The art of reinvention through debate with Yale-NUS student Ian Chai
The seasoned competitive debater shares his experiences as a college debater and how his time with the sport has influenced his worldviews.
(Image provided by Ian Chai for Yale-NUS College)
Fresh off a win at the 2023 Sunway Asian Parliamentary (SAP) debating competition, Yale-NUS College student Ian Chai (Class of 2025) finds himself reflecting on a debate career that is nearly a decade long. He first entered the debate circuit in his hometown of Sarawak, Malaysia, at the age of 13, while looking for an extracurricular activity to participate after school.
“I was a very argumentative kid,” he shares with a grin, “So when I heard that there was a school debate club, I thought it was perfect for me and my dad agreed!”
During his time in Malaysia, Ian and his team were able to reach new heights in the Sarawakian debating circuit. In 2017, they won the Swinburne Sarawak Interschool Debating Championship (SSIDC), and subsequently tried out for the Malaysian national team, where Ian was placed in the development squad. Through debate, Ian was exposed to critical analysis and intellectually rigorous ways of thinking, which bled into his academic career, leading him to receive an ASEAN scholarship to study in Singapore at Anglo-Chinese Junior College (ACJC) in 2019.
Joining the much more experienced ACJC debate team proved to be a new experience for Ian, which he described as a “hard reset” from the previous team he was used to. He noted, “I had to learn different debate styles. In Malaysia, we debated in the Asian Parliamentary debate style, whereas Singapore used the World Schools debate style, which was entirely different.” Ian found himself adjusting to longer speeches and more intense content development for his argumentation, which proved to be quite a challenge.
Nevertheless, Ian adapted quickly, as he practised the new format with his debate team and refined his argumentation and debate style with his coaches. His hard work paid off as he managed to reach the semi-finals of the MOE-ACJC Intercollegiate Debating Championships in 2019 and the finals of the Oldham Cup in 2020. Looking back at this stage of his debate career, Ian was most grateful for the opportunity to learn a new system and style of debating.
He reminisced, “It taught me flexibility and the ability to work well with teammates. I benefited from the mentorship I received from my high school coaches, who taught me the fundamentals of debating.”
In 2021, Ian found himself re-adapting to a new style of debating once again – university level debating – which follows the British Parliamentary system in a two-person team rather than the three-person teams of the World and Asian debate styles. In the two years since he joined the Yale-NUS College Debate team, he participated in many distinguished competitions, including the 2023 World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC) held in Madrid last December, where he represented Yale-NUS.
He also participated in the 2023 Sunway Asian Parliamentary Debating competitions, where he represented Yale-NUS College in the composite Singapore university debate team and eventually emerged as winners. Ian represented the College in a composite team at the 2023 Intertext Asian Parliamentary Debating Championship, where they emerged as semi-finalists. “University debating is a different format, but it gives me a chance to re-engage with the sport I love. Drawing boundaries about who we are willing to work with and balancing mental health and well-being in a competitive sport requires a lot of self-discipline and determination to train amidst other commitments in College.” Additionally, having the opportunity to train with different teams such as the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Debate Society helped Ian to further expand his debate repertoire, and gave him the opportunity to learn new skills and techniques with which to approach the sport.
When questioned about how debating has influenced his academic career at the university level, he shared: “It has been quite influential – debating is one of those sports that really shapes your personality and worldview. It bleeds into the way you think and see the world.”
From refining his ability to analyse concepts and reading materials critically, to encouraging holistic thinking and collaboration, debating has helped Ian flourish in an academically rigorous and interdisciplinary environment at the College. As a debate coach himself now, he feels glad to be able to give back to the sport which has taught him so much since his first debate practice, and helped fund his university expenses. Even as he looks forward to preparing for upcoming tournaments, he is grateful for his great teammates from the composite teams in Singapore, his high school team, fellow Malaysian debater Lim T.J, and Yale-NUS for giving him the opportunity to continue engaging in the sport he loves.
