Dear Pat,
How are you? It has been a long time since you went to Australia. We miss you so much! I want to share my good news with you. Our school debating team won the final of the inter-school debating contest! Isn\u2019t it surprising? This is the first time our school has won the championship of an inter-school debating contest.
The motion was \u2018That Hong Kong is failing to take care of the poor\u2019. Being the negative team, we found that it was hard to prepare the arguments. It\u2019s because we didn\u2019t even agree that Hong Kong can really take care of the poor. It\u2019s difficult to argue against the motion without burying our conscience. Anyway, I\u2019m just kidding. And finally, we found out a way. We defined Hong Kong as not only the government, but also some other charitable organizations, like the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, the Community Chest, the Jockey Club etc. In fact, the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals provides a lot of services to the poor like free medical services and community services including helping the elderly and providing rehabilitation services for the disabled. Although, the Hong Kong government does not take enough measures to take care of the poor, these charities do. Therefore, Hong Kong is not failing to take care of the poor.
Of course, the affirmative side, the Lam school, had an easier job. They could simply show all the figures that the Hong Kong is full of poor people, and therearen\u2019t\u00a0 enough measures carried out by the government for the poor. However, they just defined Hong Kong as the Hong Kong government only and they focus on the living condition of the poor. What\u2019s more, the way they presented their team line and arguments lacked a clear structure, which made it hard for the audience to follow. Even we couldn\u2019t hear them clearly enough to jot down notes. Their arguments were mainly showing what financial difficulties are faced by the poor and they pointed out that the government cannot improve the living standard of the poor like their low income level. However, we made them lose the debate by showing how short-sighted they were. They thought the government should take care of the poor, but we pinpointed that as a responsible government, it should strike a good balance between caring for the poor and maintaining sustainable growth, between equity and efficiency of resource allocation. Don\u2019t you find that we were smart? Haha!!
As I\u2019ve said, we defined Hong Kong as the government and some other charitable organizations and most people love this definition more than theirs. What\u2019s more, we told the adjudicators that the meaning of \u2018take care of\u2019 is not just taking care of the financial condition of the poor, but also providing equal opportunities to improve the their social mobility and living standard. We proved that the right of the poor was indeed being protected by the Hong Kong government with other charitable organizations\u2019 help. For example, they can apply for the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance and Community Care Fund in order to survive in this society and also they can enjoy the high quality medical health care service like others. Therefore, Hong Kong is not failing to take care of the poor.
That\u2019s how we won. Isn\u2019t it cool? Such brilliant ideas had cost us five days and nights to prepare. Although it\u2019s really tiring, this is how we have fun in a debate. Don\u2019t you think so? It\u2019s time to go to bed. Write back soon!
Cheers,
Chris<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear PatHow are you? It has been a long time since you went to Australia. We miss you so much! I want to share my good news with you. Our school debating team won the final of the inter-school debating contest! Isn\u2019t it surprising? This is the first time our school has won the championship of an in.........<\/p>Read More<\/a>","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":8474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","language-en","schoolyear-34"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3247,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions\/3247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carmelss.edu.hk\/buddingwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}