More Blogs!

Since I last featured blogs, a number of other people have decided to take the plunge and start their own blogs.

In Hong Kong, WEUer, who HAD KennethChan.org and subsequently deleted it, decided to set up another blog to his passion, this time using a very canadian centric ‘Literature Eh!’ to focus on the English language, which as far as I understand doesn’t come from Canada and hasn’t been particularly helped by Canadians. Nevertheless, Kenneth took the name and even went as far as to set up an extra twitter account. He seems to be doing quite well despite having to toy around with blogger, wordpress and multiple twitter accounts.

Also in Hong Kong, the boys from Sha Tin have also picked up their pens (or rather keyboard) and started their own little bit of blogging. Also known as Annette’s minions, both Irving Teng and Justin Wong has got their own blogs, both on wordpress at http://irvingteng.wordpress.com/ and http://jasonwongstc.wordpress.com/ respectively. At least someone will be able to take over debating reporting once I fly out.

Another debater has dabbled his feet in blogging, albeit using Google Blogger. Hubrack, our beloved Qatari debater who hails from Jordan, has started his blog at http://hubrack.blogspot.com/.

The only other blogsphere related news is that HKSDC’s wordpress website/blog is now up and running. It was launched a while back, but with exams soon to be over and a long summer before us, me and Heather hope to inject a few major improvements to the website in time for the next academic year. So keep checking at http://hksdc.wordpress.com because the website will be undergoing furious development come July. If you have any suggestions on how to improve the site, feel free to drop us a word.

Sing Tao Grand Finals 2010

Sing Tao Semi-Final (Same team as Grand Final)

As night began to fall on the 4th of May, the conclusion to yet another six month campaign for the Sing Tao Inter-School Debating Competition Championship, the biggest of its kind in Hong Kong, remained up in the air. The stage was set, the lights switched on and the seats filled at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium, as a young South Island School and a confident looking La Salle College strolled onto the stage with Diocesan Boys School as chairperson and timekeeper. In what would turn out to be the youngest and most contentious finals of recent times, history was to be made.

On the one hand, La Salle College aimed to become only the 5th school to win back-to-back championships and successfully defend the trophy they had won last year. Interestingly, there were three new faces on stage led by national team member Griffith Cheng as captain. The team remained unchanged from the semi-finals with Nicky Anto and Donald Lam as 1st and 2nd speaker respectively.
The proposition South Island School also featured national team member Tiffany Chung as 1st speaker. Ivan Siu returned as 2nd speaker in the team led by captain Paul Lau (that’s me!) who holds the record as the youngest Grand Final participant whether as floor-speaker (Year 7, Primary 6) or as a debater (Year 9, Form 2). Despite being the only member of the 2008 SIS team, the entire squad was looking to recapture the cup that had been lost last year to become only the 2nd school to grab three championships by winning every other year. Following Island School’s victory in the 2nd, 4th and 6th edition, a win for SIS would cement its position as amongst the best debating teams in Hong Kong after winning the 21st and 23rd edition.

The two teams clashed on the motion that “The FIFA World Cup matches should be broadcast live, on free to air television, free of charge”. The ensuing battle had SIS arguing for the status quo citing the low coverage of Pay TV and need to widen access to the FIFA World Cup on a local and global scale. The opposition, coached by national team coach Greg Forse, argued against a change in policy, nothing the ineffectiveness of a new policy. They also looked at the availability and culture of public viewing in Hong Kong alone as reasons why people didn’t need free to air World Cup broadcasts, especially when it would bankrupt FIFA. SIS countered in the free debate, arguing that FIFA hadn’t gone bankrupt despite having free-to-air as a majority of TV broadcasts in 2002, an event that LSC’s captain Griffith called an exception. In his conclusion, Griffith returned to his opening statement, appearing to challenge the definition arguing that the motion implied some form of change. In the debate’s last speech, Paul quoted FIFA”s contract with broadcasters saying that the proposition had correctly argued for the motion and the status quo.

Schools square up

From http://www.singtao.com/debate/index_e_oldnews025.html in《The Student Standard》10 May, 2010
Written by Andrew Ho

Over 170 teams, six months, countless hours and hundreds of debate motions went into this year’s Sing Tao Inter-School Debating Competition. But there could only be one winner. South Island School defeated defending champions La Salle College in the final showdown.

THE final of the 25th Sing Tao Inter-School Debating Competition was held at Queen Elizabeth Stadium in Wan Chai last Tuesday. The final motion was: The FIFA World Cup matches should be broadcast live on free-to-air TV stations free of charge. The affirmative team was South Island School and the opposition was defending champions La Salle College.

At first glance many thought the motion wasn’t even debatable as, let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to watch World Cup matches for free? The defending champions, charged with opposing the motion, had a serious fight on their hands if they were going to repeat their triumph of last year. Both teams convincingly delivered their messages.