CNEAS
Center for Northeast Asian Studies 2015-16

VOLUME

The Bulletin

05

March 2018

Contents
Focus

01

Recent Events

02-04

Awards05

New Staffs

05-06

Publications

06-07

Letters

07-08

Editorial

08

Focus
Political responsibilities that tie international tuna negotiations to the dinner table

I have been studying the international politics involved with fish
resources. When it comes to the amount of tuna on our tables andjust how much that costs, international politics is involved. Thismeans that your dining room table and international politics sharea connection through tuna, and while we imagine those politics
as something removed from our daily lives, they are actually very
close. As a specific research subject, I want to clarify why certain
regulations created via international negotiations are adopted, andthe conservation effectiveness of those adopted regulations. Additionally, I am also studying the scientific advice behind those regulations.
For this research, I engaged in participatory observation of the international negotiations that determine the regulations on tuna. A
great deal occurs during international negotiations. For example,
there was an incident involving the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission concerning a map posted to the committee’s website. Statingthat the display of the Kashmir region, which is a disputed regionof India and Pakistan, was inappropriate, the representative from
India requested an immediate correction. He also stated that his
country would not participate in negotiations until the map was
modified.
Additionally, while international negotiations typically arrive at
a consensus to adopt regulations, there are rare case where voting may occur. However, because these situations are rare, how avote should be conducted might not be understood and can leadto confusion. Behind these negotiations, deals between countries,
lobbying by fisheries organizations and environmental NGOs, andbusiness negotiations are conducted.
It can be difficult to comprehend these international negotiations.
Understanding remarks from the delegation of a country requires
knowing about the life history of tuna, abundance, fisheries management science, fishing gear, fishing methods, regulations, ships,
labor management and safety regulations, as well as about whatkinds of fishers and various distributors are involved, what businesses are engaged in the retail trade, what kinds of intergovernmental trade exists…in other words, everything to do with commercial tuna. Grasping the overall picture is not just a matter ofhaving a basic understanding of science and humanities, but also
requires knowing everything related to the fishing industry.

Take, for instance, the case of the fish in the picture, an Atlantic
bluefin tuna caught from a fish preserve floating in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Malta. This fish cannot actually be caught
and sold without permission. Only through compliance with the
management procedures put in place through international politics is it able to be sold as a product. Incidentally, these tuna wereapparently exported to Japan.
Actually, some of the tuna imported to Japan is in violation of certain rules. It is not easy to monitor the process by which a tuna
swimming in the ocean is fished and delivered to your dining table, including precisely where it comes from.
By purchasing tuna that violates regulations, a person is essentially voting in favor of illegal behavior. Consuming things is itself apolitical act that involves social responsibility.
Researchers conduct studies to enable sustainable fisheries, andfishery managers have established rules to allow for sustainablefisheries. If fishers make their catches while observing these rules,
then everyday consumers can buy fish caught from sustainablefisheries and support them while also fulfilling their social responsibility. It takes everyone working together to make sustainablefisheries a working reality.
(Atsushi Ishii)

This fish tank is for tuna farming.
Tuna farming catches young bluefin tuna and uses various methods tofatten them up, which allows for a kind of aquaculture where humanmade methods can be used for “high grading tuna.”

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Recent Events
The environment in Northeast Asia: Cultural perceptions and policy involvement, Session A

How do people perceive nature, and how can you try to change
realities through intervention? Beginning with shamanism andhunting rituals, the ethnography of Northeast Asia has in this respect displayed a diversity of human ideas and behaviors. Perceiving the environment, and then finding and using resources there, isdeeply embedded in cultural practices. The purpose of this session
was to use clues from that ethnography to look at what culturaland social practices people have and think about what is important in contemporary society, particularly in the context of environmental and resource issues.
While keeping in mind the methodologies for scientific research,
the attempt was to develop a real understanding of the environmental and resource issues and how to respond to them, as well as
their characteristics from the perspective of the local community
and residents. We also trying to formulate an approach from theperspective of the culture, environmental and resource in the regions of Northeast Asia governed by large nations.
Four presentation were reported by foreign and domestic researchers by the chair Hiroki Takakura (Tohoku University). First was“Movement and emotion among Eveny reindeer herders,” from
Piers Vitebsky of The Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge in the UK ; the second was “The dependent

