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xposure to Japanese pop culture from a young age has helped Indonesians excel in the difficult language and gain insight into the culture behind it, recent winners of a speech contest attest.

Watching anime — shorthand for Japanese animation — since childhood has led Seli Inayanti to pursue her interest in the language by enrolling in Japanese literature studies at Semarang State University.

“I was interested in learning Japanese after I watched anime. I always wanted to know what the characters were talking about, so I started to learn Japanese all by myself,” she told The Jakarta Post after winning a Japanese speech contest over the weekend.

In her winning speech, the 21-year-old Central Java native recounted her embarrassment from being picked up from school by her father, driving his garbage truck.

Seli said she initially did not want her friends to know about her father being a trash collector, but changed her mind after he helped stop the flooding in her neighborhood by filling up some plastic trash bags he collected with sand.

“After that happened I felt proud of my father,” she said in perfect Japanese. She won airplane tickets to Japan provided by Japan Airlines and a home theater from Panasonic.

“I didn’t even expect to win,” Seli said. She said she felt happy winning the contest and hoped the experience could help her reach more of her goals.

The contest’s runner-up, Riki Sugianto, is also an anime enthusiast. Riki, a student of Japanese literature at Maranatha Christian University in Bandung, West Java, talked about his exposure to Japanese culture in his speech.

“My interest in the Japanese language began when my brother brought me sushi from Singapore. It was nothing like I ever tasted before,” he said in Japanese.

While sushi exposed him to Japanese culture, it was watching anime which got him more interested in learning the language.

It also turned him into a better person. “I used to be a loner for three years, but watching anime made me meet new friends,” he told the Post. “Now I’m able to win second place. I hope this contest can motivate others too.”

The 47th national Japanese speech contest was held to commemorate 60 years of Indonesian-Japanese diplomatic relations. The event was organized by the Japan Foundation, the Indonesia Japan Alumni Association (Persada) and the Research and Technology and Higher Education Ministry.

Ryo Nakamura, Japanese Embassy counselor for information and culture, one of the contest judges, said there are a growing number of Indonesians who are interested in learning Japanese culture and vice versa.

“Currently there are more people in Japan who are also interested in Indonesian culture after [experiencing] angklung and Indonesian children choir performances in Japan,” he said, referring to an Indonesian musical instrument.

Nakamura said this year’s contest was very different because participants talked about lesser known aspects of Japanese culture in Indonesia, such as karuta [playing cards] and dialects of the Japanese language.

“It was hard to pick a winner because all the contestants can speak and understand Japanese well,” he said.

According to Persada deputy secretary-general Muhammad Solihin, Indonesia had the second largest number of people studying Japanese in 2015, after China.

“The Japanese language is the third hardest language in the world after Chinese and Arabic. Indonesian interest in the Japanese language needs to be appreciated,” he said.
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