As a firm initiative to support the goal to create for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region a growing team of “skilled orators of tomorrow”, the “21st Century Cup” National English Speaking Competition was brought to the city here for the first time in 2017, with divisions into primary, secondary and university levels.
Organized by the State media China Daily, the competition has been the most authoritative English-speaking contest in China for 26 years, targeting to qualify candidates on the mainland and from the HKSAR to enter the finals of the Annual International Public Speaking Competition in London. The tough tournament platform in the Hong Kong region has produced representatives who were crowned national champions at the grand finals in 2019 and 2020.
For this year, the competition drew over 1 million students from more than 100 regions, and registered the attention of millions of families across the country. Over 1,000 students from local primary and secondary schools, as well as universities, enthusiastically enrolled in the contest. Of them, 12 winning students are set to represent Hong Kong in the “21st Century Cup” national grand final in October.
By participating actively in the competition, students are given the opportunity to communicate with leaders from all walks of life and learn from their successful experiences, which will help shape a perfect trajectory for their career ambitions. As former secretary for education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung noted in his remarks, the competition creates an “excellent platform for Hong Kong students to showcase their creativity, critical thinking and language skills following research and presentation on various topics of educational interests. Through articulate public speaking, Hong Kong citizens’ voices are heard in a way that it is meaningful and impactful to a broad audience”. This view was complemented by comments from youngsters trying hard in the competition who ascertained that the platform is able to transmit their voices to the wider society, both locally and regionally, and to link them up effectively with more peers.
The positive, growing and lasting impact of the English-speaking contest has also been unmistakably attested to by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu when he officiated the presentation ceremony of the event this year on Aug 21. In addressing the gathering, the chief executive said that the contest not only encourages the students to polish their English-language and public-speaking skills by supplementing the inadequacies in the school curriculum, it also promotes exchanges of youths from across the border. He asked the participating students to accept the challenge of telling the Hong Kong story well, thereby giving the global community an unbiased understanding of the city’s attainments and the unique edge for sustaining the glittering Pearl of the Orient.
With the State’s top leadership recognizing the significance of the HKSAR’s unique position between the country and the rest of the world, the city’s youth will definitely have a role in telling the major communities on the five continents a good story of Hong Kong and gear themselves up for assuming a demonstrative role in realizing the country’s aspiration for influential ascension and consolidation on the global stage
What then should young students prepare to offer in order to tell the HKSAR story well in their own right? First and foremost, they must have a good grasp of Chinese history, the achievements of the country and its current situation, things that help nurture their national identity and avoid being bewitched by willful foreign forces that seek to sabotage China. In addition, they must always be scornful of the instigation to resolve social problems by resorting to violence. Amid the Western media’s narratives of the HKSAR government “restricting Hong Kong residents’ rights and freedoms” alongside their wild claims of the city’s economy withering under the stresses of its COVID-19 quarantine regime, the spokespersons for the Hong Kong story do face a challenging uphill battle in its conscientious drive to correct and boost its image here and abroad. Confronted with this background, the mission to paint a true picture of Hong Kong for Western audience inevitably demands great skills.
Charged with this responsibility by the chief executive, the brilliant young speakers from the “21st Century Cup” National English Speaking Competition should position themselves for imparting honest, accurate and comprehensive accounts on the HKSAR’s “hard power” and “soft power”. These include, for instance, the city’s dynamic economy and society as well as diverse cultures and traditions for the “hard power” category, and its unique history, customs, institutions, systems and lifestyles blending harmoniously elements from both China and the West for the “soft power” list. In recent years, the city’s phenomenal successes in innovation and athletic performance in world competitions, such as the Olympics, deserve to be incorporated in the stories to be delivered on the HKSAR. Most importantly, residents from various local social and economic backgrounds can share the role of building the HKSAR community under the Basic Law and the world-endorsed “one country, two systems” framework. And as advised by Executive Council convener Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, the story regarding the HKSAR should be “told forcefully, as part of the Chinese story, but with nuance and subtlety”.
In his keynote speech in Hong Kong on July 1, President Xi Jinping construed the HKSAR as a pioneer “riding the wave” of China’s huge reform and opening-up, which bestows on it the vital role of serving as “an important window and bridge connecting the Chinese mainland and the world”, and making “irreplaceable contributions to the miracle of long-term, steady and fast economic development of the mother country”. With the State’s top leadership recognizing the significance of the HKSAR’s unique position between the country and the rest of the world, the city’s youth will definitely have a role in telling the major communities on the five continents a good story of Hong Kong and gear themselves up for assuming a demonstrative role in realizing the country’s aspiration for influential ascension and consolidation on the global stage.
The author is the chairman of Hong Kong Education Policy Concern Organization and a member of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.