WSDC 2013 – Team Hong Kong

For the first time in four years, Hong Kong will be represented at a WSDC tournament by an all male team. It has only just occurred to me that since WSDC 2010, Team Hong Kong has by a strange coincidence always consisted of 3 men and 2 women. Not that this will affect the team’s performance, but then, I’m running out of random facts to put in these annual posts.

With 3 returning members, Team Hong Kong will have one of the more experienced teams in comparison to many other national teams who have seen a new crop of debaters after the nearly back-to-back WSDC 2011 and WSDC 2012.

For WSC 2013, Team Hong Kong will consist of:

• James Lo (Diocesan Boys School) {Team Hong Kong in 2011 and 2012} (C)
• Pavan Hegde (South Island School) {Team Hong Kong in 2011 and 2012}
• Austin Lee (Li Po Chun UWC) {Team Hong Kong in 2012}
• Justin Lee (Li Po Chun UWC)
• Hubert Cruz (La Salle College)

Reserve: Eunice Leung

Once again, the team will be coached by Greg Forse. Best of luck to Team Hong Kong.

[VIDEO] TWSDC 2012 – Octofinal (HKSDC vs. ASIS)

Octofinal debate at the 3rd Thailand World Schools Debating Championships between HKSDC 2 (proposition) and Anglo Singapore International School 1 (opposition) on the motion ‘THBT a strong dictatorship is better than weak democracy’. HKSDC2 beat Anglo1 2-1 and advanced to the quarterfinals. The members of HKSDC2 are Justin Lee, Michelle Sum, Brian Wong and Aspen Wang.

Video credits to Gary.

Sing Tao 2012: Semi-Final Results, Grand Final Match-up

Yesterday saw the semi-finals of the 2011-2012 Sing Tao Inter-School Debating Competition hosted at St. Joseph’s College. Diocesan Girls’ School (Affirmative) defeated Diocesan Boys’ School on the motion that ‘The Hong Kong government should amend the Marriage Ordinance to give transsexuals the right to marry.’ La Salle College successfully opposed St. Paul’s Co-Educational College on the motion that ‘Recruiting mainland athletes to compete for Hong Kong does more good than harm to Hong Kong’s sporting development’. Both DGS and LSC won by 3 votes to 1.

This means that the Grand Final, on the 12th of May, will be contested between LSC and DGS. Both schools have a history in the Sing Tao competition, being the two of just 3 schools that have won the Sing Tao in the last 6 editions. With South Island School winning in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011; DGS won in 2007 and LSC in 2009. I am pretty sure that both teams will feature members of the Hong Kong Debate Team, Natalie So from DGS and Ben Allen from LSC. DGS have won the Sing Tao 6 times; in 1987, 1989, back to back in 1996 and 1997 as well as in 2002 and 2007. However, La Salle does have the more recent success in 2009 as well as winning the Senior HKSDC tournament in September last year and again in February earlier this year.

It looks to be a tight competition with two well accomplished teams facing off. I myself sadly won’t be able to attend the Grand Final, but I look forward to the DVD when it does come out.

WIDPSC 2012 Results

[UPDATE] For details on those who go to the Grand Finals and results of the Grand Finals, see this post.

The 2012 World Individuals Debating and Public Speaking Championships recently concluded, once again hosted by the Moreton Bay Boys’ College in Brisbane, Australia, who also hosted WIDPSC 2011. Sadly, we don’t yet have a full list of the Grand Finalists nor the World Champions. Thankfully, Team Hong Kong and the crew back in Hong Kong have been extremely efficient and have already uploaded the results of the preliminary rounds as well as Team Hong Kong’s performance to the HKSDC website.

Here’s a run-down of the results with a few bits of analysis.

Champions

I don’t know who made it to the Grand Final of each category, but thankfully I do know the individual who won each event and the overall Best Speaker award. They are:

World Champion: Ryan Pistorius (Canada)
Debating World Champion: Connor Campbell (Canada)
Interperative Reading World Champion: Lucien Wang (Hong Kong)
Persuasive Speaking World Champion: Natasha Dusabe (South Africa)
After-Dinner Speaking World Champion: Neil Kemister (Australia)
Impromptu Speaking World Champion: Priyanka Sekhar (USA)

Team Hong Kong

As a whole, Team HK saw 6 team members make a record 7 different finals. In addition, there were two Grand Finalists (Esther Mak for Persuasive Speaking, Lucien Wang for Interpreative Reading) and Lucien Wang also became the World Champion for Interperative Reading. In comparison, WIDPSC 2011 saw 3 team members make 6 finals and 3 Grand Finalists.

[VIDEO] WSDC 2011 – Octofinals (HK vs. Netherlands)

While on the hunt for Team Hong Kong videos, I came across another one, this time from WSDC 2011. Team Hong kong defeats Team Netherlands in the octo-finals by 3 votes to 2. A close but good debate.

Motion: THW abandon nuclear energy {Impromptu}
Proposition: Hong Kong (James Lo, Iris Zhang, Ben Allen, James Lo)
Opposition: Netherlands

[VIDEO] WSDC 2012 – Round 3 (HK vs. Singapore)

Frankly, there aren’t many videos featuring Team Hong Kong debating on an international level. Thankfully, Team Singapore is regularly filmed, and so we have, courtesy of Samuel Myat San, this set of videos from WSDC 2012 Round 3, featuring Hong Kong against Singapore. As an impormptu proposition against the defending champions, I say Hong Kong did a reasonable job.

