The winner of the fifth season of the China Central Television's Chinese Poery Cornference (中国诗词大会) was shown on Feb 9. Peng Min, who has fallen at the final competition twice before, finally won the crown(王冠) for himself.
The competitors are different in age, from teenagers to adults. Peng, 36, an associate senior editor(副主编)of a poetry magazine, is one of the most familiar faces of the show. He can recite around 1,000 poems.
With a master's degree in literature, Peng is always the hot favorite to win the prize. But, surprisingly, he's lost two finals in a row-the second season he lost to a 16-year-old high school student, Wu Yishu, and in the third season he was beaten by deliveryman (送货员) Lei Haiwei.
He cried after losing the season three final," I realized that if I compete and fail again, at least I've tried, but if I don't sign up, that means I'm more of a failure because I'm afraid of trying.
Therefore, when season five came around, I decided to give it another go," Peng recalls.
The season five final came down to Peng and 11-year-old Han Yaxuan-again he was facing a much younger rival. This time, though, there was to be no mistake and victory was finally his.
"I want to tell people who have a similar experience that, even though you go through all kinds of misfortune(不幸的)or difficulties, as long as you are brave enough to look up, there will always be a light in the sky to guide you out of the darkness," Peng said in his speech. "Thousands of years later, all of our shadows will vanish, only the beauty, of poems will last."
