American Caleb Foust on Tuesday won first prize at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall’s annual Mandarin-speaking competition for foreign students.
Foust, a former engineer working in Silicon Valley, won the NT$20,000 top prize with his speech on “perseverance and abandonment,” in which he talked about his ambition to become a diplomat, the organizers said in a statement.
Foust said that he has applied in the US to be a diplomat seven times to no avail, but added that he believes he will realize his dream if he persists.
Photo: Screen grab from YouTube
He has aspired to be a diplomat since he was young and has been applying since he was 19, he told reporters.
“I will keep working until I become a diplomat,” he said.
Foust said that his former girlfriend was from Beijing, which started his fascination with Mandarin.
He visited Taiwan a few years ago and moved here to learn Mandarin here after being impressed with the people and the food, he said.
Americans John Kaltenbach and Camille Byrne were second and third, winning NT$16,000 and NT$12,000 respectively.
Peter Oortmann from the Netherlands was fourth, taking home NT$8,000.
Six people won Superior Prizes: Fathiya Adiba from Indonesia; Emily Darlene, John Kaulakis and Ethan Reiter from the US; Manowang Warunee from Thailand; and Arisa Yabuta from Japan. They received NT$6,000 each.
The contestants had the choice of five topics to speak on for five minutes: “Perseverance and abandonment,” “How to make good use of social media,” “My biggest worry in Taiwan,” “My viewpoint on Taiwan’s taboos” and “What age is the best in life?”
Peng Ni-se (彭妮絲), the head of the jury and a professor in Chung Yuan Christian University’s Department of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language, said in the statement that the speeches were excellent.
The contestants’ speaking cadences matched the content of their speeches, their pronunciation of Mandarin tones were done well and their postures added to the flow of the speeches, Peng said.
The contest aims to fulfill Republic of China founder Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) ideal of fraternity, as well as helping foreign nationals understand Taiwanese culture and share their own cultures, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall director-general Wang Lan-sheng (王蘭生) said in the statement.
The organizers would discuss the possibility of adding a Hoklo-language (commonly known as Taiwanese) category to the event to increase the diversity of the contest, Wang said.
Sixty people from 17 countries — each studying at a different university in Taiwan — participated this year, the statement said.
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