resistance on/against the mining development: A case study
on Shamanic activities arounda copper-gold mining site in
Mongolia,” by Ippei Shimamura of the University of Shiga
Prefecture; third was “Supernatural sanctions, legal plural- Prof. Piers Vitebsky
ism, and political procedure,”from Zorbas Konstantinos of Shandong University in China; andthe fourth was “Cultural perceptions and its re-embedded contexts from the toxic sea.” from Shuji Iijima of Kyushu University.
Russia and Mongolia are both engaged in resource development,
and this has created a situation where indigenous peoples and local residents have to cope with. Ethnography can clarify the local condition with the standpoint of environmental perceptionsof the residents. While somewhat different contexts in the studyof the cases of Minamata disease in Japan, it is also apparent that,similarly, the religious practices of the communities have played
an important role in how resource development has been handled,which has resulted in interesting discussions.
(Hiroki Takakura)

Recent Events
Recent communication circumstances in western Siberia in Russia

I would like to write about the current circumstances of communication when it comes to mobile phones and Internet connections when conducting research in western Siberia in Russia. Since
2001, we have worked in concert with researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch, Institute of Systematic and Ecology of Animals, almost every summer in the south ofwestern Siberia around Lake Chany to conduct research about the
food web of wetland ecosystems, including parasites, using a technique called carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis. Going
to the Lake Chany field research station by car requires a trip ofabout 300 km west along the Siberian Railway from Novosibirsk,
the central city of western Siberia, and then an additional 100 km
south; around 40 km of
this trip is on unpaved
roads. The location isin a large grassland andbirch forest about 10
km in a straight linefrom the nearest village.
For about the first ten
years of conducting research in Russia, we Photo 3
gave no thoughts as to five-meter water tower at the Lake Chany

having our own cell phones or connections to the Internet. However, going into the 2010s, a third-generation G3 WiFi router
could be rented in Japan and used in Russia. We have been using
those since 2013. In Novosibirsk and places with good reception,
our devices can be used without any issues, but signals at the fieldresearch station at Lake Chany are poor, and an area must be selected for use. When a signal cannot be found, a five-meter water
tower can be climbed to allow for communications to be transmitted (Photo 3). However,
the router’s rental fee is¥19,000 for two weeks(same as of 2016).
Talking with Russian
researchers, we learned
that Russia’s communication expenses are
one-tenth that amount,and in the summer of
2016, we tried using Photo 4
prepaid Russian SIM Russian prepaid SIM card. One monthcards. There are three of unlimited data with calls is 450 rubles
major carriers in Rus- (about ¥800), which is less than half thecost of a Japanese mobile virtual network
sia—Beeline, Mega- operator SIM card.

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CNEAS vol.5

Fon, and MTS—but this time, we subscribed to the MegaFon
prepaid SIM card for use with the iPhone 6 (SIM lock-free version) (Photo 4). To make the purchase, we were asked the periodof use, the amount of communication we would be doing, whether
we needed to be able to make telephone calls, and the size of the
SIM card; we needed to also to present our passports for them toprocess our request. However, it was not possible to use English
even at shops in Novosibirsk, and the process can be very difficult
for someone who cannot speak Russian. I removed the mobile virtual network operator SIM card I use in Japan myself and, after I
handed my iPhone 6 to the store clerk and had a new SIM card
inserted, as well as confirmation that it worked, he taught me the3number I needed to use to make a telephone call. However, it became clear later that there were at least three things that we needed to change on our APN settings to use MegaFon, which took
up a good deal of time deciphering on the Internet. The SIM card
could connect in Novosibirsk using 4G, but near Lake Chany, the3G and radio signals were weak, so we connected using the older
2G. However, the communication situation in the area has been
improving steadily. Using these methods, we are now able to connect to the Internet using smart phones even in the countryside ofwestern Siberia, however, this is also the situation where the workruns after us even to Siberia using e-mail.
(Shuichi Shikano)

