On 27 October, CLAIR Sydney was invited to attend the 8th University of New South Wales Japanese Studies Capstone Speech Contest.
The students chose topics related to Japan and presented their findings in Japanese. There were a variety of topics touched on this year such as “death by overwork” or karoshi, Brazilian immigrants in Japan, Japanese and Australian LGBT issues and the Japanese mafia. One speech also touched on the high school uniforms of Japanese girls. All presentations were well researched and thought out.
Representatives from Japanese corporations, academics and UNSW students made up the audience and they were the ones who judged the student presentations and picked the best speech and speaker. A networking event followed the speech contest and was a great opportunity for students to mingle with academics and potential employers.
We were pleasantly surprised to see that students in Australia are so interested in Japan and it was a good opportunity to once again consider Japan’s unique and distinctive qualities.
