Debate Competition in Batu Pahat (Part 4)

As you all know, Wooi Keat was the victim of the party scene… Trust me, he woke up to a different person. He did not talk to me  or anyone else that morning, and it was scary too.

When I asked to pose, he posed like this… Hiding his emotions behind that face…Slept like a log…

As usual, we had our American-style breakfast in our hotel and rested for a while before watching the finals…

The final was between Kedah and Johor (Outcast).

Kedah was on the left, and Johor (Outcast) was on the right…

“生活更需要激情/理智”was the final motion of the debate competition, and Kedah was the proposer.

Talking about the overall performance, I preferred Kedah’s although Wooi Keat and Chin Chern stated that Kedah could have done better, and Johor was a whack. However, though Johor (Outcast) was a little wobbly at first, I thought that they ended well with well-written script.

The prize ceremony and the closing ceremony held together. Trophies were handed to each round’s best speaker, overall best speaker, overall best team work and the 3 top winners. Kai Deng got the best speaker in the preliminary round and was awarded RM 50 and a certificate. Well done, Kai Deng!

After the long speech by the politician, the most nerve-wrecking time came.

Kedah won the overall best speaker and overall best team work, and we thought that Kedah would bag the ultimate prize, but Kedah lost to Johor (Outcast). Boo, all of us rooted for Kedah to win!

Kedah and Johor (outcast) posing after receiving their trophies…

It was time to pack our luggage before we left, and I quadruple-checked before I locked the hotel door. I was so eager to get out of that room because of the water all over that room. We left our luggage at the lobby and waited for the time to pass by…

And, Miss Yeap Yee Pei, my ex-geography teacher in Form 3, was coincidently, the teacher-in-charge of the Terengganu team, and we met up in the hotel there. Of course, Chin Chern, Wooi Keat, Khai Hean and I were excited to see her again, and took photographs with her…

 

Wooi Keat said that she was cuter than ever…ooo…Heard that she may be coming back to Penang to teach. Miss Yeap will be following us to Penang for her vacation there in the same bus…

3 in the afternoon came and soon we were abroad the bus to Puduraya, Kuala Lumpur. We estimated that we would arrive at 6 but the drizzle, traffic jam delayed our time and we reached KL at 7 pm. We couldn’t do anything but to buy new tickets when we reached there. No dinner, so I bought some bread and biscuits to eat only. Wooi Keat said that he never came to KL before, so he was excited to see the KL tower, KLCC, Times Square, the monorail, the MRT and the whole city. We could see the vast difference between Batu Pahat and Kuala Lumpur…

We managed to buy the 7:40 tickets back home to Penang. For a split second, I thought we would be able to rest for a night in KL to do some sight-seeing and shopping before departing to Penang, but that was not the case. The Puduraya Bus Terminal was crowded with people, which you wouldn’t see in Batu Pahat. Some went to buy food, and some went to the toilet because time could not be wasted there.

It was a sad thing that we were not be able to tour around KL, because I had not been to KL for many years already. Then, we went down to Station 4 to wait for our bus. The bus terminal in KL was much worse than Batu Pahat, not in term of the environment (well maybe!), but the bus was not punctual at all. We had to wait there, all hot and sweaty, in a dark, crowded station for 20 minutes before the bus came. We breathed in all the gases there, you name it! I could not imagine if a friend of mine were to be in that situation…

I slept during most of the journey home to Penang, after having my mini dinner… My mother came to pick me up at the Sungai Nibong Bus Terminal at 12 midnight…

That is the end of my 4 day 3 night journey in Batu Pahat with my friends…

First of all, let me thank the teachers to open up an opportunity for the “helpers” to come along to Batu Pahat.

Secondly, many thanks to Chin Chern and Wooi Keat for making this journey worthy. You guys are still the best since Form 2.

This competition had taught me a lot, although I may  have little passion in debating, debate has taught me to know more about Chinese and techniques on how to debate. I will always treasure the moment when we were the six in Team B. Another moment that I would treasure is being in the same room with Chin Chern and Wooi Keat, sharing experiences as friends.

