The 27th Japanese Speech Contest in Belgium

On November 24, the 27th Japanese Speech Contest was held by the Nihonjinkai at the Japanese School of Brussels, in attendance of Ambassador Hayashi. A total of 14 persons took the stage and held speeches on a wide variety of themes, such as the differences between Japanese and European customs, the characteristics of the Japanese language, as well as personal experiences in Japan, thereby showing to the audience the results of their daily study of Japanese. The First Prize, which included a round-trip airline ticket to Japan and other prizes, went to Mr. Mathias Boone for his speech entitled “Ignored Japanese Culture”, about understanding cultural differences. The Ambassador’s Prize went to Mr. Gilles Callewaert, for his speech entitled “Different from what I thought”, in which mysterious aspects of Japanese culture were presented, using many humorous expressions. Mr. Callewaert received for this a commemorative award from Ambassador Hayashi.