Today was the first annual Happy Suwon English Village speech competition. For the last few weeks our school has been covered in promotional posters and even the school's website featured the above pop up ad (yes it says "elglish"). The buzz about the competition has been deafening. 20 previous students had the chance to give a speech about either the English Village or Hwaseong Fortress. Each student represented a different school and the winning students schools were also recognized for their english programs. Melodie, Jo, Aaron, Shaun, Sarah and I were the celebrity panel of judges, while Chris and Michelle were the MCs.
We were bussed to city hall, where the event was located. Note that our school has enough money to buy buses, but never has any damn scissors. There were protesters camping outside of city hall with a lot of Korean signage around, so we asked Michelle what they were protesting. She said "the mayor", who later made an appearance at the speech competition.
The esteemed panel of judges before the show. Unfortunately, unlike American Idol, there were no glasses of Coke provided. We had to wear ties.
Our MCs, Chris and Michelle. It was a good job for Chris, who enjoys trying to pronounce korean names in front of hundreds of koreans.
Kids came from the competing schools to cheer on their representative, some even brought signs. I'm pretty sure one of them said "Soul Patrol" in Hangul. We were told that this competition is really important to the students grades at school, and before we arrived some of the parents had gotten upset during rehersal because some kids had memorized their speeches and some hadn't. This is serious business!
Sarah's parents and Shaun's boyfriend were in town and had a chance to watch the show as well. We were there for about four hours, so I just applaud them for staying awake. I mean, I like hearing a child gush about us for hours on end, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea.
The show started off when we all pledged allegiance to the Korean flag, hand over our hearts. Don't worry, I was really thinking about the maple leaf. Then the Mayor of Suwon and Minister of Education gave speeches, the only words I understood the whole time were: "Happy Suwon", "Speechee", and "Kamsa Hamnida" (thank you). Then the judges were introduced, and each of us had to do a korean-style bow to the audience. It was embarrassing- boys don't bow!
Like I mentioned earlier, there were 20 students competing. We've probably had a few thousand eligible students at the school since we opened and it was kind of random to see which ones made it to the stage. There were kids that could barely even introduce themselves in class or complete simple tasks that were suddenly giving speeches about "the English Village in this age of globalization". You could tell these kids had studied really hard, and although I'm not sure they all wrote their speeches themselves, they were all pretty impressive for 5th and 6th grade kids speaking a second language. Some kids won points for their truthiness: the little girl who said I was handsome and looked like a famous movie actor got 3rdplace. But in the end, the top two prizes went to the right children. I was pleased to see my personal favorite student of the last few months not only return, but also to take the second prize. His little bowtie stole the show.
The competition will be televised this week, and a photographer from the newspaper was there as well, so watch for us in your local Korean newspaper and on TV soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment