Common Talk Weeklyshuang yu zhou kan
issue date

When the East meets the West
October 22, 2003
By Enid Chen and Jean Chen

“It must be a mistake! I cannot believe it.” Amy R said with great surprise after hearing that she had won “the most beautiful girl” award in the “M-zone” Cup at the Chinese and Foreign Teenagers Performance Contest, held on the afternoon of October 18th, the third Readers’ Day of the Xiamen Daily.

The Chinese and Foreign Teenagers Performance Contest was organized by Xiamen Daily’s Common Talk and was sponsored by China Mobile, Xiamen Co., Ltd. It celebrated the third Xiamen Daily Readers’ Day as well as the first anniversary of Common Talk. All the Chinese contestants had already been through two rounds of preliminary contest before the real performance held at Bailuzhou Square. Therefore, they were well prepared and ready to surprise the audience. Although the wind was strong and the sun was burning, crowds gathered around the stage at the Bailuzhou Square to watch the wonderful performance.

The swing dance performed by the American students from the Overseas Education College of Xiamen University (OEC) made the audience burst into laughter. RJ McElhannon, also from OEC, showed the audience Japanese martial arts and won a big round of applause from the audience. “I studied Japanese martial arts when I was in America. Now I am studying Chinese Kungfu here. But it’s a pity that I cannot show you Kungfu now, as I have not learnt much about it.” RJ told the reporter after the performance. The performance of cello and erhu by Wu Beini and her friends from Gulangyu Music School, was a perfect combination of western and Chinese musical instruments.

Tina, Brian and their friends performed a skit called “At the Movie Theatre”. Even though the skit was silent, the actor’s rich facial expressions and movements made it seem as though the audience was experiencing reality. No one could believe that it took them only two days to prepare the performance after they got to know about the contest. No wonder one of the judges said with an admiring smile, “It’s really a surprise, isn’t it?” Their excellent performance fairly easily won them the Silver Prize.

As the old saying goes “save the best till last”, the final contestant, Liu Tao, a post- graduate music major from the Arts College of Xiamen University, impressed the judges and audience with a performance of Lloyd-Webber’s “Memory”. Her professional skill and excellent sound undoubtedly made her the Gold Prize winner of the contest.

When asked about the feeling of having won the “the most energetic boy”, Lin Longfeng from Lujiang University, replied with a bashful smile, “I feel this performance contest is quite different from other contests, as there were both Chinese and foreign contestants. But I’m really excited about it.” His song “Can You Feel My Love Tonight”, the theme song of the famous cartoon movie “The Lion King” conquered many listeners’ hearts.

The creative fashion show by all the Chinese and foreign contestants won rounds of applause from the audience, as the models wearing Esprit clothes performed a professional catwalk at the end of the performance. Their facial expressions were as “cool” as professional models.

The contest also won great support from Baodao Optical Company, City Trend Club, EF Language Training Center and Xiamen Siqi Trade Company (Esprit).