I joined the debate team with no passion. I wanted to join to know whether debate was my thing. Debate may not be my full passion, but again, debate has brought another level and experience in my life, which I would treasure forever in my mind.

Debate Competition in Batu Pahat (Part 3)

We woke up to a beautiful morning to face another round of the debate competition. Wooi Keat and Kai Deng were so anxious until they had no appetite to eat their complimentary breakfast. We prepared ourselves before up again to the 9th floor to get ready.

Each state had their own banner representing their schools, which was much better to distinguish the teams competing on stage.

Our debaters took our spot against Pahang. Their motion was on “This House Believes that the Government Should Control The Amount of Vehicles on Roads” (direct translation) and Penang was the proposer. I could not record the whole performance as I was not allowed to do so. Despite confronting with a pass champion, Penang debaters still put up a good fight against Pahang. Our performance was stable from the beginning although there were some hiccups. My heart was beating hard throughout this round, especially when they wanted to announce the results.

I already watched how Pahang performed the night before, so I kind of predicted how the outcome would be.

Penang lost to Pahang.

Don’t find it hard to believe, don’t find it too disappointed. I can boldly say that Penang indeed put up a good show for all of us, and I thought that Penang and Pahang did very well in this round. As one of the judges stated, that out team 缺乏爆炸点, meaning that our team lacked a wow factor to the judges. However, the judge did comment that Kai Deng talked like a politician-to-be, and the team work by Penang was commendable.

Several snap shots of the performance…

Since we lost, we went back down to have a good night sleep. Even our teacher said that she needed a good afternoon siesta after staying awake until 2 in the morning. I told you, Batu Pahat made us very asleep throughout the whole competition. The Form 4’s planned to have a mini party at night and bought things…

Lunch came by, at last, they can have a hearty meal…

Before I continue, I have a complaint to make!

Let the pictures do the talking first…

Do you catch my complaint?

First of all, let us thank Wooi Keat for bathing for over 30 minutes in the bathroom… the drainage of the bathroom was really bad, there was no drain near the shower area but only one near the sink, so water needed a longer time to flow into the drain. Therefore, every time one of us went into the bathroom, the bathroom was bound to overflow and we needed to wait for a certain time to bathe. The last day, things got all worse when I got into the bathroom and bathe. Due to the time constraint, we had to hurry and when I came out of the bathroom, the water overflowed half of the room and outside of the room…

BAD DRAINAGE! Thank God it was the last day, or else I was definitely not going to sleep in this room… bad, bad…

Let us continue on our third day…

We played for a while…

Oh right, Pahang, Kedah, Johor (Outcast) and Johor were the four lucky teams to grace the semi-finals.

We had our dinner in another restaurant, where we had to walk a bit further to go there. Let me tell you, the street where this restaurant was located at, was empty and deserted. You can’t see people there walked by and it was scary… I held on to my bag tightly…

The dinner was ok, not too bad… Then, we went back to the hotel to watch the semi-finals between Pahang and Johor (Outcast) first…

Shocking news…

Pahang lost to Johor (Outcast)

which, I thought was an absolutely absurd idea. Pahang was totally better than Johor (Outcast) because I listened to Pahang’s points clearer than Johor (Outcast). The reason of losing?

我很欣赏彭亨的结辩（林少桦）的呈词，但我们不希望看到整组里面只有一个明星，而是要团队精神一样好

Johor lost to Kedah

I did not watch that performance but I heard that both team were equally bad in this round, but I was glad that Kedah will compete with Johor (Outcome), so that justice would be served…

We had some boy-to-boy pillow talk that night after the semi-finals had ended, and had a little party before going to sleep. Little did we know, that our boisterous attitude went a little too far…

Wooi Keat was the “Victim of the Night”. We intended to play with him, but things got nastier and way out of control when the Form Five came up and decided to join in the party. The victim had addressed to me that further details of the party should not be disclosed in this blog.

