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Last Season’s Hidden Victories: SHSID at the Beijing Regionals

April 5, 2018

Last Season’s Hidden Victories: SHSID at the Beijing Regionals

On December 23rd, SHSID’s debaters set off to compete in the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) Beijing Regional round, one of the last and most difficult regional competitions of the season.

The National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA), the oldest and largest high school debate society in the world, entered China in 2012, and now hosts public forum debate competitions across the country. SHSID has consistently fielded many of the strongest teams in the competition, winning numerous prizes, including two at the national level.

That season, however, had a particularly nuanced topic: ‘Resolved: Humanity should establish a space colony by 2050.’ The Beijing Regionals was an especially noteworthy competition due to its notorious difficulty; not only did the SHSID debaters have to face strong opponents such as the High School Affiliated to Renmin University, they had debate an extremely complex topic on the home field of their opponents. In fact, for the past few years, no team outside of Beijing has ever won at that regional.

To prepare for this round, the SHSID debate team worked together to assemble a collection of evidence and arguments as well as going through multiple rounds of mock debate. During the competition, not only did the debaters quickly adapt to the debate venue and impress the judges with their logic and presentation, they also showed an especially strong team spirit. As Linda Li, a sophomore debater from team SHSID ZL put it, the competition ‘... was a process where me and my partner could lift each other up whenever possible and be ready to follow-up with sufficient reasoning & evidence in every round.’

In the end, the team SHSID ZL (Tian Zhang and Linda Li), was able to defeat debaters from Asian Debate League to win the Championships, bringing the tough 2017 Fall Season to a great conclusion.

As the new semester begins, the 2018 Spring Season of the NSDA is coming up, with the new topic of ‘On balance: economic globalization is a threat to the national interest of countries.’ SHSID is planning to organize after-school training sessions as well as mock debates to prepare for this new round of competition. While this season also promises to be formidable, with the guidance and participation of distinguished SHSID debate members such as Lelan Hu, Tian Zhang, Linda Li, and Frank Lin, SHSID has sufficient resources to wrestle with this equally challenging topic.

Notable Figures from the Club

Lelan Hu

2017 Tournament of Champions China Finalist, Outstanding Speaker

2017 NSDA Shanghai Regionals Open Division Finalist, Outstanding Speaker

2017 Cambridge ABC Grand Finalist

Frank Lin

2016 NSDA Nationals Middle School Champion, Outstanding Speaker

2016 NSDA Shanghai Regionals Open Division Octa-finalist, Outstanding Speaker

2017 NSDA Nationals High School Quarterfinalist, Outstanding Speaker

Tian Zhang

2017 Icarus Champion

2017 NSDA Zhejiang Regionals Semi-Finalist

2017 NSDA Beijing Regionals Champion, Outstanding Speaker

2018 Tournament of Champions China Octa-finalist

Linda Li

2017 Zhejiang Regionals Semi-Finalist

2017 Shaanxi Regionals Finalist, Best Speaker

2017 NSDA Beijing Regionals Champion

(Essay/Pictures: 10(5) Frank Lin)