Recent Events
Center for Northeast Asian Studies Symposium “Historical Materials Research and Regional History Research”:
Session 2 “The Preservation of Historical Materials Research in Future”

At the Center for Northeast Asian Studies Symposium “Historical Materials Research and Regional History Research,” a session
was held titled “The Preservation of Historical Materials Researchin Future.”
The keyword of the session was “continuity,” in relation to thepreservation of historical materials research. Up to now, activities
to rescue historical materials have been ongoing in the Tohoku region, but to preserve important cultural assets for a long time, appropriate handling and storage measures after the initial rescue isalso important. In particular, when you consider that a majority ofunspecified items rescued for preservation are ancient documents,
preservation measures should be viewed as critical parts of their
management and use. Thinking about it this way, management ofstorage facilities and the dozo (traditional Japanese storehouse) ofprivate residences needs to be considered in terms of sustainability
when it comes to exhibiting and using the items in public lectures,and that makes it seem necessary for ancient documents to bepassed down as property of the region.
Following the perspective that has been described, in this session,
the continuation of preservation of ancient documents throughactivities that come “after rescue” or are “things other than rescuing” was discussed. In addition to reporting on the actual situations of each region/location, following the words of two commentators who understand the research circumstances in Tohoku
and overseas, I think it is possible for us to have a realistic andoverarching discussion about the future of historical document
preservation measures.
(Yoichi Takahashi)

Recent Events
Japan Russia Workshop 2017

At the Center for Northeast Asian Studies, the Office of JapanRussia Relations, Tohoku University, along with the Graduate
School of Arts and Letters and the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, have co-sponsored the Japan Russia Workshop, along with the Novosibirsk State University, since 2013,
creating a place for exchange between teachers, researchers, andgraduate students of both countries. Last year, on the afternoon
of February 10 (Friday), the Center for Northeast Asian Studies
held in their conference hall a conference on the topic of “AsianStudies in NSU and TU II.”
Professor Elena Voytishek
from the Institute for Humanities in Russia and five
students attended. From
our university, one graduate
student from the Graduate
School of Arts and Letters,
two graduate students from Japan Russia Workshop 2017

the Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, and one
graduate student from the Graduate School of Environmental Studies participated. After the former Director Oka’s greeting, Professor Voytishek presented a lecture entitled “Origins of
Incense Burial Ritual mái xiāng (埋香) in the Culture of East
Asia (China, Korea, Japan),” and Assistant Professor Kim HyeonJeong from the Center presented “Displaying Negative Heritagein Contemporary South Korea: Change of Evaluation of JapaneseColonial Architecture and Negotiating Dissonance.” After thelectures, the contents of the nine graduate students’ and young
researchers’ studies were presented. Presentations and all question-and-answer sessions were conducted in English with lively
debate and exchanging of perspectives. Despite the themes of thepresentations being quite diverse, including archeology, folklore,
Chinese history, Japanese history, cultural research, environmental
research, etc., the students and young researchers in attendance
engaged in productive question and answer sessions.
(Hiroki Oka)

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CNEAS vol.5

Recent Events
The activity Zao volcano and what I have realized through its survey

