by Victoria Zielinski
Last Saturday, on March 1st, the 25th Regional Japanese Language Speech Contest was held at The Embassy of Japan. There were many brilliant speeches presented by various ability levels in the language, ranging from beginners, intermediate, advanced and the open category. It can really be seen how much effort and time the participants put in to give the best speech that they could. Among these amazing participants are some of our very own Carleton University students, many of them taking a minor in Japanese!
In the intermediate section, the first place winner was Ran Tao (3rd Year, Communications Studies) with her topic of The Great Passage. Coming in as first runner-up was Juan Sarria (3rd Year, Computer Science) with his topic of Columbia and Japan: What is true richness. In the open category, the first place winner was Qian Yingxin (Masters program, Economics) with her topic of Dreaming to Become a Bridge between Japan and China.
There were also special prizes given that the judges felt that their speeches were very well done and deserved to be recognized as well. Â These speeches were that of Kil Min Kyung (3rd Year Political Science), Nathaniel Sergeant (2nd Year, Linguistics) and Claire Zhou (4th Year, Public Affairs). Congratulations to all of our winners from Carleton University!
While the judges were making their decisions, guests were shown a short film about Japanese culture. The film gave many various sites of culture, ranging from food, music and showing specific cities, such as Tokyo. As interesting as the film was, it was clear that many people, both speakers and their supporters were anxious to see the judges’ results.
To continue with the excitement, the first place winners from each category will be going onto the 25th National Japanese Language Speech Contest. This year, Ottawa is proudly hosting the competition at The Embassy of Japan on March 29th. Good luck to our Ran Tao and Qian Yingxin at the nationals!