Source: 52nd Australian Youth Bridge Championships
Jade WilkinsonQ: How long have you been playing bridge?
J: Uhm, since I was, 8, and now I’m 10, turning 11 next month. My parents are both playing, and they forced me too.
Q: And you live in Japan now?
J: Yep, I go to an International School, they speak English. Every day of the week except Thursday we do Japanese, language, we used to have Japanese Culture.
Q: What do you like to do apart from Bridge and School?
J: I like Reading and Writing. I like fantasy books, I’m reading Wings of Fire, it’s the 11th book in series. Its about Dragons, some are bad. I write fantasy.
Q: Do you play bridge in Japan?
J: Yeah sometimes, I sometimes go to a club with my mum or dad. I went to one in Yotsuya.
Q: What is your favourite bridge story?
J: The best bridge hand, we didn’t get to play it, because they forgot to shuffle it. I was practicing for the ANC, and one of the hands everyone had the entire suit, my partner had 13 Spades, I had Hearts or Diamonds. I really wanted to play it but my mum wouldn’t let me play it
Q: What is your favourite animal?
J: I like guinea pigs, I was going to get one before we went to Japan. They’re fluffy and tiny, and similar to cats, except cats eat them. Cats are my second favourite animal, maybe third, maybe a deer, cos they’re really cute.
Q: Do you have any special abilities?
J: I can survive really cold temperatures in a short sleeves and no Jacket. In Japan its really cold in winter. Except it was really warm in Japan now (their winter), most of the snow is melting. I like ice skating and skiing, I’ve been skiing since my parents starting skiing when I was three. My dad drags me along with one end of the pole.
Q: And you are on the Under 16s Team this year?
J: Yeah, I’m probably playing with Taydon, or Diya. I played with her at the Melbourne ANC. I’ve been to two ANCs. I might go to this year’s ANC. I might not go because it’s in Adelaide. And we don’t have very many family there.
Q: What’s the most interesting thing that you’ve learnt in the last year?
J: About bridge or anything? Nothing really, it was all boring. Especially when we had to learn about the essay structure. It was so boring. Unfortunately, now I know it. You have to do the introduction, and have a hook in the introduction, and a thesis statement. In every body paragraph you need to have a topic sentence and then supporting sentences. It was the most boring thing. And in the conclusion, you need to have a restated thesis statement, ideas from the body paragraphs, and then something else. We had to write an essay about an achievement, which was boring.
