Jointly reported by:
Leah Leyi Beicht Jr1M(6)
Ong Chen Xi Jr2Z(2)
A Kuen Cheng High School student has just scored in the international league of Model United Nations. On the 10th of October, Lee Ke Yin, the soon-to-be President of the English Debate Club, received the “Best Delegate” Award in the Model United Nations (Model UN, or MUN) competition.
Kuen Cheng’s Facebook post congratulating Ke Yin on her achievement.
Getting “Best Delegate” certainly is an impressive feat, especially in this day and age where people have started to care less about politics and global affairs. To learn more about how she got this award, we decided to interview Ke Yin.
The interview kicked off with an introduction to MUN, by the interviewee herself.
As the name implies, MUN is like the UN but for young people, mainly meant to cultivate the young generation’s awareness of the world. In this event, participants will play the role of leaders of different countries to discuss political topics, and finally promote solutions to international problems by writing draft resolutions and voting. In the process, they have to debate and explain the policies discussed with other participants.
A resolution bill, meant to formally address and announce policies
A position paper, meant to propose policies
Ke Yin also mentioned that the country someone represented was not determined by their country of birth. While she was a Malaysian, she rarely talked on behalf of Malaysia. Instead, one’s country was decided by drawing lots. Therefore, Ke Yin had roles as many other countries, such as China, New Zealand, and Bangladesh.
Next, we asked: As the soon-to-be president of the English Debate Club, do you think that joining the club has helped you in this competition?
Certainly, joining the Debate Club had helped Ke Yin a lot. In fact, she was introduced to MUN by her debate coach. She also has many friends who are well-informed about current affairs, and talking to them has helped her in becoming a global citizen.
In this regard, someone Ke Yin is quite fond of is Sophia. She has always accompanied Ke Yin in joining MUN competitions, including this year’s round. Although Sophia has never won a MUN contest, she has given Ke Yin lots of encouragement. Evidently, when it comes to Ke Yin’s award, Sophia’s contributions simply cannot be ignored.
Of course, Ke Yin had met many kinds of people in Model UN. As such, our third question was about her experiences meeting these people.
Ke Yin said that there indeed were people from different countries in the international competition; Germany, Singapore, Russia, and South Korea just to name a few. One problem Ke Yin faced because of this was that she couldn’t understand their thick accents. As a result, she had to pay extra attention when they were speaking. She had to take more notes too.
Nevertheless, Ke Yin mentioned that talking to these people has made her aware of other cultures, which is something important to have as a Malaysian.
Next, we asked Ke Yin about what she had that made her win the competition.
On this, Ke Yin said that as a debater, she naturally had an advantage over other people in this competition on negotiations and discussions. She also believed that she had put in more effort than other people, especially in research and taking notes.
As a MUN participant, Ke Yin had to understand how the world works. To learn more, she would usually read government reports which got her familiar with politics, not just of Malaysia but also of the rest of the world; according to her, they go hand in hand. For example, when riots broke out in Myanmar after its government was overthrown early this year, Malaysia didn’t support the protesters because both Myanmar and Malaysia were part of ASEAN.
With both of these abilities, Ke Yin had a better time in the competition.
Our last question was: Other than the award, what do you think you have obtained from joining MUN?
In response to this question, Ke Yin said that MUN has allowed her to better herself in three ways: research, debating, and confidence. Through the competition, she has gotten the opportunity to speak in front of up to a hundred people, which has definitely helped increase her self-esteem. It is also through this competition that Ke Yin has become a more extroverted and outgoing person.
In terms of debating, MUN has also improved her performance in the Debate Club. For example, Ke Yin has recently written an article for the Debate Club Facebook page about how overpopulation in China should have been solved. While overpopulation isn’t affecting China anymore, the process of removing it has negatively impacted China. However, Ke Yin explained that her proposal would prevent these problems from happening in the first place.
Before we ended the interview, Ke Yin wanted to thank the people who made her achievement possible. Every week, her parents would take the time to discuss politics with her and would teach her how to analyze things. Ke Yin was also grateful for her MUN coach, who was willing to even give up sleeping to practice with her. Lastly, she would like to thank her friends for their words of encouragement and help.
To Ke Yin, MUN is just the start for her; she plans to go to law school in the future. We congratulate Ke Yin on her success and wish her all the best in her future endeavors.
