He can’t tell you quite why, but Langston Hughes Middle School seventh grader Brian Cheng has always liked looking at maps. Last year, on a plane trip to Orlando, Cheng looked out the window and named off the roads as he passed by.
"When I was young, I was always looking at maps," Cheng said. "I guess I just liked looking at them."
He still spends around an hour every night studying geography, and the hobby has served him well.
THIS YEAR Cheng was Virginia state geography bee champion and qualified as one of 55 finalists (one from each state and U.S. territory) for this year’s National Geographic Bee. The event, held at National Geographic Headquarters in Washington, D.C., started Tuesday, May 21 and continued through the week.
Cheng had hoped to be one of the top 10 finalists, but he ended up in 13th place.
"I was depressed at first, but there were a lot of fun activities, so I kind of forgot about the competition," Cheng, 13, said. "They took us to a farm in Maryland, so we had fun all afternoon, right after the competition ended."
He said he had fun throughout the competition, as well. National Geographic, which sponsors the annual event, put him up in a Washington hotel with two other competitors. One of Cheng’s roommates was from Hawaii, the other was from New Hampshire.
"They didn’t care how late you stayed up," Cheng said. "We played games all night and watched T.V."
"I gather, from talking to Mr. and Mrs. Cheng, that getting to watch so much T.V. was a big deal," said Gene Zablotney, chair of the Langston Hughes social studies department.
Zablotney, who watched Cheng compete, said he was well-composed.
"SOME OF THE STUDENTS were clearly nervous," Zablotney said. "Especially a couple of kids who missed questions early on. You would see the nervousness creep in."
Cheng remembers one question in particular that tripped him up.
"There was this one question on the Matobo Hills in Zimbabwe, which were sacred to some group," Cheng said. "They said the hills were in between Botswana and Mozambique and asked me to identify which country they were located in. I got that wrong. I didn’t guess Zimbabwe."
In another question, though, the answer was also, ‘Zimbabwe,’ and Cheng nailed it.
"The question was something like, ‘Which country had a bad election,’" Cheng said.
Zablotney said that although all the questions dealt with geography, they also covered other subjects.
"They tend to ask questions by category," Zablotney said. "One might be on economic geography, one on cultural geography, one on physical geography and one on political geography."
Cheng is not one of Zablotney’s students, but after he won the school geography bee, Zablotney became his coach. She sent him home with college-level textbooks and practice questions.
"Brian has done the work himself," Zablotney said. "That’s what made it stick. It’s something he wants to do, something he loves."
Cheng called into school after the state competition. Both Zablotney and Langston Hughes principal Deborah Jackson gathered to hear the news. They both screamed out when they heard he had come in first.
Next year Cheng hopes to get back to the national competition, and is aiming for first place.
"If Brian sets his goal for number one, I think he can make it," Zablotney said.