On April 26, 2025, the 2025 SJTU Japanese Speech Contest and Sino-Japanese Cultural Exchange Festival, hosted by the Japanese Department of the School of Foreign Languages at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, was successfully held in Yang Yongman Building on the Minhang Campus.

Zhu Yifan, the Party Secretary of the School of Foreign Languages at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of the event. She stated that the Japanese speech contest was an important brand project of the school, aiming to build a practical platform for showcasing language proficiency and promoting the upgrading of language learning and cross-cultural communication skills. It also played a positive role in broadening international perspectives and deepening cultural exchanges between China and Japan. 

After the preliminary round on April 2nd, a total of 12 contestants advanced to the final of this speech contest. The theme of the final round was "Beyond the Wall of Language (言葉の壁を越えて)", and the contestants delivered speeches on various topics such as personal growth, cultural observations, and social hotspots, demonstrating solid language skills and cross-cultural communication competence with their quick thinking and calm expression. 
Associate Professor Akiko Ito of Nagoya University and other guests present highly affirmed the performance of the contestants and encouraged the students to take language learning as a bridge to broaden their international horizons, deepen cultural understanding, and make positive contributions to the future of China-Japan exchange. 

Student Yang Qianyi, the winner of the grand prize. 

During the intermission, first-year students sang the chorus of "Qun Qing", and second-year students performed the short play "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai", demonstrating the charm of fusing language learning with artistic expression. Additionally, the students who won the first prize in the first-year reading group competition also presented their award-winning reading passages on the spot, earning enthusiastic applause. 

This event has received strong support from Nagoya University in Japan and Taikorong Company. The competition invited experts from both Japan and China to serve as judges. Associate Professor Yuusuke Tawarayama from Nagoya University served as the chairperson of the judging committee, and the judges included Associate Professor Akiko Ito from Nagoya University, Professor You Haiyan from the Department of Japanese Language and Literature at East China Normal University, Professor Yin Song, and many other experts and scholars. 

In the afternoon, the Sino-Japanese Cultural Exchange Festival kicked off with great excitement. 
The manager of a Japanese confectionery store, was invited to instruct the making of wagashi. Through hands-on practice, teachers and students actively participated and experienced the charm of Japanese traditional culture. With the successful completion of the wagashi-making, this year's Sino-Japanese Cultural Exchange Festival came to a successful close in a warm and cheerful atmosphere. 

This event not only showcased the students' language proficiency and cultural literacy, but also injected new vitality into the exchanges and cultural cooperation between Chinese and Japanese youth. The School of Foreign Languages will continue to take language education as a link, actively promote international exchanges and cooperation, and help students grow and succeed.