I have considered thepossibility of Zao volcano, 40 km southwest
of Sendai (photo 6), becoming active as a resultof the 2011 Great East
Japan Earthquake, andhave measured fumarolic temperatures since2012 at the Maruyamasawa fumarolic geother- Photo 6
mal area approximately The bird’s eye view of Zao volcano
2 km northeast of the (from Google Earth)
Okama crater lake,
where the most recent eruption of Zao volcano occurred in 1940
(although this event may have been a small-scale explosion thatwould not truly be considered an eruption). I thought I could atleast take temperature measurements on my own without sufficient observation equipment, and I heard that the Japan Meteorological Agency ( JMA) had not been conducting frequent fieldsurveys. For these reasons I began this work as a means to fill ingaps in their observations. Initially, I conducted only temperature
measurements, but since 2013, working with Professor Noriyoshi
Tsuchiya of the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Tohoku University, and Dr. Tetsuya Matsunaka of the University ofTsukuba (currently an assistant professor at Kanazawa University),
we have been conducting chemical analyses of the spring waterand conducting surveys of the Okama crater lake. Additionally,
when traveling toward Maruyamasawa, we have also paid attention to changes at the ruin of the Niizeki hot spring, where hightemperatures and high concentration hot springs appeared as a result of activization in the past.
During this period, volcanic tremors and tilt change were witnessed at Zao volcano in 2013 for the first time since the JMA
started its observations. In October 2014, researchers at Yamagata
University and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology confirmed partial turbidity at the Okama
crater lake, and tensions ran high. In April 2015, volcanic earthquakes increased in frequency, and a near-crater warning was issued because of the risk of eruption; thus, access to the near-craterarea was restricted. In June, the warning was reduced to Forecast(Potential for increased activity), but the regulation remained andwe were unable to survey the area for some time. In September,
we finally implemented a survey, and found that the ruin of Niizeki hot spring had resumed flow with multiple hot springs ofapproximately 32°C in temperature. It was also confirmed that
Maruyamasawa’s maximum fumarolic temperature had risen morethan 5°C from the previous year. Two months later, the temperature at the ruin of the Niizeki hot spring exceeded 34°C, and at
Maruyamasawa, there was a trace of small-scale mud spouting
visible. At this time, I expected further progress in activity, butduring the 2016 surveys, the ruin of Niizeki hot spring had only a

few weak cold-water springs, and the maximum fumarolic temperature at Maruyamasawa was lower than that during the previous year, although steam emission was still intense. JMA has
announced that volcanoseismic activity from 2016 to 2017 hadbeen relatively low.
Among the scenarios is that Zao volcano will further decrease its
activity to a normal level, but the possibility of a reactivation is still
undeniable. Many volcanos repeat similar activities over a long
period of time. However, the activity of Zao volcano during recent years has not reached the levels of the past active period. Past
activity records are important in predicting future activity trends,
but we have not been able to find past documentation describing
the activization process of the surface phenomena, such as fumarolic temperature increases and hot spring water discharge. Thismay be because past surveys were conducted only after anomalies
were noticed. In this sense, there are no data that can be directlycompared to the activity trends during recent years, and the data
we have been collecting from pre-activization stage will be usefulto refer to the trends of the next active period in the future.
Although somewhat contradicting the aforementioned discussion, the increase in temperature observed at Maruyamasawa during 2015 was possibly not directly connected to the activity levelof Zao volcano. Referring to fumarolic temperatures in the past,during the 1980s, when there was no conspicuous anomalous
activity, and during 2012, shortly after I started observation andvolcanic tremors and tilt change had not yet occurred, the temperature was at more than 100°C and higher than that measured
in 2015 (black arrow in photo 7). In terms of numerical value, thetemperature in 2015 is not necessarily anomalously high.
Unfortunately, past observations are limited in frequency and do
not provide a full understanding of periods of inactivity, making it difficult to compare to the short-period fluctuations since2012. In addition, the activity of Zao volcano cannot be evaluated based solely on fumarolic temperature. However, similar toconnecting the pieces of a puzzle together to create a complete
picture, collecting dense temperature data, for example, makes it
possible to reveal a trend in temperature fluctuation, and aligning
this data together withother observed data offers a perspective on theactivity. Through the survey of Zao volcano, I haverealized the importanceof collecting such dataconsistently over time, although individual survey
data would not yield animmediate result.
(Akio Goto)
Photo 7
The highest fumarolic temperature