Let me put it this way, Wooi Keat had an emotional breakdown after that…

We began to sleep at 1 in the morning…

to be continued… find out whether Wooi Keat had became emo after the party scene…

Debate Competition in Batu Pahat (Part 2)

We woke up early at around 7:30 in the morning to have our American-style breakfast, which was out of my expectation. The sausages were good though, but the rice proved to be a troublemaker for most of us (not me!), upset many stomachs, adding burden to our front runners, who already had butterflies in their stomachs. They were pretty nervous because this was their first time, they were competing with another school from a different state.

Our front runners were: Jia En (1st Speaker), Wooi Keat (2nd Speaker), Kai Deng (3rd Speaker) and Chi Peng (4th Speaker)

I did not have the chance to watch the competition between Penang and Kelantan because I was chosen to watch another preliminary round between Sabah and Pahang. In this preliminary round, two competitions were held at once to save time.

The glorious stage…

The trophies, which everybody is eyeing on getting one…

Soon, the front runners and the judges took their places and the competition began.

Pahang obviously over shone Sabah, with their strong front runners like 林少桦. This guy was strong, was able to conclude their team’s motion clear and had poise while presenting. Pahang was the past champion, so it was no doubt that they killed Sabah in the first preliminary round. The second speaker of Pahang, was very cute while presenting too…

Sabah team on the left, and Pahang on the right…

On the other side, news spread that Penang won over Kelantan, Penang was through to the next round, quarter-finals. The quarter-finals were held on the next day (Day 3), so it was crunch time for the front-runners and back-ups to discuss their next motion in room 415 again.

I spent a little while listening to their discussion, but later went back to my room to sleep. Batu Pahat had made Chin Chern and I quite sleepy, but Chin Chern stayed to discuss with them. I took a few pictures of Batu Pahat while resting in my room.

The bus terminal, which I only found out that the building was blue in colour now.

If you look closely, trees can be seen far away. That is, if you walk further away from this town, you will end up in a jungle already.

Later, we went up to the 9th floor of Garden Hotel to have our dinner served. Trust me, the front-runners had no mood to eat, because they were too anxious about the competition tomorrow. Therefore, we had little food before going down again to discuss the motion.

The picture on the left: Kai Deng’s parents and our teachers-in-charge

The picture on the right: The rest of my Form 5 team mates

Our team discussed until 2 in the morning… Obviously, they were too stressed, but if debate is something we are passionate about, we will do anything it takes to win the title.

to be continued…

Debate Competition in Batu Pahat (Part 1)

It all started where 12 students from Chung Ling High School participated in the inter-school Chinese debate competition and won that competition. Therefore, they proceeded to the next round, that is competing with various schools from all around Malaysia to determine who is the real champion in this competition.

I went to Batu Pahat, Johor as a supporter as 4 front runners representing Penang to compete in this competition. Before heading there,we gathered at the Sungai Nibong  Express Bus Station to travel to Batu Pahat by bus. (duh!)

Gathering… Sorry for the blurriness, wasn’t really concentrating…

Wooi Keat and I sat together in the bus, since both of us did not want to get the air-cond full force. There was a little commotion going on, as Chin Chern was left out with no seat near our group, so he had to sit way at the back of the bus.  Nevertheless, we got our seats respectively and the bus moved at around 10:30 pm. At first, we talked a lot and was excited but as the night drifted away, noise could not be heard…

It was an excruciating 8-hour journey to Batu Pahat, after dropping some passengers at Muar and Johor Bahru. We were dropped off at the Batu Pahat Bus Terminal at 6 in the morning…

Then, we walked to Garden Hotel, which was just two blocks away from the bus terminal.

Since we were way too early, we couldn’t check in and slept at the lobby for 2 hours before touring around the town.

I noticed 2 things about Batu Pahat. First, this town proved abnormal to Penangnites. This town was still deserted with no shops opened, no car passing at 8 in the morning. Penang would be quite busy at this hour, but Batu Pahat is still sleeping at this hour. Secondly, do you all know Tamadun Indus? They talked about bandar terancang , where bandar berasaskan blok-blok berbentuk segi empat dengan setiap blok dipisahkan oleh satu rangkaian jalan raya yang lurus dan bersambung antara satu sama lain. That is what Batu Pahat reminded me of. Every street was straight, and there were crossroads everywhere…

These pictures above were taken at 8:30 in the morning… Even if they were cars around, we didn’t hesitate to look at the roads before crossing, because all the cars drove slowly like tortoises.

