Results for ASDC 2011

The third annual Asian Schools Debating Championships (ASDC 2011) was held in Seoul, South Korea from the 22-28 July after having been in Manila, Philippines for the last two editions. ASDC 2012 was confirmed to be held in Malaysia (I’m unsure whether this was a default win given the lack of mention of another bid or whether another bid was tabled).

ASDC 2012 will be hosted by Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman (STAR) in Malaysia. http://paullau.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/asdc-2012-star-bid/—
Paul Lau (@paullaucm) July 26, 2011

The Grand Final featured Xavier School (Philippines) and Daewon Foreign Language High School (South Korea) with Daewon Foreign Language School emerging victorious by a 4-3 split.

Semi-Final pairings:

• Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies A (South Korea) vs. Daewon Foreign Language High School B
• Xavier School A vs. SR A

Rookie GF: Ladies College B (Sri Lanka) vs. Sekolah Seri Putri A (Malaysia)

Source: Facebook

Twists and Turns of International Travel

I’m back! After a sometimes normal and sometimes odd journey, I’m safely back in the UK, assuming nothing else happens that is. The last few days in Hong Kong were quite, mostly working, packing, chewing and sleeping my way through the days. Then of course, things started going wrong. While waiting to change from one bus to another in Central, Hong Kong, my 3 minute McDonald’s toilet trip made me miss my E11 bus, forcing me to take A11. That being said, the A11 bus was far more direct and took us on the newly opened (it was my first time at least) Stonecutters Bridge. Airport buses would usually speed-up my journey by about 15 minutes as opposed to the more winding route of Express buses. But taking an Airport bus combined with the Stonecutters Bridge route probably made the trip a further 15 minutes shorter, bringing me to Hong Kong International Airport just 35 minutes after I left Central.

Waiting... at HKIA

Getting to the airport might have been a walk in the park, getting onto the plane and off the ground certainly wasn’t. All the passengers of the massive Boeing 747-400 were set at gate 17 only to find out 15 minutes before boarding was set to start that we had been switched to gate 32, in another part of the airport near the very end of that section. So, we all had to trek over. Unsurprisingly, neither the plane nor the crew were ready at all. In fact, as I ranted on twitter, the crew calmly sat opposite me in the waiting area, chatting amongst themselves – pilot included. I didn’t board until 11:49 but we had been scheduled to take-off at 11:45. We were late on take-off, but thankfully the pilot put in some extra fuel and got us to our destination largely on time.

Results for HoEDT 2011

The results for the 2011 Heart of European Debating Tournament are out now at http://www.heart-of-europe.org/web/results_2011 in-spite of the hick-up between organizers (http://globaldebateblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/leadership-at-heart-of-europe.html)

Overall Awards

• Champions: Czech Red (Czech Republic)
• Runners-up: Turkey
• 2nd Runners-up: Hong Kong 1
• EFL Champions: Sweden

WSDC 2011 – Newsletter 2.5

This is part of the WSDC 2011 series as I recount and report on the World School Debating Championship 2011 in Dundee, Scotland as a debater, blogger and Wales national team member.

Hello everyone

Two weeks have gone by since the schools closed for the summer and in that time we have got a lot of work done. That hasn’t, however, included writing the newsletter you may have been expecting J.

I am off on holiday for a week from tomorrow and Gaynor went today, so we can’t put anything up on the main tournament website till next week. Just to let you know that everything is fine and preparations are progressing as they should be.

If you are planning what to fit into your suitcase, we can offer you a short list of Dos and Don’ts:

How to get rid of dreams

The last year at Atlantic College has been a rather interesting experience. With the IB and the UWC Experience, life is busy to say the least. It is a constant struggle between doing everything and doing nothing, academics and extra-curricular activities. More often than not, the choice ends up being – To sleep or not to sleep? That is the question.

Despite the mountain of articles about the benefits/harms of sleeping too much/too little/not enough, this post is not about that. Rather, it’s about how a lack of sleep conveniently rids of you your dreams. Perhaps it does this in a literal sense of ruining your plans by making you a living zombie, but it certainly does so in a practical sense by making you so tired you, well simply stop dreaming.

Hong Kong Overseas UWC Orientation Camp 2011

Two eventful days and a sleepless night… the 16-17th of July was when the Hong Kong Overseas UWC Orientation Camp 2011 was organized by second years for the incoming first years.

There are some cool images on United Words at http://interuwcmag.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/hk-overseas-uwc-o-camp-2011/, a few of which I’ll include below.

China’s Political Future

China’s political future is never filled with certainty. It rejects what it labels as ‘Western Democracy’, opposes multi-party rule and yet frets about the instabilities of a one-party rule. South China Morning Post’s Deputy Editor and China specialist Wang Xiangwei had an interesting perspective about the political future of China in the SCMP 4/7/2011. A good read for those who wonder what system China could or might adopt. I still think China ought to move towards a multi-party system, but perhaps this is a good first step.

Road map for the party’s future lies within its ranks

Now is the time for the leadership to renew the push for intra-party democracy and ensure its survival

As the Communist Party held grand parties nationwide last week to celebrate its 90th anniversary, at first glance the contrast in coverage between the mainland and the overseas media could not have been any sharper.

The mainland media launched unprecedented propaganda to eulogise the achievements and benefits the party has brought to China’s people, while the overseas media focused on its enormous challenges, wondering about its future, particularly the lack of a clear strategy for its long-term survival.

Taking a closer look, however, it is not difficult to infer that both the party leadership and the overseas media share at least one fundamental observation: the party cannot stick to its present course and that reform is imperative.

WSDC – Personnel Changes

There have been a number of personnel developments amongst the World Schools Debating Championship community recently. Summarily, they are:

• Andrea Coomber (Chair of the WSDC Board of Directors 2008-2009, 2010-2011) resigned for personal reasons
• James Probart was elected to be Chair of the WSDC Board of Directors and resigned as chair of the WSDC Development Committee
• Trevor Sather joins the Board of Directors and takes up the post as chair of the WSDC Development Committee
• Claire Ryan has been appointed as a District Court Judge in Auckland, New Zealand. As a result, she has resigned from the WSDC Executive
• Beth James will act as Chair of the WSDC Executive until a new Chairperson is elected

Details below:

AC IB Results 2011

Although UWC AC “does not, on principle, participate in newspaper league tables”, it has kindly released a rough breakdown of the IB results released in July 2011. This information can be found on the website at http://www.atlanticcollege.org/news-1/2011/07/12/excellent-results-for-uwc-atlantic-college-graduates/.

No doubt, the full report (on final results and university places) to be released in September 2011 will be eagerly awaited.

Once again the students of UWC Atlantic College have achieved excellent results in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma, continuing to improve on the successes of previous years.

Debating Archive: ASDC 2010 [MOTIONS]

While I was packing for my long journey to the UK, I stumbled upon a trove of old debating notes with some interesting artifacts. One of them, featured below the list of motions used at the Asian Schools Debating Championships 2010 in Manila, Philippines.

R1: Why Can’t We Be Friends?
THW not allow women to discriminate sperm donors based on ethnicity
THW abolish single sex schools
TH supports the registration of child sex offenders who have already served their full sentence

R2: Culpability
THW charge parents of children who commit suicide with negligence
THW allow victims of climate change to sue polluting countries
THW prosecute HIV/AIDS patients who have unprotected sex without telling their partners