On Feb. 25, 2007, a Japanese speech contest for foreigners in Shiga was held at the Viva City Hall in Minami-Hikone. Thirteeen non-Japanese from eight countries gave 6-min. speeches in Japanese to a full-house audience.

One of the contestants was Jamie Thompson who is an ALT on the JET Program in Konan, Shiga. She happens to be one of the singers who sang my English version of Biwako Shuko no Uta (Lake Biwa Rowing Song). The title of her speech was “Biwako Shuko no Uta no Boken” 琵琶湖周航の歌の冒険 which can be translated as “Biwako Shuko no Uta Adventures.”

She started off by singing the first line of the song in Japanese (Ware wa umi no ko, sasuraino). Then talked about how she joined the local choir in Shiga and learned about the song and later meeting me online and agreeing to sing my English version of the song. She talked about when we announced the song to the public in June 2006 in Imazu, and how she and her sister Megan got on the NHK Nodo Jiman TV show (broadcast nationally) last Nov. (Details here. )

It was certainly one adventure after another. And now she can add one more adventure to the list because she WON this speech contest. Wow, I was dumbfounded.

Congratulations to Jamie. She received many prizes from sponsors like a case of Kirin beer, 5 boxes of curry mix, cruise tickets to Chikubushima, some money, a certificate, a plaque, and other stuff.

The speech contest was covered by the Feb. 26 morning edition of the Mainichi Shimbun and Kyoto Shimbun newspapers.

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