biffo – 175.27
* 65 – Heather – 171.25

Persuasive Speaking

* 3 – Tiffany – 186.42
* 12 – Heather – 182.17
* 26 – Sachin – 178.08
* 44 – Ben – 172.67
* 52 – Griffith – 168.42
* 54 – Biffo – 167.83

Reflections: I’m so so SO HAPPY I came 3rd in Persuasive- a shock actually, tbh :) And I’m SO SO SO ANGRY ABOUT INTERP READING :( I would have been top 10 without the time penaltyyyyy :(

I’m sitting at home in Hong Kong, jetlagged as hell and totally mute because I’m not used to the pollution after returning from Lithuania. I’ve spent most of today sleeping (ohhh exams tomorrow) and generally not being very productive.

It has just been such a truly amazing trip. The grand finals were pretty epic, thought to be honest there were some aspects that were just a tad bit disappointing. The after dinner speeches were awesome (: And just talking to everyone around the world, I learned so much.

This “summit of youth leaders” (LOL HAHAHAHAHA) was amazing. The people we met, the things we did and the talk we talked about was so different from anything I’ve done before. Every round of competition pushed us to try new things, to develop new styles and to meet new people. Every day, we woke up (Heather….LOL) after our alarm clock went off, then Biffo came to knock on our door, then room service did their wake up call, then Sachin walked over to tell us they were going to breakfast. But even living on 4-5 hours sleep a night didn’t stop us from doing the same thing every night ;)

Lithuania is such a beautiful country. I truly do not know when I’m ever going to see such a massive expanse of grass again (lol to all the people who laughed at our stupid pointing and dancing on grass). From what I saww of Vilnius before I tripped (sorry!) and was thrown into a taxi (thanks Heather and Pov) it must have been an amazingly beautiful city. It’s such a developing city, you can feel the love of the people for their country and home, even without talking to them.

HAHAHA – I just remembered the second last day when we ran out of shampoo and I was showering in Sachin/Benso’s room and Heather walked out in a towel and Griffith freaked out. LOLOLOLOL

I don’t think any of us will ever forget Griffith’s rendition of Tila Tequila :) Or his swan. :)

I don’t think I can sum up what happened at worlds in words. It would be an insult to the people, the country and the event if I tried, so I’m just going to thank people and write about myself (:

Thanks to team HK – Heather – for just being there, putting up with me as a roommate and my emotional outburst on the final days and being debate mama (: Biffo – for your epic photos and hilarious comments ;) Griffith – for making us laugh and being live entertainment :D Sachin – for letting me use your shower LOL no for letting us invade your room and putting up with everything ;) Benso- for your organization skills that kept us alive in Lithuania.

Special thanks to Mr Allen – it would NEVER have come true without you. Thank you SO much for putting up with all of us, from me bursting into tears at the finals, to griffith (jokes, jokes). But on a serious note – thank you for being our guide and our coach and for giving us this opportunity to shine on the international stage. We hope we didn’t let you down :)

Thank you to all the people I met in Lithuania, from the Pakistanis to the Lithuanians. This would not be the same without you all. Thanks to Karoline and Sonja <3 I miss you two soo much. Dom, Marko and Adrian- LOL SORRY for trashing your room on Monday, and Biffo breaking the beds LOLOLOLOL. Pov, El and Simonas- thanks for taking us around Vilnius and for being my debate partners :) (And thanks Pov for looking after me when I fell over LOL) Victoria – you’re awesome :) I love you :) Hanna, Hawon, Tae, Ji Yun :) the Pakistanis for the spar debate (and terrorist comments!) on day one and just EVERYONE else that I met, talked with, debated with – (LOL Andris – “why x 3) and know now. I miss you all. Hope to meet again, someday, somewhere, sometime :)

BTW – I ranked 24th in the world :D :D :D

With love from Hong Kong

xo

xoxo

Sorry, internet is totally erratic here :P I’ve just been around trying my hand at different things. It’s really awesome here. :) To all my new friends here <3 <3 <3
Day 3 was awesome! I did another pro china LOL SPEECH for impromptu but it worked! LOL it was NOT a massive fail for once, and I was like :D :D :D

Then debating- AWESOMEEEEEE I had two Lithuanian partners Elle and Pov :)
I liked Elle's comment "omg, I'm so scared. :S" Me: Why?! Don't worry! Elle:"I'm not scared of the debate, I'm scared I won't understand the Australian…" Me: LOL

Yeah, then the second debate: EPIC. We had the motion "THBT developing nations need a strong dictatorship"
We were opp. We were like, ok about it until the other team talked about Hitler…. Long story short there was an epic EPIC fight over that. Anyway – messy but awesome debate.

Today: The break was announced. To be very honest? I was really shocked. Shocked. I didn't break for interp reading, but I broke for Persuasive speech into the finals. To be honest, I think I messed up the speech, but whatever right? I was crying after it, I just felt so bad for messing up the finals. Oh well. Whatever right? I made the finals! :D

Team Hong Kong had 7 breaks, which is pretty good :) Good luck to the Grand Finalists!

I’m not even joking, it was so amazing. The food and hotel are good, the people are awesome and our performances have been good so far. I did Persuasive and Interp reading on day one, and it was preettyyy good (pray for me!) and today was persuasive, interp reading and impromptu. Obviously, I messed up impromptu. No duhhh :P But that was ok, it wasn’t like EPIC FAIL it was just – LOL wtf tiffany made 3 mins LOLOLOL.
So it was ok. No epic fails yet ;)

The flight was horrible. Literally, it felt like a million years just to get to Beijing. I was SO SO tired. But I couldnt sleep. Some idiot in front of us kept turning and glaring. -_-

But my reading was pretty good. Like, I must say so myself. I think I made an ajudicator cry :P I really really hope I did well- I am pretty happy with myself just for being able to beat my personal best! I can proudly come home to Hong Kong and tell people that I did my best, and that I truly did well in my reading. And that makes me happy :D

My speech was ok lah, not stunningly good but pretty good. Not bothered about it.

