On December 16th, 2023, Hiroshima University (HU) held the 8th Japanese Essay Speech Contest in Universitas Darma Persada (UNSADA) in Jakarta, Indonesia, where the PERSADA-HU Collaboration Project Center is located.

The contest was held jointly by the PERSADA-HU Collaboration Project Center and Komaru-Koutsu Foundation. The contest has been held every year since 2016 and has been calling for essays themed around “transportation” since then. A total of 115 essays were submitted after recruiting entrants from 10 universities taking a lead in Japanese language education in Indonesia. 29 essays chosen by the universities were then narrowed down to 10 finalists who presented their speeches at the contest that day.

The contest started off with welcome speeches by Mr. Shigehiro Komaru, President of the Komaru-Koutsu Foundation and President of the Fukuyama Transporting Co. Ltd., and Prof. Firsan Nova, Vice President of UNSADA.

Mr. Daisuke Hoshino, Minister of the Embassy of Japan in Indonesia, a guest of the event, offered words of encouragement for this event not only promoting friendship between Japan and Indonesia, but also nurturing individuals who will build a bridge between the two countries.

Following that, the ten finalists delivered their speeches in fluent Japanese. Finally, after careful deliberation, Ms. Rania Aydin from Universitas Indonesia was selected to be the Grand Prize winner.

At the end of the contest, Specially Appointed Professor Koichi Nishiguchi of the HU Morito Institute of Global Higher Education made closing remarks to conclude the event. The audience of approximately 200 people, including Japanese language students and teachers, listened enthusiastically until the very end.

The 10 participating universities (in order of appearance):
Universitas Brawijaya, Universitas Darma Persada, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Universitas Airlangga, Universitas Udayana, Universitas Padjadjaran , Universitas Hasanuddin, Universitas Indonesia, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Indonesia University of Education