A student from the United States on Tuesday won the top prize in a Mandarin public speaking contest in Taipei, in which the contestants, all foreign nationals, described their experience in Taiwan or shared other personal viewpoints.
Adam Boxer, one of the 33 contestants and an economics and Mandarin language student from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, won first prize with his commentary on a news article about COVID-19.
In his review, Boxer expressed his thoughts on the story, which was published in the Economist and projected how the COVID-19 pandemic might end, based on other pandemics in the past.
His presentation in fluent Mandarin earned him the first prize of NT$20,000 (US$719), which he received Tuesday.
The 21-year-old American told CNA that he arrived in Taiwan on Sept. 20, is currently enrolled in the International Language Chinese Program at National Taiwan University, and will be returning to the U.S. at the end of the semester.
"I was super lucky that in my school district in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, they'd just started offering Chinese when I entered middle school," he said. "So, I started in middle school, continued through high school, and I'm continuing in college, and I really love learning the language."
Boxer said learning Chinese is important to him because he loves meeting different people, and he thinks that the language itself is an integral part of today's world.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel