PENANG, 12 May 2018 – Being fluent in the Japanese language has many advantages, says the newly-appointed Consul-General of Japan in Penang, Shinichiro Kanoya.

Kanoya said this to an audience of more than 70 people at the 39th Japanese Speech Contest 2018 for the Northern Region, held at the Toray-USM Knowledge Transfer Centre at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) recently.

Kanoya said the relationship between Malaysia and Japan is stronger than ever in terms of business, culture, research, education and people-to-people exchange and hence, there is a strong local demand in Malaysia for Malaysians who understand the Japanese language.

“Furthermore, the Northern Region is home to more than 250 Japanese industries, and for those who are interested to seek employment in Japanese companies, the ability to be able to converse and write well in Japanese is an added advantage.

“Therefore, I urge and encourage more Malaysians especially the younger generation to take up Japanese as the second or third language.

“It is my intention to further promote Japanese language education here in Malaysia and also to encourage the Malaysian people who have been studying Japanese to be proficient in the language,” he added.

This is the second consecutive year that USM played host to this long-established speech contest, which was jointly organised by the Consulate-General of Japan in Penang, Penang Japanese Association, Japanese Cultural Centre-USM and the Japan Foundation Kuala Lumpur (KL).

Meanwhile, the USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation), Professor Ir. Dr. Abdul Rahman Mohamed said, this contest provides an excellent platform for Malaysian Japanese language learners to express their opinions, views and thoughts, and demonstrate their oral language communication skills in Japanese.

"Over the years, this contest has been inspiring many Japanese language learners of all levels to improve their proficiency in the Japanese language, including USM students who are learning Japanese as a second language,” he said.

Rahman is confident that this contest will help to deepen the understanding among Malaysian Japanese language learners on the importance of cross-cultural communications.

Apparently, this speech contest was Kanoya’s first attendance at a cultural event held in Penang since he took up office as the Consul-General of Japan less than two weeks ago.

Kanoya also served as one of the judges at the contest; the other judges were Vice-Consul Kosuke Nakagawa; Chairman of Penang Japanese Association, Masahiko Kawamura; Director of Japanese Cultural Centre KUFS-USM, Masatoshi Soeda; Principal of Penang Japanese School, Shizuo Ono; and Principal Lecturer of Japan Foundation KL, Takashi Miura.

The winners were:

STUDENT CATEGORY 
1st: Tan Phay Ling
2nd: Law Wei Ming
3rd: Ain Nur Izzah Binti Zaidi

OPEN CATEGORY  
1st: Tan Sze-Ai (USM)
2nd: Syarifah Shafiqah Binti Syed Abdullah
3rd: Noor Syarafana Binti Firouz (USM)
 
Prizes were sponsored by some of the well-known Japanese companies, namely Canon, Sony, Toray and Reeracoen.

Text: Tan Ewe Hoe/Photo: Ebrahim Abdul Manan