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CNEAS vol.5

5AwardsDirector Hiroki Oka was conferred a decoration by Mongolia

On August 15, 2016, Professor Hiroki Oka, the former Director for the Centerof Northeast Asian Studies,
was awarded the Order of
the Polar Star (Altan Gadas odon) by the presidentof Mongolia, Tsakhiagiin
Elbegdorj, for his contribu- Award ceremony for the Order of thetions to Mongolian research Polar Star
(President Elbegdorj on right)
thus far.
Monograph of papers contributed by researchers of the Center for
Northeast Asian Studies, Siberia: Water and Social Environmentsin the Warming Far North, received the 2016 Scholarly PublishingAward of the Japan Society of Hydrology and Water Resources
The monograph contributed by members of the Center for Northeast Asian Studies entitled Siberia: Water and Social Environmentsin the Warming Far North received the 2016 Scholarly PublishingAward of the Japan Society of Hydrology and Water Resources(Photo 9). This book was a result of the project of the ResearchInstitute of Humanity and Nature. One of the editors, Tetsuya Hiyama (Professor at Nagoya University), acted as project leader, andanother, Junko Fujiwara (former post-doc researcher at the center,
presently associate professor at
Kobe City University of Foreign
Studies), acted as subleader forthe project. CNEAS contributors to the book are a professor
Hiroki Takakura and an associate professor Atsushi Ishii, as
well as a former center professor
Makoto Okumura, and an associate professor Hitoshi Yamadaof the Graduate School of Artsand Letters.
Photo 9New Staffs and Visiting Scholars

Assistant Professor

Hiroko NAITO

2017.4.1-present
Comparative Politics (Contemporary Chinese
Politics)

Research Fellow

Toshikazu TANAKA

2017.4.1-present
Ecological Anthropology, Area Studies

Visiting Scholars

Vladimir MALKOVETS

Senior Researcher, VS Sobolev Institute ofGeology and Mineralogy, Siberian Branch,
Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia)
2016.11.1-2017.1.14
An integrated study of the Siberian diamonds

Assistant Professor

Kazutaka KIKUTA

2017.4.1-present
Instrumentation engineering

Research Fellow

Hiromitsu MIYAJIRI

2017.4.1-present
Environmental Policy

Visiting Scholars

Tsevel SHAGDARSUREN

Professor, International University of Ulaanbaatar, Institute for Mongol Studies (Mongolia)
2016.11.1-2017.1.31
A Study of Mongolian Dictionaries

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Visiting Scholars

Giovanni NICO

Researcher , Italy’s National Research Council(Italy)2017.1.16-2017.3.31
Application of GB-SAAAR to environment
monitoring

Visiting Scholars

Sergei Andreevich PAPKOV

Leading Researcher, Institute of History, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Science(Russia)2017.2.1-2017.3.31
Soviet Inner and International Policies toward
Asian countries: 1920-1950’s.

Visiting Scholars

Kazi A KALPOMA

American International University – Bangladesh, Professor
2017.4.1-2017.6.30
Development of satellite image database

Publications
The language of the following books is basically in Japanese except showing the other language.
■ Northeast Asian Monograph SeriesThis commercially published series presents scholarly monographs
in Northeast Asian regional studies aimed at specialists, generalreaders and university students.
15. The modern era of the Tohoku district and Jiyuminken ( 自由民権 ), Over Shirakawa Ihoku( 白河以北 , the north of Shirakawa). Masahiro Tomda ed. Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Hyoronsha.
February 2017.
16. Anthropology of “eating”: Social
relations constructed through eating
practice. Ryoko Sakurada, Tsutomu
Inazawa, Tetsuya Miura eds. Kyoto:Showado. March 2017.
17. The Soviet Union and the International Relations of East Asia, 19191941. Masafumi Asada. Tokyo: Misuzu
Shobo. February 2017.
18. The early modern period society
inspected from the angle of thetravel and the interaction. Yoichi
Takahashi. Osaka: Seibundo. March2017.
19. Stalin and Mongolia: 1931-1946.
Kyosuke Terayama. Tokyo: Misuzu
Shobo. March 2017
■ Northeast Asian Books
Northeast Asian Books are being published as a trial to introduce
fundamental knowledge about nature, history, culture and society
in Northeast Asia to general readers. They are the result of

