Tournament update

Asia » China » Beijing
May 23rd 2008

Published: May 23rd 2008

Hi there folks. As promised, an update to keep you posted on recent goings-on with the tournament. The tournament began with a day of adjudicator training, including a practice round and a test to make sure that we are competent to judge, as well as to enable the tabulation staff to place the most qualified judges in the highest-seeded rounds. This picture shows Girouard struggling through the test. Somehow, he made it and has been judging all tournament. I think it's a testament to my coaching skills that he passed.

The practice round was a real eye-opener for me. They approach debate with a much greater sense of reverence for the activity here than we do, and interacting with the debaters has really changed my perspective on debate. I will maintain to the death that the form of debate I do is just a very complex game that happens to have educational side-effects, and I'm totally comfortable with my main goal being to win, but there is clearly something more going on here, and it shows in every aspect of the approach to the round. First, the level of formality is much higher. Each round has an official timekeeper that administers the round, and part of this administrative role involves making sure the judges all have hot tea, which is really nice. Second, after each round, the judges have a conference period after filling out their ballots to discuss their various reasons for decision before bringing the debaters back into the room to have a general discussion about the round, its content as well as form. I have been the chief adjudicator in each of my rounds, which puts me in charge of leading that discussion, and the thing that strikes me most is the genuineness with which the debaters engage my commentary. In the US, disclosures are usually short, focus on strategy rather than content, and involve the debaters impatiently wanting to know who won. Back home, this usually ends with one team being obviously disgruntled. In each round here, the debaters have taken notes on my comments, asked questions focused on content, and been super appreciative. The thing that really sums up this approach for me is that debaters keep wanting to have their picture taken with the judging panel after each round.

The second thing that amazes me about the power of debate here are the interactions that occur outside of the debate rounds. I'll admit that China was largely a faceless monolith to me, with a distinct approach to foreign policy, a different perspective on economics, and way more history than the United States before I came to visit. However, my interactions with the people here have shown me a side of China that, at least in this small sample, is deeply influenced by the emancipatory power of debate as a pedagogical activity. Students have engaged me on questions of hegemony theory, market economics, development ideology, policy concerns about the philosophical approaches the US and China take to Africa, and the quality of American prime time television. In each instance (except for the fact that they like Prison Break way too much here) the discussions have been well-reasoned and in many cases better informed on issues of international relations than many of my own students. Interacting with a class of upwardly-mobile intelligentsia (what Gramsci might call organic intellectuals) here has opened my eyes to the directions China could be going over the coming decades, and I strongly believe that IDEA's mission in bringing debate to the region plays an important role in shaping these public discussions.

Just because we've had seven debate rounds doesn't mean the fun has stopped. Susie, Cecily and Feili took us out for authentic Beijing hot pots. This may be the best meal concept ever. Everybody gets a little pot of boiling oil (I got the spicy kind) and then they fill a huge table with a variety of things that could be fried like piles of meat, mushrooms, vegetables, and tofu. Everybody just digs in and fries away. While in Daxing for the hot pots, we also walked to another mall for shopping. Girouard and I managed to find some ping pong balls -- next stop, the first annual all-China beer pong tournament.

Cecily, Susie, and Feili order us an array of meats:

Girouard, David, and I endorse personal pots of scalding oil:

We also expanded our palates locally. We've been exploring the village near the compound. Don't tell the proprietor, but we cheated on Cheers East (our term for the restaurant we visit every night) and went to a noodle shop around the corner. It may have ruined me for all other soup.

We also found a tremendous dessert in the form of fried bananas with carmelized sugar (another clutch Cecily suggestion). I mean it when I say bananas foster wishes it was this dish. Steve and Cecily dig in to the bananas:

I'm off to the first round of the day, but the last of my pictures are slowly uploading now. Check this entry back later, and I will update it with more narrative and pictures.

Update:

Some of you asked about the air quality, with all the press coverage about the Olympics. I've never been to a major city in the US that deals with a lot of smog, so I can't draw direct comparisons, but here is a picture of the weather on the worst day here. This is a shot from the compound of the restaurant we eat at all the time. This place is about 2 blocks from the compound, and the shot was taken in the afternoon to give you an idea. I don't believe there was an overcast other than the smog and dust. On other days, the sky has been blue and we've had no problem (compare to the Temple of Heaven pictures, for example). We had rain when we first got here, which is supposed to help clear the air a bit, though, and it has been dry and dusty since.

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