World-PEC III in Europe

This year the World Peace Ethics contest on 14 December 2008 outside Thailand was admittedly upstaged, DMC media-wise, by the congregation of 500,000 'V-star' exemplary children at Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Thailand. Nonetheless, with a new improved textbook in English called Family Step-by-Step and a translation of last year's Warm Hearted Family now in German Das Herz einer Familie, there was a trickle of newcomers joining the contest at exam centres up and down Europe. In London we had two teams taking the exam in English - and we offered the exam by distance learning for another two teams in Zürich. The exam paper was easier than previous years - with plenty of obvious trick answers, however, from a cursory look at the paper I found two places where questions were repeated (10/92 and 16/37) which is double points for those who knew the right answer, and another where the correct consequence of everyone in the world keeping Five Precepts included that 'monkeys would win World War III against the humans' (Q.76).