Motion: THW allow single parents in prison to raise their children behind bars {Impromptu}
Proposition: Hong Kong (James Lo, Iris Zhang, Ben Allen, James Lo)
Opposition: Singapore (Benjamin Mak Jia Ming, Darion Hotan, Teoh Ren Jie, Benjamin Mak Jia Ming)
Result: Singapore beat Hong Kong 3-0

WSDC 2012 – Day 1

This is going to be the first time I blog about WSDC from a distance, so this will be an interesting experience in trying to pick up bits and pieces over the web. I apologies in advanced that this particular series of WSDC 2012 posts will not be quite a comprehensive as WSDC 2010 or WSDC 2011 for the simple reason that I’m not around to get comprehensive information.

For that reason, I’m not even really sure if today counts as Day 1. All the teams had arrived by yesterday, but many teams arrived even earlier than that. Australia and New Zealand for example, were both in South Africa earlier in the week for training sessions. Australia stopped by Dubai before beating New Zealand to South Africa, arriving on the 10th with New Zealand joining them on the 14th. China also appears to have been in South Africa for some practice debates earlier in the week. Administrative stuff such as adjudication test and briefings have also been conducted today.

Spar debates have been abound in the last few days. Team Hong Kong faced both South Africa and South Korea last night while Team Netherlands debated South Korea and Canada today. Teams have now moved into the Capetown Ritz, although there have been reports of room misallocation, cockroaches, air-conditioning problems and the like. Some teams even appear to have moved to a different hotel as a result. A significant number of participants have also noted the considerable heat in South Africa, coupled with the lack of air-conditioning in a number of debate venues, which should make for a rather ‘heated’ WSDC 2012.

https://twitter.com/#!/kameelpremhid/status/159660493722750976

The only event held today was the Opening Ceremony at Jameson Plaza at UCT. The WSDC organizers have some nice photos in their twitter stream of the venue, see https://twitter.com/#!/WSDC2012 for more pictures. The ceremony was preceded by drinks and snacks in the Plaza as well as a number of performances in the plaza. The actual ceremony itself included speeches by the VC of Cape Town University, Beth James on behalf of WSDC and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Tomorrow will see Round 1 and Round 2 completed.

Jameson Plaza - WSDC 2012 Opening Ceremony

WIDPSC 2012 – Team Hong Kong

WIDPSC 2012 is quickly approaching and national teams are beginning to form. HKSDC held the Hong Kong Individuals Debating and Public Speaking Championships on the 26th of November 2011 at La Salle College to select Team Hong Kong.

HKIDPSC was attended by 20 students form 13 schools who all competed in the four disciplines: debating, interpretive reading, persuasive speaking and impromptu speaking. Interestingly enough, the trials for Hong Kong continue to exclude using the ‘After-Dinner Speech’ as part of the selection process.

Full results of HKIDPSC 2011 can be found at the HKSDC website (http://hksdc.wordpress.com/hksdc-idpsc-november-2011-rankings/) which was updated by Mr. Michael Evershed less than 24 hours after the event concluded, amongst one of the fastest updates the HKSDC website has seen in recent times.

Team Hong Kong for WIDPSC 2012 will be:

• Brian Wong (Island School)
• Justin Lee (Shatin College)
• Emma Tsoi (Diocesan Girls’ School)
• Lucien Wang (King George V)
• Madhav Menon (South Island School)
• Esther Mak (St. Paul’s Co-ed College)
• Eunice Leung (Maryknoll Convent School)
• Claudia Tam (West Island school)

Team Hong Kong for WIDPSC 2012

For more results, look at http://hksdc.wordpress.com/

WSDC – Thank you

WSDC, although google insists stands for the World Swing Dance Council, will always invoke powerful memories of the one and only World Schools Debating Championships. First hearing about it in 2007, I began my WSDC journey back in 2009 with the Team Hong Kong trials. In January 2010, I headed to Doha, Qatar along with Ben, Prakash, Annette, Heather, Greg and Mr. Evershed where we broke by a whisker and made it to the octo-finals. Truly infected with the WSDC bug, 2011 meant an entirely new country, new school and a new WSDC team. Yes – I defected to Team Wales. After an elongated training period including a summer holiday, I headed to Dundee, Scotland in a train along with David, Sarah, Josephine and Johnny. Sadly, this campaign also ended at the octo-finals. Debating aside however, it was brilliant to be able to meet people from so many countries. Talking over a drink, on the bus and whilst playing pool; all part of the unforgettable experience we’ve had together. part and parcel of my WSDC experience of course has been they joys of blogging my way through it all.

During the campaign for WSDC 2010 and WSDC 2011, I’ve had the joy of representing 2 countries – Hong Kong and Wales, visited 2 countries – Doha, Qatar and Dundee, Scotland. After endless hours of training, I had 18 debates against 17 countries, given 22 speeches, at least 144 minutes of talking, lots of blogging, 11 wins, 38 ballots and 2 octo-finals. All good things come to a close and sadly I won’t be attending WSDC 2012.

The last two years have been a blast. I can’t thank enough the people who have helped me on this journey. Thank you and Goodbye!

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