The 5th Japanese Natsume Soseki Haiku Contest, co-sponsored by the Tamana City Kusama Exchange Hall and "Krajuku Fenkaibu" in Tamana City, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, announced the list of winners. Student Zhi-Ling Pan of the Department of Applied Japanese, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, stood out of the 267 participating works and won an Excellence Award.

【Student Zhi-Ling Pan of the Department of Applied Japanese, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, won an Excellence Award in the 5th Japanese Natsume Soseki Haiku Contest】

The haiku " Twilight in the Winter and Rice Spray on the Stove" (冬の暮　飯噴きのぼる　竈かな) is the award-winning work by Pan Zhiling from the Department of Applied Japanese, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Participants in this competition were all lovers of Natsume Soseki's works, and most of them were Japanese amateur haiku poets. Pan stood out from the many native Japanese haiku experts and became the only foreign participant to win the prize.

【The announcement for Zhi-Ling Pan of the Department of Applied Japanese, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, as the winner of the Excellence Award in the 5th Japanese Natsume Soseki Haiku Contest】

Natsume Soseki has enjoyed a high position in the history of modern Japanese literature and is known as the "national writer." "Ksamazu" is a novel Natsume Soseki published in 1906. The stage of this novel is Kusama Onsen (formerly known as Koten Onsen) in Tamana City, Kumamoto Prefecture. To commemorate Natsume Soseki’s novel, "Kusojuku,"Tamana City not only established a Kusatsuki exchange hall and opened Kusatsuki haiku classrooms, but also started a haiku competition in 2016, which holds two recruitment competitions in a year. It is not easy for Taiwan University of Science and Technology to have participated in a foreign competition for the first time, not to mention that the student of the Department of Applied Japanese could be selected and even won an Excellence Award.

Practical ability is the strength of students in the technical and vocational system. Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology has always encouraged students to bring the Japanese language they have learned into practice. Therefore, the graduation requirements have "foreign language practical internship." Students can go to Japanese companies for internships (about 120 students go to Japan for internships a year), participate in domestic and foreign competitions, communicate with native Japanese students, obtain Japanese-related practical certificates, etc. With the accumulated points, students will be able to pass the graduation threshold. However, due to the impact of the coronavirus Pandemic this year, all the domestic competitions have been cancelled or postponed. In order not to interrupt practical training, this year students are particularly encouraged to directly participate in various competitions held in Japan.

Mei-Hua Deng, Chair of the Department of Applied Japanese at the Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, said that this was the first time for the students of Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology to participate in the contest in Japan. Many of the competitors they faced were haiku experts who speak Japanese as their mother tongue, and the contest was more difficult than the average Japanese competitions. It is incredible to have achieved such a good result, which shows that the Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology has considerable strength in talent cultivation. In the future, the department will continue to encourage students to participate in domestic and international competitions, so that students can gain practical experience from the competitions and increase their competitiveness for their future employment. She also hopes that students who are interested in Japanese and Japanese culture can come to Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology to study.