Touring around Batu Pahat. To my surprise, Batu Pahat preserved the traditional Chinese heritage buildings well.

Many traditional places can be seen in this quiet town.

Then, we stopped by to have our first Johor breakfast in a cafe, where a few people can be seen only.

The leftover of Johor Char Koay Teow… It doesn’t taste spicy but sweet.

Chin Chern, remember him? The team mate of the Chinese Pem Recital team. This is him, with his cute finger-twitching pose. Try to mimic his hands, while bending all of your fingers…

Kai Deng, probably remember him too?

The cute and adorable, panda-eyed Khai Hean.. And no, the light caught his middle finger, so he was not giving me the bad sign.

Wooi Keat, which his normal pose. Nose big, mouth shut.

.

and the rest of the Fifth Formers…

After having our breakfast, we headed back to the hotel to wait for another 1 hour, before temporarily using one of the organizing committee’s hotel room to refresh.

Chin Chern and I slept on the bed while the other were busying playing cards. Some of them bathed but once Kai Deng went in, the bathroom door was unlock able and soon, everybody was occupied with peeking into the bathroom.

Soon, noon came and we checked into our own rooms at the 4th floor. The 3-star hotel wasn’t really grand in appearance, but at least it was habitable than CB Motel. ahem, ahem!

The beds were neatly made and more comfortable to sleep in. Most of us slept, forgetting about the time.

Chatting and having fun in room 408 and 409…

After some well-deserved afternoon siesta, we walked to Marybrown Fast Food, which was 3 blocks away from our hotel to have our lunch. We ordered a lot of food and shared among us…

We did not have to pay for our lunch, which I think exceeded RM 50 already… We met with our teacher there too, who came from Kuala Lumpur. After the heavy lunch, we continued walking back to the bus terminal to book tickets to go back to Penang. Unfortunately, all the tickets from Batu Pahat to Penang were sold out. Therefore, we could only compensate with tickets going to Puduraya, Kuala Lumpur for a brief stop, before heading back to Penang there. The salesmen at the bus terminal were busying promoting their bus services and it really sounded like I was in the market.

 

We waited for the long queue, while inhaling all the poisonous gas and enduring all the loud honks. Even at the 2 in the afternoon, not many people can be seen on the Batu Pahat roads other than the bus station. Creepy! We were told to hold on to our bags tightly  as the Batu Pahat is a dangerous place for criminals.

Later that day, few teams arrived at the hotel and checked into their rooms too. We all gathered at Room 412 for our discussion about the motion for tomorrow’s competition.

Discussing…

We discussed until 5:30 in the evening, before having our another round of sleep again. Somehow, Batu Pahat made most of us felt sleepy. I looked through the window, and still, not many cars passed Jalan Jenang… At 7, we had our dinner in a very very very shabby-looking cafe, tasting their so-called specialty.

You know the Black Chicken Soup?  乌鸡? The chicken was black like soot, and I even dared not to touch that soup for fear it might be too nutritious for my body, after hearing Wooi Keat and Khai Hean’s past experience with this black chicken. We had a bowl of Yam Rice and 2 dishes of vegetables. I tell you, IT WAS NOT ENOUGH FOR US! We were still starving actually.

We walked back to the hotel to watch the very first preliminary round of the Chinese Debate Competition between Johor and Johor (Outcast). Two different schools from the same state competed in an impromptu debate competition, and the outcome was not really enjoyable to watch. Since they can only prepare hours the competition, it clearly affected their performance on stage. In the end, Johor (Outcast) survived the first preliminary round, and will compete with another state in the Quarter Finals.

After that, we went back to our rooms and prepared for tomorrow’s battle against Kelantan in our preliminary  round. Since Chin Chern and I were not the front runners, we slept first together and Wooi Keat came back hours after that, all tired.

Did Penang survive the preliminary round against Kelantan? Find out more!