Impromptu. LOLOLOL. My topic was “Misfortunes shows those who are not really friends” Two mins prep, 5 min speech. The judge was like- “Good structure, good ideas….no content.” – basically in English – YOU BSed for 5 MINS. With good structure and clearly..but still BS. WTF WOMAN.
I was literally laughing as the judge said that. I hate impromptu, if you havn’t noticed ;)
Lithuania is SO beautiful. It’s all grassy, and green and awesome. And to Abby+Celine and Mich–LITHUANIA IS NOT IN AFRICA. LOL.
Im in a practice debate right now. I’m too lazy to participate and I want to sleep. I think I’m slightly sick, so meh. BUT IT’S
SO
AWESOME
HERE :D

P.S THEY HUNG OUR PANDA D:

xo
Tiff

But it’s the persuasive and reading that I’m meh on. I’m trying to memorize the speech and I keep talking about the wrong thing :P mixing everything up is nawtttt good!!!

I’m totally packed now! I’ve got tons of stuff in the case :P (I cut the shoes down, they didn’t fit -_- xD I literally had to sit on my stuff to get it to all fit. (I’ve just realized all the glass makeup bottles in there? whoops!)

But I’m SO EXCITED :D I’m torn between not sleeping tonight and dreading everything, and the pure amazement that I’ve made it this far. I have a feeling that everyone on our flight is going to be pretty annoyed when they realized they have the Hong Kong public SPEAKING team on their early flight:P To y’all, sorry! We really do love you!

Throughout this time, I’d like to thank everyone who’s listen to my speech, listened to my hilarious attempts at impromptu and corrected my grammar (Thomas!). To the team, Heather, Ben, Griff+Biff and Sachin. GOOD LUCK! :D And a special thanks to Mr Allen who trained us and gave us advice throughout AND is taking us. Thanks t’ Ben who dropped in to give us advice:) Thanks t’ Paul – just for everything you gave me ;)

To everyone going to Lithuania tomorrow, all the best and GOOD LUCK!
xo

P.S – keep watching this space! I’ll be documenting Lithuania for the next couple of days!

HKPDS ’10 IS BACK. Helping out with the organization, I’m just trying to spread the word :)

We’re looking for sponsors and a venue : SIS isn’t available during the summer because of renovation work (again).

And we’re in need of manpower + money. Anyone with sponsor links PLEASE talk to me. We’re trying to make it happen!..

SPREAD THIS POST (: We need all the help we can to make it happen!!!

Find me at tchungers@hotmail.com

By 2020, 1 in 5 Chinese men will not be able to find wives. (assuming everyone wants to get married)

Shocking, isn’t it? In China, the gender ratio has slowly been creeping up, from 108 boys to 100 girls in 1985-89 to 123 boys to 100 girls today. Biologically there are more males than females, as males are more likely to succumb to infant/childhood mortality and thus to compensate – more boys are born. However, this statistic has been horrifically skewed in some parts of Asia where economic limits or government policy has forced family planning upon families. AKA – there isn’t enough money to feed the multitudes of children, so get rid of the baby girl before she’s born. Or the One Child Policy – Only one baby allowed? Abort the unborn baby girl!

But we cannot lay the blame fully upon the One Child Policy, though it is certainly a problem that needs to be fixed. It could be said that the Chinese Government had to pick the lesser of the two evils: Either have population spiral out of control or impose a strict policy to limit this population. China has already been unable to stay self sufficient (in grain), and is slowly growing more and more dependent on grain imports, to the growing alarm of environmentalists and grain exporters (With our population of one billion, we could eat the entire world’s grain in no time). Without the One Child Policy, there would be uncountable catastrophic problems facing the central government.

That is not to say I am a proponent of the One Child Policy, or that it is without flaws. I am not, and it is not. But we must acknowledge its cruel necessity.

Delve into the historical context of China, and its attitude towards Women. Confucius taught that one’s main aim in life was to produce sons to continue the family line. To not was the ultimate sin, the ultimate filial disgrace. Daughters were useless. Women were taught to be obedient, silent and modest. Then, foot-binding which inhibited women from walking and any freedom whatsoever. She could barely walk out of her room, never mind escape or think of rising above oppression.  Money in the house would be used to educate and feed the sons, ignoring daughters who were a burden unless they married above their rank and brought “face” to the family.

These attitudes still exist today. There are too many stories of baby girls left to die on the steps of their houses, or drowned. A peasant woman who has a baby girl is shunned, sometimes ignored and starved by her in-laws for bringing dishonor to their family. Suicide is now the most prevalent cause of death for young rural Chinese women: many who are bullied to death by in-laws or unable to live with their conscience after having killed their unborn child, or seen their own flesh and blood ripped away from them to be sold or quietly smothered. To some, baby girls are not human: They are worth nothing.

With the the massive disparity between the sexes comes multitudes of social problems. Firstly, many of these men will now not be able to find wives, which will no doubt rock the stability of a community that struggles to find the balance nature struck out for us. We may see a rise in violent crime, especially against women (rape, sexual assault.. etc) which are usually perpetrated by young males. We may see women being kidnapped to become brides to desperate men. Whatever happens, we know that this disparity will cause problems and that we must curb this before it is too late.

For the 100 million baby girls, it’s already too late. Join the fight against infanticide to save our sisters before it’s too late.