In Macau, everyone's a winner

Last May 17-25, the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman, along with many, many other institutions around the Philippines, sent the best and the brightest among their speakers to compete in the second United Asians Debating Championships (UADC), held in Macau. I am lucky enough to count myself as a member of UP Debate Society, and happily accepted the opportunity to represent my beloved country, the Philippines, in what would be one of the best showings of our country in the Asian circuit.

Amazing Race: Macau

But before all that seriousness, part of the experience was simply making it to the destination. As Pinoys, but more especially, as UP students, we didn’t have the luxury of, well, luxury. We flew to Hong Kong, as we thought it would be cheaper to fly there and take a boat to Macau rather than just to fly directly there. In what would be recorded in the annals of our history as “Amazing Race: Macau,” we were mistaken. After arriving at the airport at 9:30 p.m., we just barely missed the airport’s boat shuttle and direct transfer to Macau. A contingency plan was quickly developed. Plan A was to use the Chinese people in the contingent (read: two other people and I) to manoeuvre the contingent into the negotiations of fitting five people in two taxis (so as to save on our 10-person contingent).

Then, using our ninja-esque Chinese skills, we would somehow procure tickets on the ferry which was on the other side of Hong Kong, land on Macau, take yet another taxi and finally make it to our hotels, which we didn’t know the Chinese names of. Or plan B, sleep in the airport, take the morning train. Of course, we always did it the hard way.

After allowing the ferry to turn our legs to goo with its incessant vibrations, we finally made it to the isle of Macau! Then, after two more hours of searching and finding, we finally fell onto our bouncy-rock beds in our hotel, and fast asleep. UADC seemed to have us beaten at day one.

Debate tournament: food, drinks, sleep

Thankfully, I was not a competing adjudicator in the tournament, meaning I didn’t have to wake up the next day to take a test-which-can-induce-catatonia-due-to-difficulty. Instead, I woke up to a roommate shaking me and telling me to wake up for opening night dinner. If there is one thing that I can say about this tournament, its function dinners were excellent. The plates kept coming after we were all convinced of dying from cholesterol-induced heart attacks and diabetes.

After consigning my diet to its resting place, an eye-opening first night inuman with our friends from UP Manila, and grabbing a few hours of shut-eye, the tournament finally began.

What can I say? The first (and personally, largest) criticism that I had for the tournament was that, for a competition that supposedly imported its tab team (in charge of encoding scores), it was laughably inefficient. We were pretty bored while waiting for the rounds to begin, evidenced by the sleep centers and massage parlors that popped up in the convening room.

The debate rounds themselves were pretty routine, but it was really the chance to debate against and be adjudicated by foreigners that really stuck to my memory receptors. For instance, I now know that, just as Singaporeans like to say “lah”, they also like to say “right” at the end of everything. It’s actually quite an endearing turn of phrase, because it seems like they try to get approval for the things that they say, right away.

Debate hard; party harder. Or not.

After elimination rounds in a debate tournament, up next is a party announcing the teams with the highest scores that made it to the “break rounds.” The break rounds are composed of octofinals, quarterfinals, semifinals and the grand finals. In this instance, the UADC tournament has institutionalized a pre-octofinals, where the ninth to 24^th teams battle it out for eight spots in the octofinals. The top eight teams in the tournament no longer need to join pre-octofinals; they start the break rounds at octofinals. The “break night” party, which is really half the reason why debaters even debate (what issues?) was actually pretty good. Most of the bartenders are Pinoy, meaning you just had to beg and you would grab an extra shot in your drink for free. There were too many stories to be told, but I heard many people got lucky that night, with everybody’s favourite wingman, alcohol. I’m not about to put myself at great personal risk to reveal that.

Well, anyway, it was fun, but it wasn’t break night. That’s because after promising and promising to release breaks, at somewhere around midnight, the organizers regretfully said tabs were delayed, and breaks had to be put off until the next day. This, I think, was unprecedented. Break night is BREAK NIGHT for a reason, and lots of happy people instantly switched to their angry faces and stormed off, myself one of them.

Filipinos in the finals

Break rounds are, I feel, the most exciting part of any tournament. No do-overs, no save points, break rounds kill off teams mercilessly. That’s why UP Diliman was so happy to have its entire teams break to the main break, because comparatively, last year, only one team made it to the break and got eliminated in the pre-octofinals. So understandably, we were a bit nervous. After two gruelling days of debate, we actually got to make it to the finals. Yeah, we got beaten there by the National University of Singapore, but that’s a pretty good achievement for us, seeing as it’s been over a decade since UP Diliman has made it to the finals of Asians.

The after-party

People always take sides and get mad during debate, but usually step outside the room as friends. That’s what made the after-party so fun for us this UADC - that we went against so many people that made us absolutely bonkers in the rounds, but we managed to have fun with them afterwards. After the finals, we went to Macau tower and ate the incontestably best debate function food ever. There was escargot, steak, all kinds of meat and vegetable masterpieces, and this weird but strangely addictive soup of coconut and curry that makes my mouth water as I remember it while typing this (I got five bowls. Heh).

After that, there was the adventure in Hong Kong, as we left Macau on the 23^rd and extended our stay there. Eight of us stayed at a friend’s house there, which she actually had to put off the demolition for, just so we could stay there. I felt so special. Anyway, we experienced shopping in Hong Kong, and let me tell you – alcohol ain’t cheap there. In fact, we had to content ourselves with a bottle of a Philippine-made gin which we bought in Macau, a taste of home that we would have had to shell out 103 HKD for (around P550) to buy in Hong Kong. Sin taxes.

Part of the experience, of course, was the Hong Kong nightlife – and party we did. What started out as a night groaning at the ridiculous expenses we would incur (56 HKD for a bottle of beer?!) quickly turned into a drunken slurry of dancing, picture-taking, and public displays of affection.

Part of the fun, of course, was laughing at the expense of the people dancing in the street due to MASSIVE INTOXICATION.

Everyone’s a winner

If you read this whole thing, you realize that I spent a very short part describing the debates and the skill level but mostly about the things we did, the friends we made, and the alcohol we drank. That’s because in UADC, there can be only one champion, but we can all be winners in other ways.