On October 13th, the 9th “Yuying Cup” Japanese Speech final for college students of Jilin Province was held at HQUFL. Twelve college students from Jilin Province took part in the competition and displayed their knowledge and skill related to Japanese culture and linguistics through a free speech, prepared speech, and phrase translation. A senior named Sun Qian majoring in Japanese at HQUFL won 3rd place after a fierce competition.

This competition is one of the activities in honoring the 40th anniversary of “Sino-Japanese Treaty for Peace and Friendship”, which was hosted by Jilin Provincial People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, as well as Translation Association in Jilin Province, Yuying Academy in Tokyo, Japan and HuaQiao Universities of Foreign Languages. The Foreign Affairs Office of Jilin Municipal Government, Japanese Consulate in Shenyang, Japanese Association for Health and Welfare and Japanese Trade Union in Changchun supported the event as well.

Member of Foreign Affairs Office of Jilin Municipal Government, Full-time Vice President of Jilin Provincial People’s Association for Peace and Friendship, Chief Consul Masahiko Sugida at Japanese Consulate in Shenyang and Director Nagano at Yuying Academy in Tokyo all gave speeches. President Qin He also attended the activity.

Photo of Sun Qian during the free speech competition

“I volunteered to participate in this contest because I want to express my personal understanding on the cultural differences between Japan and China.” Sun noted. The title of his free lecture was “Culture and Etiquette in Japan and China”. “I received the contest notice in July while I was preparing to study in Japan. With the patient guidance of both my Chinese and foreign teachers, I smoothly passed the preliminary contest. In the following few months, my teachers gave me individual training on tone, intonation and logic, which helped me greatly. The contest also made me clearly understand the purpose of learning Japanese----to be a messenger between Japanese and Chinese Cultures”.

Qu Ziwei (right) hosted the contest.

In addition to participating in the competition, our students were also involved in hosting and presenting performances. Senior student Qu Ziwei hosted for the first time in Japanese, and she was very excited about that. Group performances aimed to show Japanese culture through singing and dancing and other competitions from college students.

Japanese performance “ Kabuki ” by students of HQUFL

The dance “ Kabuki ” performed by sophomore student Xinyu and 6 other students deeply impressed the judges and audience. “Understanding Japanese culture and how to express our understanding of it has been difficult for us in the past. However, thanks to help from our foreign teachers here at HQUFL, we have not only learned how, but we have developed a greater interest in and appreciation for Japanese culture”, commented one student.

As the only independent foreign language university that trains foreign language talents in Jilin Province, HQUFL persists in developing international schooling, and has started multi-dimensional cooperation and exchanges with over 130 universities and colleges in over 20 countries. As the 4-star major in Jilin Province as well as the unique provincial major, the Japanese Department in HQUFL started to enroll undergraduates in 2003 and MTI graduates in 2012. Up to now, HQUFL has built friendly relations with more than 10 universities in Japan, based on exchange students and cooperation in other fields in education. In October 2013, Sino-Japanese Education Exchange Base of College Students in Jilin Province was officially set up in the Global Village in HQUFL. Since then, various educational and cultural activities with the Japanese government, universities, as well as companies have been carried out, providing a number of opportunities for Sino-Japanese college students.

HQUFL encourages and organizes students to participate in various activities both at home and abroad in order to train high-qualified and well-rounded students, to promote study and communication with peers, to develop professional levels and to improve the quality of teaching resources.

Member of Foreign Affairs Office of Jilin Province and Full-time Vice President of Jilin Provincial People’s Association for Peace and Friendship expressed that a large number of excellent Japanese language talents have been cultivated since the first “Yuying Cup” of Japanese Language contest was held in 2004. The efforts of the Japanese language teachers have been rewarded. There will be an increasing demand for high-quality Japanese Language talents as the communication and cooperation in various fields develop further between Japan and China and it is optimistically hoped that Yuying Cup is going to play an increasingly important role in the communication and cooperation between the two nations.