District 51 International Speech Contest

In the early hours of Sunday 1 May 2011, 3 Friendship members travelled from Ipoh and KL, just to watch the International Speech Contest. The star attraction as far as Friendship members was concerned? Grace Tan competing at the District finals with her “F.O.C” speech!



Speaking on the serious subject of human rights, the third placed winner spoke with emotion and said, “Our rights have no colour, it is colour-blind.” He urged us to listen to our inner voice and do what is right. He concluded with a quotation from Martin Luther King, “Judge the content of our character, not the colour of our skin.”

Loud applause greeted the second placed winner as he walked up the stage. He told us that he grew up in the village of Selama. In this village, there was a warm, wise and witty barber named Sinbad. His barber knew something about everything and gave good advice from the heart. From his barber he learnt that perseverance stays but education pays. So he decided to move to the big city to pursue his education and the possibilities this provided. When he was contemplating marriage at the age of 40, the sage advice from his barber was, “It is better to get married at 40 than to get married at 50.”

When the International Speech Champion was asked by his rich (has money) and successful (married an air-stewardess) boss, what was the perfect wedding anniversary, it was like a Table Topics question. He suggested buying a diamond ring. To his surprise, his boss decided to make his own card. When he was shown the card, he didn’t know how to tell his boss that the card was horrible! It had a picture of a chicken and a dragon flying in a plane. When his boss explained that his Chinese zodiac is a chicken, his wife is a dragon and the plane was where they first met and he fell in love with her, the card suddenly did not appear ugly after all.

When his daughter gave him a card for Father’s Day that said “I love you bad” he realized two things. First, love comes from the heart. Secondly, his daughter needed spelling lessons, badly.

He then related the story of his grandmother who kept a Thank You card from him. His sister had taken the gold earring that he gave his grandmother, which he gave with the Thank You card. He found out much later, after his grandmother’s death, that she valued the card more than the gold, as she had kept the card all these years. She was his inspiration as he concluded with, “The power to make the little difference is within you. It can put a man on the moon, or the decision to do your next assignment speech.”



Champion: Muthukumaran Kodiappen, Division S, Renesas Semiconductor TMC – That Little Difference
1st Runner Up: Stephen Fernando, Division C, MIHRM TMC – Lessons from my Barber
2nd Runner Up: K Marcus Chee, Division H, Ipoh TMC – The Colour of Rights

District 51 Table Topics Contest

The Table Topics question for the ten contestants was “To err is human, to forgive divine”.

The third placed winner declared, “It was a mistake to take part in this Contest! I am getting the shivers.” Every day, he looks into the mirror and tells himself, “I can make any mistake and I will be forgiven. I will not make the same mistakes again because I will find new mistakes to make!”

The second placed winner came from a dysfunctional family. In his past life, his vices were cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. Despite this, “my wife forgave me and made me the man I am today. She has a heart of gold. If there is any perfection in this world, in this universe, it is my wife!” As he walked off the stage, the audience was clapping loudly for him.

The Table Topics Champion told us, “Please forgive me, it will not be a perfect speech.” He had a stone thrown at him at age 7. At 51, he still remembered that incident but he realized, “If we really want to live, let’s learn to forgive.”


Champion: Philip Wong Wan Ming, Division G, KL Advanced TMC
1st Runner Up: Kishin Shan Mahtani, Division N, Achievers TMC
2nd Runner Up: Selvaraj KS Maniam, Division H, Ipoh TMC