On March 30th (last Sunday), the Northern California Chinese School Association held the grand 2025 Academic Competition at Lynbrook High School in San Jose. A total of 451 students from 28 Chinese schools gathered to compete in 16 different categories, including reading, speech, painting, calligraphy, pinyin, reading, translation, composition, and Chinese typing, with a total of 51 groups and 198 awards presented. The most popular categories were Mandarin reading, CFL/CSL reading, and pencil calligraphy.
The sunny day brought in a bustling crowd of participating students, parents, teachers, and staff at Lynbrook High School. Chinese schools from Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, Pleasanton, Bay Valley, Peninsula, Making Kids, Fremont, West Valley, Cherrywood, and Sanyi Tzu Chi set up booths to provide snacks, candies, and bottled water to cheer on the children.
Nancy Lee, a Taiwanese parent who did not learn Chinese at a young age, chose to start learning from scratch with her children. She expressed her hope that her children could connect with half of their culture and communicate with their grandparents, building cultural bridges.
The most challenging part of the competition was the impromptu speech category, with participants competing from B group: Bob Zhen Lin from Saramonte, Feng Tang from Bo’ai, and Cody Miao from Jixin. Thirteen-year-old Bob Zhen Lin, born in the United States, never attended Chinese school and solely self-taught and received family instruction in Chinese. He practiced impromptu speeches weekly with his parents, answering questions within a 30-minute time limit, training his on-the-spot reaction and language expression.
Bob Zhen Lin’s mother mentioned that he started self-studying with resources from Taiwan at the end of first grade and even spent a year in Taiwan in fifth grade to enhance his Chinese proficiency. “This competition is a great opportunity to challenge my quick thinking,” Bob Zhen Lin said. “I feel very confident and won’t regret participating.”
Other participants shared their motivations for participating in impromptu speeches. Cody Miao viewed it as “a great learning opportunity,” while Feng Tang aimed to enhance his speaking skills and deliver more substantial content through the competition.
After the competition, the judging teachers completed the scoring that day and announced the winners. Bob Zhen Lin took first place in the impromptu speech category, with Feng Tang and Cody Miao securing second and third place, respectively. The awards ceremony is scheduled to be held on April 6th at the Overseas Chinese Education Center.