Welcoming the new exchange students

Good morning I bid to the teachers and friends, and welcome to the German exchange students. As the President of the English Language Society, I have been asked by my teacher advisor to give a welcoming speech to the German students and give the information about our school and country, Malaysia. PERMATApintar Education Programme (The High School Programme) is a full boarding high school situated at UKM, Bangi Selangor. It is built in 2009 and it is Malaysia’s first and only centre for talented and gifted students. The students are provided with many facilities such as washing machines, refrigerators, air-conditioners and spacious classes. Besides that, the students have the access to the internet for 24 hours a day as wifi is available all around the school compound. This enables the students to search information at the tip of their finger anywhere and anytime. Next, I would like to talk about our country, Malaysia. Malaysia is located in the South East Asia region.

Malaysia is a multiracial country with Malay, Chinese, Indian and other minority races. Majority of the population are Muslims while the rest belong to religion such as Hinduism, Christianity and Taoist while few of them are non-religious. We live peacefully and harmoniously by respecting each other, celebrating events together and going to educational institution together regardless gender, race and religion. Since there are many races and religions, we are fortunate to have a melting pot of festivals too. The examples of the festivals that are celebrated in Malaysia are Eidul Fitri, Eidul Adha, Chinese New Year, Deepavali and Gawai Day. During the festivals, we visited each other and celebrated together.

We even have the ‘Gong-Xi Raya’, celebrating Eid Fitri and Chinese New Year together carried out at national level. Selangor has famous tourist spots such as Batu Caves, Sunway Lagoon Theme Park, i-City, KidZania, and Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Mosque. There are a lot of shopping malls too like Sunway Pyramid and The Mines. In Bangi itself, there are many attractions which include the new Bangi Gateway shopping mall, where we can do our shopping spree, and Taman Tasik Cempaka, a recreational park in Bandar Baru Bangi where one can find jogging track, football field and other sporting activity areas. There is also space in the park reserved for family picnic with a beautiful lake view.

A lot of eye-catching souvenirs can be found in Malaysia. Examples of the must buy souvenirs in Malaysia are batik and bamboo baskets. Malaysian batik is one of a kind unlike batik in Thailand or Singapore because most of Malaysian batik has larger and simpler pattern and the method of Malaysian batik making is quite different from those of Indonesian Javanese batik. Malaysia is also well-known for its basket weaving. Bamboo baskets are the most famous and are best found in Terengganu and Kelantan. I hope this talk will be beneficial to the German students of this school. With that, I end my speech.