On November 8th, 2015, Jing Siou Elementary School Hakka Parent-child Team went to Hsinchu to compete in the eighth National Raoping Hakka Reading and Speech Contest. Our 16 contestants won 3 golden medals, 2 silver medals, 3 bronze medals, 4 premium awards and 5 merit awards. Among them, Yuzhang Huang, Tingfeng Qiu, Lizhuo Fan and Minshun Huang did a phenomenal job. From the great performances they had given, we witness new milestone in Jing Siou Elementary School’s Hakka promotion achievement. They not only received congratulations from teachers and students, but they also drew attention from people off campus. The list of parents and children that won awards is listed below: The instructor –Meidu Qiu is the only Raoping Hakka Master in Changhua County. She had been committed to teach Hakka in Yuanlin, Yongjing and Puxin and successfully revived Raoping Hakka. She told us that a month before her students’ reading and speech contest, she had written drafts mainly on the topics of local life, history, Hakka debate, issues, township tours, life experience and so on. She recorded audio tapes for the contestants to practice and after she corrected their pronunciations, she arranged for them to perform in public, for example, in different offices, on outdoor stage, under trees, on athletic tracks, in the hallway, and in classrooms, etc. They even went to Yongjing and Puxin communities to practice giving speeches in Hakka and became a popular and well-known “Raoping Hakka Promotion Corp”. Mrs. Qiu told us that Hakka is easy if you speak it more often. In two years, by giving lessons in school and in communities, she had built an oasis in Changhua Raoping desert.

President Rongsen Huang said Mrs. Qiu is a genius who works hard. She is literally a role model for all local language teachers and she is an asset to the school, so the school will do the best to support and aid her in Hakka promotion. From last year, they had opened Raoping Hakka Student Club, Parent-child Hakka Class, and Children Hakka Class in a succession which fetched the public. Moreover, in recent days, they formed “Jing Siou Raoping Hakka Junior Corp” and learned to recorded during the research “-Mrs. Qiu, the Lady that successfully revives Chuanghua Raoping Hakka” They made Chinese and English websites to join Taiwan School Cyberfair in the hope of further promoting Changhua Raoping Hakka.

All these attracted the attention of the media. There are news coverage by Hakka Television “The Motivation and Expectation behind Coaching Parents and Children to Compete in National Raoping Hakka Speech Competition”, news coverage by the reporter of Reports for Taiwan –Lin Bi Zhu “ The Most Important Promoter for Raoping Hakka’s Revival – Meidu Qiu”, and news coverage by a reporter of Hakka Television –Li Xin Long “Changhua Raoping Hakka Learn Hakka and Won Prizes in Hakka Competition”. They all prove to the public the efforts Mrs. Qiu made on Raoping Hakka revival does not go to waste.