On November 24th, 2018, the 13th Japanese Essay Speech Contest was held at Capital Normal University in Beijing, China, where the Hiroshima University Beijing Research Center is located.

This is the 13th time Beijing Research Center held the contest. The theme of this year was “My favorite Japanese words - Message from me to you”. After recruiting essays from universities throughout China, there were applications from 395 students from 30 universities. A total of over 100 essays were nominated by the universities and nine of them were selected at the first screening. These nine nominees then went on to the second stage which includes oral presentation and internet voting, where four finalists were selected from public scrutiny to receive the awards of excellence and perform their speeches at the venue. At the contest, there were about 120 people in the audience including students learning Japanese and Japanese teachers.

The contest began with a welcome speech by Dr. Lin Zuoping, chairperson of The Hiroshima University-China Friendship Meeting followed by Mr. Naohiro Tsutsumi, Minister of the Embassy of Japan in China who also read the celebratory message from Mr. Taro Kono, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Additionally, we had greetings from President and Representative Director Shigehiro Komaru of Fukuyama Transporting Co. who is the special sponsor of this contest.

Following that, the four award recipients delivered their speeches in fluent Japanese. Finally, after severe reviewing, Ms. Ruan Linrong from Xiamen University and Ms. Wang Yuqing from Sun Yat-sen University were selected to be the Grand Prize winners. Ms. Hong Zihua of University of Science and Technology Beijing won the “Shibuya Scholarship Foundation Executive Director’s Award” from the special supporter’s organization, and Mr. He Dong from Capital Normal University won the “CRI Special Prize” offered by China Media Group.

After the contest, Dr. Ryo Tsuda, Associate Professor of Beijing International Studies University gave a special lecture entitled “The Power of Words”.

At the end of the contest, Mr. Kazuaki Hoshi, announcer of the China Media Group and Dr. Zhang Wei of Renmin University of China gave their reviews. The audience intently listened until the very end.