natural, social science and humanities
research on the environmental andsocietal problrms.
6. Archaeological Survey by Ground
Penetrating Radar: Principles of
GPR and its applications. Motoyuki
Sato, Akihiro Kaneda and Kazunori
Takahashi ed. Sendai: Tohoku University Press. March 2016.
■ Northeast Asian Studies
Northeast Asian Studies is a periodical academic journal for the purpose of contributing to thedevelopment of area studies and its related fields in Northeast
Asia.
21. Northeast Asian Studies. February 2017
■ CNEAS Monograph Series
Research results of CNEAS joint research projects, and individual projects,
irregular publication (in house publications)
57. Mengwen Zidian : MongolianChinese Dictionary of 1928 Arranged
by Romanized Mongolian Words.
Hitoshi Kuribayashi ed. 2016.
58. Production, Distribution andConsumption in Mongolian PastoralSociety. Mari Kazato, Takahiro Ozaki,
Hiroki Takakura eds. 2016.

The Bulletin

CNEAS vol.5■ CNEAS Reports
A series for such purposes as timely
reports from symposiums, cataloguing references, and promotionof exchange with national and international researcher communities
since 2010 (in house publication)
21. Phags-pa Mongolian Documents in "A Collection of Historical Archives of Tibet". Hitoshi
Kuribayashi, Takashi Matsukawa
eds. 2016.
22. Eurasian Nomadic PastoralismHistory, Culture, Environment-.
Sampildondov Chuluun, Andrian
Borisov, Hiroki Oka eds. 2016.
23. The Basic Documents of Yamanaka Village, Nakamura
Domain, former Mutsu Province. Yuki Iwamoto, Hiroshi Tada,
Daisuke Sato, Kunihiko Izumida, Hiroki Takakura eds. 2016.

Letters7■ Researcher’s Initiative Publication
1. Lineage and Chinese Society:
Change and Present of its Anthropological Study. Masahisa Segawa
and Yukihiro Kawaguchi eds.
Tokyo: Fukyosha. March 2016.
2. Disapperaring and Emerging
Ethnicity Distinctions within the
Chinese Baot Community.
Tsutomu Inazawa. Sendai: Tohoku
University Press. July 2016.
3. The study of the travel history inearly modern Japan―The journeyof faith and sightseeing, Destination and Hot spring―. Yoichi
Takahashi ed. Osaka: Seibundo.
August 2016.

Vladimir Belosludov, Professor
Institute of inorganic chemistry, SB, RAS (Russia)

Twenty years of collaborative work with Tohoku University
I am a physicist at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, Siberian
Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SB RAS). I started
collaborative work with Tohoku University in 1997. Since then, I
have visited Sendai and stayed there for three months each year.
I first began my relationship with Tohoku University throughcooperation between F. Kuzunetsov, Academician of RAS, andProf. J. Nishizawa, former president of Tohoku University. I
stayed in the Center for Northeast Asian Studies in 2002 and2004. Then, I conducted collaborative work with Prof. Junichi
Kudoh. Except for these years, I have carried out collaborative
work with Prof. Yoshiyuki Kawazoe’s laboratory.
A consistent focus of research has been “simulation design anddevelopment of crystals with clathrate structure.” Following myson Rodion’s completion of a Ph.D. under the instruction ofProf. Kawazoe, he has worked as an associate professor at theEnergy Center of the Institute of Materials Research at Tohoku
University.
Prof. Kawazoe and I learned at the Asia Pacific Academy ofMaterials established by Academician Kuznetsov and Prof. Nishizawa in 1992, and started the Asian Consortium on Computational Materials Science in 2000. We have held international
conferences, including from 100 to 300 participants, at various
locations in Asia several times per year and have raised thelevel of computational materials science in Asia. As a result of
the productive collaborative research between our institute andTohoku University, the Russian
government chose our group as
one of the recipients of a mega
grant (one million dollars peryear) in 2013. This project isaimed at strengthening Russian fundamental research, andexcellent researchers throughout the world were welcomed
as leaders of the project. When
I applied for the Russian mega
grants, I asked Prof. Kawazoe
to be the leader of our project.
Our research is in regard to
the storage technology of hydrogen as a clean energy, which is based on the achievement ofour collaborative work over 20 years. In summary, the project
was to design materials of hydrogen storage for automobile fuelbatteries, by theoretical calculation, using high-speed computers.
Our project was completed in 2016; however, I applied for
Russian mega grant in 2017 and our project is expected to bechosen once again in 2018. I again asked Prof. Kawazoe to be
the leader. I plan on continuing to stay at Tohoku University forseveral months in the future.

