Every time we deliver a speech, that is an opportunity to improve ourselves, as we try something new, explore different ways of doing things, in order to uncover powerful techniques that you had never believed would work for you.  It is a chance to put the theoretical into practice, so we can verify first hand the advice given by experts or textbooks, or even the Toastmaster Manuals.   It is my hope that all of us at CHIC can embrace this mentality with every precious stage time given to us.

For me, delivering a Mandarin speech is quite special:  I could put myself in most of your shoes, because I’d be speaking in a second language.  I would be able to experience what you experienced, from the difficulty of speech writing, to rehearsal, and all the overwhelming emotions during the delivery.  I hoped that through this experience, I could verify how much of the speech technique is translatable across different languages and culture, and whether the language gap is an obstacle that is worthy of our worries.  We just had our Mandarin Humorous Speech contest this past Wednesday.  There were four techniques I wanted to test out:

1. Prepare the speech conversationally.  Previously, I had written in my reflection about this.  Four my past four speeches, I had not written down my speeches.  The outline, content, and timing were all determined and refined through rehearsal.  Prior to that, I had committed everything to memory, even the past 2 Mandarin speeches, one of which was a total disaster, as you remember.  I found that not relying on memory recall resulted in a tremendous difference in the feel of the stage during delivery—it was liberating, and the stage confidence shot through the roof.  But that was in my native language.  Do I dare to try it in Mandarin?  While I have also encouraged you to try this in their next speech, I would be a hypocrite if I don’t try it in my ‘second’ language.
2. My favorite introduction technique is to make the audience to think and reflect, either with a thoughtful rhetorical question or stunning statement.  Would this work in Mandarin?  Could I deliver the line so it is sincere and thoughtful for the audience?
3. Deliver the speech conversationally.  Speak in short simple phrases.   Even in my native English, I found that this technique helped me tremendously with my enunciation and emotional delivery.  In hindsight, the Mandarin speeches I delivered in the spring still had too fast of a pace.  What is the impact if I could also speak in Mandarin with the slower pace that I’m now comfortable with?
4. Use of humor.  One technique I will try out is Judy Carter’s technique of  Attitude-Emotion-Acting out.  In July, I delivered a humor workshop attempting to introduce this technique.  It wasn’t as easy to explain as I thought.  Would the technique work in Mandarin?

Preparation:  Not putting anything down on paper was difficult for an English speech, and almost impossible for a Mandarin speech.  The temptation was great to write it down so I could refine the words, phrases and sentences to my very liking.   However, those would not be the words I would use in a normal Chinese conversation—which is as unrefined oatmeal.  But that is the way I talk.  By putting together the content by talking it out, not writing it down, I forced myself to make sense of the logic conversationally.  Although with only a few days of preparation, it was not as poetic as I would have liked, it helped me sound more ‘real’.   At the very least, I felt real and authentic on stage.   Did it work?  Undoubtedly.  At no time on stage did I struggle to recall specific words, which controlled my nervousness.  Knowing that there’s nothing I would forget, I felt more confident and at ease.  Without a doubt, I would recommend that you try this at least once, even in your English speeches, to feel what I felt.

Introduction:  “人看人，就像是在看天气.”  It’s a rhetorical statement, a strange statement, that left the audience wondered, “what is this all about?  I want to know more.”  I heard and felt the inquisitiveness in the audience.  More importantly, I paused enough to hear it from the crowd.  The importance of the pause works in Chinese!  Try it next time whenever you want the audience to reflect.  Sincerely let them reflect.  In this natural sincerity, you will pause naturally, long enough for you to see a reaction, and not too long to get awkward.  Although it was the introduction which was the most obvious to solicit audience reflection, you can try it in any part of your speech.  Don’t be afraid to pause.  We need the audience to think.  Speaking is a two way communication.

Delivery.  I believe the pace of my delivery goes hand-in-hand with how I prepared my speech.  Mandarin being my 2^nd language, it is easy for me to speak nervously.  However, if we speak to be understood, we would always watch our pace.  Were my sentences simple and short?  Much more so, that it had a conversational quality to it that I didn’t have in my previous speeches.  Did my Mandarin improve in the past 6 months?  (Not the one with all the 成语, but compare it with the speech from my division contest)  I doubt it.  But the manner in which I delivered it was more conversational and natural.

Humor.  What can I say…sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.  The opening story had the attitude: weather report 指数 is stupid.  The premise:  It is written for people who don’t have brains.  The acting out was a supposedly stupid person read the paper, and saw the report:  “今天下雪，零下15度。 那我今天应该洗车不？ 洗车指数是。。。不宜。原来如此。呦！今天还不能出去穿短裤跑步呀？” (Today’s weather Heavy snow, 15 below zero.  Should I take wash the car?  Let’s see…the paper says…No.  I see…Hey, it also said I should go out in shorts and jog!”)  There were supposed to be two laughing points:  1. the stupid person needed the weather report to tell him he shouldn’t wash the car. (no laughs) and also the paper telling him that he also shouldn’t go outside and jog in shorts (some laughs here).  There are many reasons why this didn’t work as expected, and I am not convinced it’s because of the ‘theory’.   Was my attitude (it’s so stupid) obvious enough?  After reviewing the video, it may not be obvious enough.  What about the premise?  It was implied along with the attitude (指数是写给大脑缺氧的人).  Finally, the acting out:  I was missing my prop (a newspaper),  I didn’t act ‘dumb’ enough; and the car wash is a bit too plain:  could have exaggerated some more (like running outside in shorts).  Conclusion:  Let me see if I can redeliver this at another club to test the theory.

The other acting out worked better:  The abused kid in the hospital.  There was another acting out that I eliminated in the conclusion, due to the time limit…but I still went overtime.  Let’s see next time.

Overall, it was a tremendous success for me, personally.  I hope that you can also find inspiration in my experience to try something new in your English speeches.  This is what Toastmasters is all about.  This is what CHIC is about.

The speech video

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(by the way, I didn't mean 'heavy Snow'  Snow is never heavy.  always very graceful....)