Chinese Bridge - bias and unfairness

Yesterday was Fujian Province's first round of the Chinese Bridge (汉语桥) competition, in Xiamen University, and since a few from my degree course were performing, most of our course and lecturers attended the competition.

Each contestant made a self introduction, short speech, a free performance of whichever talent the contestant chose to show, and then answered questions from the three judges - it was an audition of sorts as this was the first time contestants were to perform. The judges would show either a green or red light for approval or disapproval. Three greens and the contestant would pass straight to Beijing; two out of three meant passing to the finalist selection; any less and the contestant did not go through.

I and most sitting around me however felt the judging was unfair; if a judging strategy wasn't planned out beforehand, then I suspect decision-making went on before the candidates performed. In all, there were about 42 contestants from four universities (Xiamen University, Huaqiao University, Fujian Normal University and Fujian University of Medicine).

Firstly, whilst I don't have the right to judge anyone's overall Chinese level, the judges were highly inconsistent in their outcomes for those who performed well and those who did visibly less well. Not to fault any contestant's enthusiasm - it's fantastic that they decided to audition, but as this is a competition, the aim is naturally to choose those with the best Chinese and most creative use of it, with a bonus I presume for a good talent. Of the 42 contestants, there seemed to be little logic in the judging. To put this into perspective:

-A large number of contestants who performed less well got 2/3 green lights, from one or two whose tones were mostly incorrect and only spoke in short utterances, to others who had decent talents but less good Chinese, and vice-versa. For example, one contestant could play Wang Fei beautifully on the leaf, but didn't speak in full sentences and occasionally fell back on English. Another spoke mostly incorrect tones and answered some questions with a simple "什么？" or "我不懂你再说什么" - all went through. It's understandable to put some through to selection, but very unfair to let some of the worst performers (credit to them though for confidence) go through when:

-Several excellent contestants, performing visibly better than others, were rejected for unknown reasons. They performed well in all aspects, obviously far better than many who had gone through, but received only one green or even three reds. The worst example was a contestant who despite a few incorrect tones, made a good introduction, recited an old poem beautifully and answered the judges' questions with confidence. He received three reds.

-Whilst there were only three of them, no black contestant made it through to the next round, one being the example I just mentioned. All three of them performed better than several others who received two greens and two of them deserved two greens in my opinion.

-Up to the afternoon break (at the 75% point), two contestants received three greens and passed through to Beijing. One rightfully deserved it as his Chinese was flawless and had already won two competitions previously, but the other made quite an average performance in comparison to other contestants. She made a fairly simple introduction followed by singing a Chinese song quite well, and didn't slip up much on the questions, but then out of nowhere came three green lights.

-A Mongolian girl attended the competition. Fair enough, but she openly admitted that her parents spoke Mandarin, she grew up with it as her mothertongue along with the local dialect, worked as a presenter for a Fuzhou TV station (in other words, spoke excellent standard Mandarin). Her passport nationality is Chinese. Thankfully the judges saw more sense this time and gave her two reds - though I don't know why a green was given. This competition of not for native speakers.

-The judges didn't express their opinions consistently. A girl who performed club dancing (after a very good Mandarin introduction) was grilled by judges as to why she didn't choose to perform something representative of Chinese culture, and was then rejected with only one green. Perfectly fair question, but they had no problem problem laying praise after praise on a different girl who wowed the audience with her belly dancing, asking her to perform again so more photos could be taken.

-Lastly, and more on the you-knew-it-would-happen side of things, a Korean woman who made a very good introduction and sang a Chinese song absolutely beautifully slipped up fatally when asked what her impression of Taiwan was. She unfortunately made a distinction between "China" and "Taiwan" in front of the very mainland judges, following on by remarking that traffic and sanitation is better in Taiwan. I think we all saw it coming - she was rejected with two reds and a green I suppose for courtesy.

I could go on with further examples, but to wrap this up, I and most sitting near to me felt the judging and outcomes were highly unfair, occasionally bordering on ridiculous. Often it was the same judge who raised a red every time to an excellent performance - before long a lot of the audience grew restless and booed the decision when they saw the the red light.

Has anyone else been to a competition round? What was your impression of the judging?

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