As part of its 10th anniversary celebrations, Jikei Shanghai Center held the 1st Annual Japanese Recitation-Voice Over Contest. The winners were presented with their awards at the official 10th Anniversary Ceremony which took place at the Pullman Shanghai Skyway Hotel on December 23.

 

Jikei Shanghai Center was established as a subsidiary of Jikei Inc. in 2002 and began as Han Yuan Mandarin School, teaching Chinese to staff from Japanese companies posted to Shanghai. The school is located in an old private home considered a cultural asset in China and has graduated more than 1500 students to date.

 

From 2009, Jikei Shanghai Center began administrating Shanghai Changle Holmes College, the first joint university with an Australian University in China established by the city of Shanghai. At the same time, the center manages Asahi Nichigo, a vocational college which teaches Japanese and boasts 22 campuses in 9 cities such as Suzhou and Nanjing. The school currently has approximately 7,000 students in China.

 

 

Grand Prize Winners: Ms.Xu of Fudan University for Recitation and Ms. Zhang for Voice Over

The First Annual Japanese Recitation-Voice Over Contest was established to encourage Chinese university students and high school students to learn Japanese and act as a bridge between Japan and China in the future. Over 1,100 students from across China participated in the contest, with 45 entrants progressing to the semi-finals. The Grand Prize winners were Xu Jihai from Fudan University in the Recitation Category and Zhang Wen in the Voice Over Category. Hu Zhekun, a 1st year junior high school student, was awarded the ‘Fighting Spirit Award’ after traveling over 8 hours by train from his hometown near Jingdezhen to take part.

 

Nearly 350 distinguished guests took part in the awards ceremony, including education-related officials from the city of Shanghai, local government organizations and high schools; top representatives from Japanese firms including Kyutoku Kokuga, president of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (China), and Kan Munesawa, Operations Division Manager for Jiji Press Ltd.; Shinichi Takeishi, Goodwill Ambassador from Akita Prefecture; as well as top management personnel from Chinese and Japanese education and financial industries. Additionally Kunihiko Ukifune, Chairperson of the Jikei Group of Colleges, joined the celebration, along with other representative from the Jikei Group of Colleges in Japan.

 

Voice Over Grand Prize recipient Zhang Wen performed several characters from Japanese anime films in Japanese, in a lovely, beautiful voice which drew loud applause from the audience. And Xu Jihai, Grand Prize Winner in the Recitation Category, charmed everyone in attendance with her reading from an Osamu Daizai work in exquisite Japanese.