thirty college students across the country attended the tenth 21st centurycup national english speaking contest in beijing on april 10. eventually, xiapeng, from nanjing university was named the champion. the second and thirdplaces went to zhang jing, a sophomore from china foreign affairs university,and zhang a xu, from hong kong polytechnic university, respectively. more than1000 college students in beijing are lucky birds to listen to the speeches onthe spot in friendship hotel.
just make to it the finals, they had to get past 60 others speaking on “theimpact of globalization on traditional chinese values”. that was at thesemi-final on april 8-9. what will chinese college students think about theimpact? each contestant had his own take on the subject. xia summed upglobalization by saying: “it’s just controversial and hard to say whether it isgood or bad.” xia took the old wall of his city, nanjing, as a metaphor. hespoke about the conflict over whether to protect the old walls or tear them downto represent the conflict of ideas. he suggested that people protect the wall asa valuable relic while tearing down the “intangible walls” of their minds thatprevent communication. while some other students are more focusing on the impactof globalization on family relations, attitudes towards love, andjob-hunting.
over the past 10 years, the national english speaking competition has givencontestants a chance to speak on a variety of topics closely related to theirlives. chinese students become more open-minded and receive various ideas andthinking over the decade. diversity becomes more obvious on campus, studentshave more opportunities to express and show themselves. it’s not an easy taskfor the contestants to win through the fierce competition. owning to theirpassion, hard work and persistence, they finally succeeded in the contest.
liu xin, the first champion of the national contest, is now an anchorpersonof cctv-9. recalling the passion of study on campus, she said: “when you want toexpress your idea by a foreign language without finding a right way, you’rereally upset. then you have to encourage yourself, and after a long term ofbitterness, suddenly you find you get the right way with joy.” with the championtitle in 21st century cup, liu attended the international public speakingcompetition in london in may 1996 afterward and got the first prizehistorically.
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