On the afternoon of November 4th, 2017, the semi-finals and finals of the 13th Chinese Language Contest for Luojia Autumn International Culture month of Wuhan University came to a close in Room 401 of the School of International Education. The four teams selected from the week before’s fierce and exciting debate contest prepared themselves for the finals. After three rounds of fierce debate, the championship runner-up for the Chinese Debating Championship for this year was finally decided.
This week's competition was led by Qiu Anqi, head of Wuhan University English debate team, followed by Zhou Yu, Yu Xinlei, Wang Xinyi and Ruan Meichen and other students. After each round of debate, they made wonderful comments on the performance of both teams, and guided the debaters and spectators on how to better use their Chinese to debate.
International student debaters
The contest judges from Wuhan University English Debate Team
The competition also received strong support from teachers such as Hong Dou Dou, Sun Pingping and Li Zhideng. At the same time, the mother of one of the debaters for team seven, Fuben Zi Fu, had also flown in specially from Japan to support her daughter.
Following last week's debate topic, citing a famous Chinese proverb, on whether “the foolish man should move mountains”, the semi-finals held this week focused on the topic of "whether the internet should be opened or closed." Debaters of the four teams were fully prepared within a week. This is particularly evident when the chairman introduced the debate competition system and both parties debated their self-introduction fluently. The second round followed with team seven against team eight, the highlight debate of the session. After introducing themselves, they joked that they "hoped after the contest that they could still be able to add the Wechat of the other debating team, to make new friends," this wit and sincerity were well fitted to the theme and spirit of the debate. The counter-defenders responded flexibly, "I hope that we can find a time to meet to make this new friendship". Then in turns, the two debaters introduced their opening speech, followed by, stage of defense, summary of defense, free debate, summaries and final stages of the debate. The two sides argued against each other, fiercely confronting each other, and drew quotations and dictums to support their arguments, giving the audience a fantastic show. In addition to the debate itself, there were often accompanied moments of light-hearted humour and laughter.
Students’ Self-introductions
Wuhan University International students debating their positions
Students providing counter comments to their opponents
The eventual outcome of the race, after the judges’ difficult decision, taking into account the individual scores of the four teams, were team 7 and team 8’s smooth progression to the final round. At this time, Qiu Anqi decided the final topic of the contest, wanting to ignite the students’ emotions for the debate, it was decided the final debate topic would be: "should girls take the initiative to chase boys?". After twenty minutes of preparation, the final kicked off. Team 7 insisted that the pursuit of happiness is the right of girls, the other side, team 8 believed that men and women, taking into account physical and psychological differences, determined that girls should not take the initiative to pursue. After some intense see-saw between both sides, the final team to win the overall competition was Team Seven.
At the end of the competition, the teachers presented awards to the winning teams and players. Team 7 (Wuzi Cheng, Fuben Zibu, Baur, Liu Lan), team 8 (Dushi Shen, Ruan Shi Feng, Nong De Zheng, Wang Dawei), Team 3 (Meifeng, Jin Hongcheng, and second runners-up: Baur , Nong De Zheng , Shijia Li, and Li Youli was awarded the best debater.
At this point, the 13th Chinese Language Contest for Luojia International Cultural Month of 2017 was successfully concluded. We look forward to meeting you again next year!
Debate Contest final award ceremony with the student winners and School of International Education Staff.
Final Group photo of all participants and volunteers
Edited by: Freddie Cloke & Hu Sijia
Source: WISU (Wuhan University International Student’s Union)
