Debra Li

Many believe that girls have the upper hand compared to boys when it comes to picking up languages, and this was emphatically proved on Saturday afternoon.

All three first-prize winners at the 2007 Shenzhen students’ English speech contest “A Date with Universiade” — in the senior high, junior high and primary school categories — were girls.

In China, the color red is supposed to bring good luck, and so it did for the three winners. Wang Routing, Lan Jiao and Feng Xinyue were all dressed in red.

Thirty finalists, shortlisted from more than 100,000 entrants from several hundred schools in the city, took part in a heated three-hour face-off at the Shenzhen Press Tower Auditorium on Saturday afternoon. With the theme of Shenzhen hosting the 26th Universiade, the contest gave each student two to three minutes to speak, and a few more minutes to answer questions from the jury.

Lan Jiao from Shenzhen Experimental School, who won in the junior high school category, became something of a star after the finals. Younger students surrounded her to ask for autographs and her classmates vied to have photographs taken with her.

Opening her speech by mentioning the “Happy U,” the emblem of the Universiade, Lan talked about the importance of volunteers and described her experience as a volunteer interpreter during a visit of the International University Sports Federation (FISU) President George Killian.

Her winning smile and eloquence conquered the audience.

“I’m a little bit surprised at the quality that the junior high school students can speak English, especially the group champion. She was so confident when answering the questions from us,” said jury member Cao Yajun, a professor at Shenzhen University.

“She has always been our star,” said another student of Shenzhen Experimental School. “Lan has won an English speech contest sponsored by CCTV before.”