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Letters

Tsevel SHAGDARSUREN (G), NUM Professor, Dr.
International University of Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia)

The term Classical Mongolian Study and the CNEAS
The main aspect of my research is the history of Mongolian
language, its development, and traditional writing systems as wellas the spiritual culture of the Mongols.
Over the past 30 years, the Center for Northeast Asian Studies(CNEAS) of Tohoku University has published extensive documents of detailed study directly related to my subject in the following three journals: CNEAS Monograph Series, CNEAS Report, and Northeast Asian Studies, substantially contributing to
Mongolian Studies worldwide, let alone to my research. The
CNEAS continues to publish research monographs and compile
source works that deserve great appreciation. It is also worth
noting that the CNEAS is engaged in educating younger generations of mongolists.
The aforementioned research of Mongolian language can beclassified chronologically as studies on Ancient Mongolian,
Middle Mongolian and Modern Mongolian. This classification
relates to cultural context as well. The approach of the CNEAS
is to conduct a complete study of each subject; for example,
the study of the Secret History of Mongols is an attractive lineof research on original texts, Roman transcriptions, indexes ofMongolian words and their Chinese hieroglyphs, etc.
In addition, Prof. H. Kuribayashi has studied a lexicology of
the Mongolian language during various periods and compiled

it into an electronic dictionary("http://www.gerel.net") thatprovides a special opportunity forcomparative study of many raredictionaries published in many
places during different periods.
The term Classical Mongolian
Study that has circulated among
the senior generation of mongolists differs from Amateur Monglian Study. This has become
more evident recently. The activityof the CNEAS no doubt is related to the former. I plan to write a separate article regarding thismatter.
It was my pleasure to be invited to the famous CNEAS at
Tohoku University and to work at the Division of Mongolian &Central Asian Studies together with Prof. Kuribayashi Hitoshi
and Prof. Oka Hiroki. I am very thankful that I was provided
access to rich research documents of the CNEAS that hascontributed to my study even to this day. On this occasion, I wish
all the best to the staff and professorship of the CNEAS.

Editorial
Editorial postscript:

We are sending you the fifth volume of the CNEAS Bulletin.
Through this bulletin, we would like to inform you of the activitiesof the CNEAS from 2016 to 2017. In the bulletin, we received
letters from Prof. Vladimir Belosludov (Institute of inorganic
chemistry, SB, RAS) and Prof. Tsevel SHAGDARSUREN (G)(International University of Ulaanbaatar). We are very pleased toknow of our old friends’ present situations and to communicate
their message to our Center.

This year we Japanese celebrate the 150th anniversary since
the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Following this, we promoted themodernization of Japan. But the Japanese modern age will end
in 2018. Next year, the present emperor will abdicate the throne,
and a new emperor will accede to the throne. This change inemperor means transformative times in Japan. We hope that
relationship between Japan and Northeast Asia countries will be
more peaceful in the coming New Age.

The CNEAS Bulletin is published once a year by the Center for
Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku University.
The Bulletin promotes a continuing exchange of information withformer visiting scholars and others who related to the Northwast
Asian Studies.

Website: http://www.cneas.tohoku.ac.jp/index_e.html
Editor: Masachika Shiotani
Editorial panel: Shuichi Shikano, Hiroko Naito, Mitsu Hatakeyama©Center for Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku Unniversity, Japan 2018.