This House Fears the Opening Up of China

Chinese New Year looms around the corner, and appropriately, the motion for the Prelims of the NY Invites is: This House Fears the Opening Up of China.

I got ushering duty that day, thus I was stuck in room 4-56 with HCJC, SAJC and VJC. I didn't get to watch the J1s debate, but I heard they shone pretty well, esp. the third and second speaker. I met the SCGS girl, she was representing HC. She said I looked familiar. She injured her leg, so VJ and HC got to take the lift... I was happy. They were happy too.

I listened to three different renditions of this house fearing the opening up of China. It was fun at first, but there are only so many ways the house could fear China, though it was interesting listening to the teams debating both sides of the argument as both sides of the house.

I think Hwa Chong did a good job :)... though I wonder how the heck they came out with the exact same points that I predicted would come out. All the way down to "comparative advantage"... I was just going through with my juniors the day before regarding points that might come out. I told them that "comparative advantage" might come out, or something along those lines, but that was unlikely as it was an econs thang and the J2s in NY that actually took econs never heard of the term. I only knew of it because I was reading International Economics: Policy and Theory the other day. The funny thing was, my juniors told me NJC too, came out with all the points I warned them might come out :/. They said that NJ's case reminded them of me, so they were thinking of what I said. I heard they gave NJ a good show too, but the reply speech swung it for the adjudicator, which means either the adjudicator was naughty, or the debate was THAT close. Good job, team!

In any case, I think there is a HC and NJ conspiracy to spy on me here. I think I'll kick Alex's ass when I meet him next.

Anyhow, here are the results of the three debates I watched:

Round 1: HC(Prop) vs VJ (Opp). Result: HC wins. Margin: Thrashing
Round 2: SA(Prop) vs HC (Opp). Result: HC wins. Margin: Close, but Clear Win
Round 3: VJ(Prop) vs SA (Opp). Result: SA wins. Margin: Close Win

Somewhere between round 2 and 3 I was snapping pics for the SA team. They were hungry, but so was I.

After the debates, Me, Sanah, Alvin and the J1s went to J8 for lunch and neoprints. We all agree that Neoprints are strange. I was so happy that day that I went to donate $0.20 to every single soul soliciting for Flag Day all the way from J8 to the bus stop. As a result, I was covered with stickers by the time I boarded the bus.

I later went off for the band concert, but that's another story for some other time, cos' Jiawen's bothering me now :Þ