On November 28^th, the 8^thgrade Chinese Speech Competition took place in the Zhentao Building lecture hall. This year’s topic was “My Youth is Different”. In total, there were 16 students from different homerooms and levels who went up to on stage to share their experiences of youth with their fellow eighth graders.

Before the competition, all the 8th grade students were required to give a speech about the topic. As many students said in their speech, they had no idea on what to focus on at first or where to start. People started to discover and investigate deeper: what is youth? What does my youth look like? How do I express my youth?

These questions lead up to some interesting speeches. Among the 16 speeches, some chose to focus on the appreciation of their parents, their educational experiences, their unique interests and how these have made their adolescent years unique. There were those whom went deep into real-life examples, and there were those whom shared their ideas on abstract concepts such as “passion” and “dreams”. Participants included Ethan from 8(2), who talked about the topic “youth has come”; Hugo from 8(3), who shared his passions (cooking and drumming); Melody from 8(10), who encouragedpeople to face reality and to take up challenges. All the speeches were interesting and thought-provoking!

Written by Ryogo8(3) Supervised by Mr. Key Photos by Jerry 8(5)