JITCO

On November 14, 2009 (Saturday), Fukuoka's Iizuka city held the "Citizens' International Exchange Convention 2009: Japanese Speech Contest for Expatriates" at the Iizuka Community Center.  Zhang Yuling, a dry cleaning trainee who currently lives in Iizuka, won the Most Outstanding Performance Award.

Cooperative Society Axis has been active in grass root cultural exchange through the Industrial Training and Technical Internship Program, exploring the potential of the system.  Ms. Zhang is a registered member of the city's international exchange group, and participates in cross-cultural activities.

Ms. Zhang won the Award of Excellence at the Fukuoka Divisional Meet of the All-Japan International Trainees Speech Contest this October.  Noticing her success, Iizuka city asked Ms. Zhang to participate in the contest.

The compulsory themes for the contest were "My Dream" and "Homeland", and Ms. Zhang chose "My Dream".  The required length of speech for the Trainees Speech Contest was three minutes.  This time, however, the speech had to be five minutes long.  The expatriates who competed were students from China, Laos, Indonesia, and South Korea.  Ms. Zhang was the only trainee.  The high-level contest included a speaker with 6 years of living experience in Japan.  Ms. Zhang began her Japanese study in China only 10 months ago - not even a whole year!  Overcoming nervousness, Ms Zhang passionately spoke about her experiences of how she started thinking seriously about her dream after arriving in Japan, of her encounter with a 1900-year-old camphor tree, and of her interaction with people in the workplace.  Ms. Zhang drew laughter from the audience at the post-speech interview: she shared her experience where she could not understand the local dialect of the Chikuho region spoken by the company employees.

While judges were away to select winners, sweets from various countries were offered with Chinese tea and Chai, the Indian spiced milk tea.  High school students who participated in the English speech contest, which was held simultaneously, joined in, and all attendees enjoyed mingling and chattering regardless of languages and nationalities.

In the end, Ms. Zhang's passionate speech won the Most Outstanding Performance Award.  Ms. Zhang appreciates this wonderful achievement and the great people who she met through this experience, and she hopes to become a bridge between Japan and China after returning home to China.