The Proudest Day of My Life

Saturday, I had the honor and privilege of participating in the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Speech Contest, held at the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. Altogether, 119 foreign students competed in the contest, giving five minute speeches before a panel of judges. The four topics for the speech contest were "The Sun Yat-Sen that I know", "Grandpa/grandma with me", "My favorite flower", and "My favorite night market in Taiwan". The day was long and grueling, but it was also a lot of fun.

My classmates and I had been training for the contest for weeks, memorizing speeches and rehearsing them at school. In the end, ICLP really shined. The first, second, fourth, and fifth place winners were all from ICLP. Furthermore, ICLP student and fellow Light Fellow from Yale, Nick Rosenbaum, received an honorable mention.

I first drafted my speech over a month ago, trying to make use of as many of the grammar patterns I learned this semester as possible. My teachers helped me edit it down to under 5 minutes and found a male teacher at ICLP to record his voice reading the speech. I then listened to the recording repeatedly to memorize the speech. Because I was number 71 the day of the contest, I had plenty of downtime after the 8:30am registration. So, I found a cafe where I could sit and repeatedly write out my speech in Chinese. Then I went back to the hall, watched some of the other speeches, and gave my speech.

I won the fourth place prize for my speech on the Sun Yat-Sen that I know. I cannot think of another day when I have felt as proud as I felt Saturday night. I was honored to represent ICLP, NTU, Yale, the Light Fellowship, my country, and my family. This was a wonderful event to wrap up an amazing five months in Taiwan.