PENANG, 13 December 2017 – The Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Mandarin Debating team emerged as the champion in the 2017 Sandalwood Forest World Mandarin Debating Championship (Southeast Asia Trial).

The competition, held at the USM Social Science Lecture Hall (DKSK) 4 from 8-10 December 2017, saw the participation of 22 teams from higher educational institutions around the country.

Among the institutions that took part were UKM, UTM, UPM, UniMAP, UUM, Tunku Abdul Rahman University College, Multimedia University Cyberjaya, Sunway University, Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus, Monash University Malaysia, Xiamen University Malaysia and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

The USM Main Campus team won the competition and qualifies them to represent Southeast Asia in the finals of the 8^th World Mandarin Debating Team Championship, to be held in Nanjing, China in March next year.

The USM debating team comprised of eight members from the Persatuan Bahasa Tionghua (PBT), all of them majoring in different fields of study.

Debating the topic of “Should we promote the lifestyle of minimalist?”, USM debaters defeated the team from Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) 5-0 in the final round of the Southeast Asia trial. Best debater however, was awarded to Siow Jing Han from UTP.

Khor Chia Yee, a third-year Pure Chemistry major who doubles as the team spokesperson said that, they felt very proud with the achievement, as it has been a long time coming.

“What made the victory even sweeter was the fact that we hosted the competition this time round, and we only had seven weeks to organise the whole event.

“We would like to thank the USM top management for providing us the opportunity to compete and we are indebted to our coaches and seniors for their support and guidance throughout our preparation and during the competition,” she added.  

The World Mandarin Debating Championship is the largest international Mandarin debate meet held at present. The competition aims to provide a stage for debaters from all around the world to compete with each other. Over 200 debate teams, and with more than 6,000 debaters from Asia, Europe and Australia, participated in this event.

The World Mandarin Debating Championship is organised by Nanjing Audit University, China.

The host for the Southeast Asia trials was the Debate Unit of Persatuan Bahasa Tionghua, Universiti Sains Malaysia.

The Sandalwood Forest Marketing Limited was the title sponsor for the Southeast Asia Trial 2017, together with Kwong Wah Yit Poh Press Berhad and 98.8FM as media partners for this event.

The closing and prize-giving ceremony of the competition was officiated by the Dean of the School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Professor Dr. Tengku Sepora Tengku Mahadi representing the USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Student Development Affairs and Alumni).

Text: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin & Tan Ewe Hoe/Photos: Ebrahim Abdul Manan