Chinese Singing Contest - Anne Marie Gets 1st!

After class one day in October, our Chinese conversation teacher approached Anne Marie and said she saw on her school file that she had a degree in music. She asked her if she could sing in Taiwanese for a concert in late November. Anne Marie reluctantly accepted the offer, feeling that she wasn't great of a singer and knowing it would be a lot of extra work on top of studying Chinese every day. We are studying Chinese, but the song was in Taiwanese.

The concert would be by one of our teacher's friends who actually wrote the song. It turned out that he was very famous and had won the Taiwanese equivalent to a Grammy some years ago, as well as other awards. We had the privilege of going to his house, seeing his awards, and getting to practice the song with him.

Our Singing Group

Every year our school, (中山大學 - Zhong Shan Da Xue) holds a singing contest for foreign students from around southern Taiwan. Our Chinese teacher convinced Anne Marie to compete with the song she was learning. She figured it would be a good trial run to help prepare her for performance in the concert. We also decided to participate with a group of 8 other classmates with a group song: Yen-j嚴爵 feat. PEACE [ 輕輕 Lightly ] Official Music Video

There was a lot of really good singers at the event. Many students who had been in Taiwan for years and had been studying Chinese for a long time competed. Anne Marie was the only one to sing in Taiwanese.

At the end, they announced the winners. The whole contest was in Chinese so I wasn't sure all the time what was going on. When she got called up to the front I didn't know why; but when she came back to her seat and showed me her prize money and certificate and I realized that she had won first place in the solo category!  We were both in shock!

Anne Marie and the other top contestants

Our group performance didn't even place. However we did get 1st place for best delivery!

*All photos provided by our school's faculty.