So I got a job offer on WeChat to judge an English language speach contest for 300RMB that I later learned was at the Shanghai China Art Museum and was hosted by the local Communist Party and the Shanghai Foreign Language University. So of course I said yes and found my self holding a scoring divice, listening to the best English speakers of Shanghai's high schools, and scoring them from 0-20. I think the theme was something like "China: why is it great and what can we do to make it greater," the specific subjects of the speaches vairied but every speach was abiut China in some way. Another common theme was dreams (for individual Chinese, for the nation, and for the world) this makes sense because President Xi's big plan is called "A Dream for China" so I think some contestants were trying to score points with the expert judges. Since it was a Party backed event, the majority of the speaches towed the Party line; one girl talked about why China will never give up the South China Sea and two speaches were about the heroism of the Party's military wing, the People's Liberation Army (yes, the People's Liberation Army still works for the Party). Even with all the "Make China Great Again (which was a line a girl actually said)" most of the speaches were actually really interesting, I felt like I learned a lot about China and sometimes I even forgot I was technically working. Everyone's English was lightyears ahead of my Chinese, this made judgeing their English difficult so I tended to give more points then the average. Forntually we, the international college student judges, only controlled 20 iut of 100 points, the other 80 were given by about 8 expert judges who voted seperatly from us. You can really tell where each student learned English because many had distinctive British or American twists on their Chinese accients. Like any good contest there was heartbreak and upset victories, but in the end I agreed with the three big winners. I wish I got to spent a bit more time actually looming around the museum though. I am still owed 200RMB, but now I can say the Chinese Communist Party ows me money.
7 Comments
Sharon
10/22/2016 10:21:32 pm
amazing!
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S
10/22/2016 10:22:40 pm
Do u have to claim that on your U.S. Taxes?
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Jared Paul Miller
10/22/2016 10:23:57 pm
In theory yes, in practice no.
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Dad
10/23/2016 01:53:49 am
Were you judging content, grammar or both?
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Jared Paul Miller
10/23/2016 09:35:18 am
It was mostly about the grammar and pronunciation, in theory we were not ment to score on what you actually spoke about. There was one guy who did his speech about he People's Liberation Army's roll in the Korean War that I felt was unfairly marked off because of his content. I think they were all pre-screened so all the content was ok.
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Gramma M
10/23/2016 07:04:52 am
How can Chinese kids learn English well and our kids have such a tough time speaking Chinese.
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Jared Paul Miller
10/23/2016 09:36:51 am
They start high quality English classes very young. The elementary school English classes in China aren't like the American elementary school Spanish classes. They are much more intense.
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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