No.74 AUTUMN 2016

Contents
003

Editorial

004

From the High Mountains to Field Medicine: An Interview with Emeritus Professor Matsubayashi Kozo
Sakamoto Ryota

Special Feature: Female Researchers in Asia

013

Fieldwork with Children in Borneo
Sakuma Kyoko

015

Mobile Phones, Romance and Cooking for the Host Family: Experiencing Karen Life in Thailand
Tazaki Ikuko

017

My Fieldwork as a Medical Doctor
Fujisawa Michiko

019

Working in Indonesia’s Secluded Tropical Forests as a Female Researcher
Shiodera Satomi

021

Japan-ASEAN Science, Technology and Innovation Platform (JASTIP):
Promotion of Sustainable Development Research
Takagi Akira

023

Library

025

Publications

026

Fellows

027

Visual Documentary Project 2016

Front Cover: Young girl immersed in her phone at Shwedagon Pagoda (Shwedagon Zedi Daw), Yangon, Myanmar.
Photo: Mino Takuho

Editorial
At Kyoto University the ratio of male to female students is 3:1 (M-F) out of current enrollment of 22,657
undergraduate and graduate students (as of May 1, 2016). If we look over the ratio of faculty we are alsopresented with an all too familiar picture. Out of 3,349 faculty enrolled at the university only 393 are female(as of May 1, 2016). This is a sadly familiar pattern which repeats itself all over Japan and part of a broader setof gendered social issues at work in Japanese society. In 2015, CSEAS set up a gender equality promotion
committee to address gender related matters within the Center. Concurrently, the committee has also set out tolearn more about the state of female researchers and gender equality in Southeast Asia and other surrounding
regions by way of inviting researchers engaged in gender issues.
CSEAS has been committed to fostering multidisciplinary research yet at the same time we also recognize that
there is an irreducible gendered dimension to the research. Wanting to know more about the state of female
scholarship from a Japanese perspective, in this issue we bring together a series of articles by female scholars
who conduct research in Asia. Each of them have long been engaged in working in the field of anthropology,
ecology and geriatrics.
Sakuma Kyoko, an anthropologist and post-doctoral researcher at CSEAS discusses how to juggle fieldwork andresearch as a single mother. She engages with the dilemma of what many parent fieldworkers confront on aregular basis: what to do with children. Sakuma tackles an issue that is rarely discussed, fieldwork experienceswith our own children. Tazaki Ikuko, a post-doctoral researcher reflects on her 10 years of research with the
Karen, a minority group who live in the mountainous areas of Northern Thailand. She candidly talks about
amorous advances made toward a female researcher, the division of labor in households and the observations
that can be made as an unmarried women researching both males and females. Fujisawa Michiko, visiting
associate professor at CSEAS who works in the field of geriatrics, discusses aging, people’s health status changes,
and how this change influences their way of life and thinking over the course of their lives. Finally, Shiodrea
Satomi, an ecologist discusses about her time working in Indonesia’s tropical forests. She presents her
observations of other Indonesian female colleagues in the field and draws comparisons with life work balance
opportunities available for Japanese women. We hope this collection of articles will allow for further thinking
on the important role of female researchers across the myriad of disciplines that they research in.
The Editors
Shitara Narumi
Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Mario Lopez

003

From the High Mountains to Field
Medicine: An Interview with Emeritus
Professor Matsubayashi Kozo1)
Sakamoto Ryota
Associate Professor, CSEAS

P

rofessor Matsubayashi Kozo recently retired
from CSEAS. A medical doctor by training, hehas devoted a large amount of his time to working
on high altitude sickness, care for the aged, and fieldmedicine for the elderly. With over 190 articles (inEnglish) and 245 ones (in Japanese), 8 book chapters (in English) and 59 ones (in Japanese) written
over a long illustrious career, Professor Matsubayashi
reminisces over his upbringing, achievements, career, and the passion of his life, mountaineering.
Sakamoto Ryota (SR): Firstly could you tell me
about your childhood and the family life?

NEWSLETTER
No. 74004

Matsubayashi Kozo (MK): We were three brothersborn two years apart from each other; I and myimmediate younger brother were born in Karatsu,
Saga Prefecture and our youngest brother was bornin Takanawa, Tokyo. As I had been hospitalized during our time in Takanawa due to infant tuberculosis
for several months at the then social welfare corporation, Imperial Gift Foundation Boshi-Aiiku Hospital, I
was not physically strong. Out of consideration forus, our parents looked for a place with cleaner air
than that in Takanawa so we moved to a rural part of
Yokohama when I was five years old. As we were allboys, I usually played with my little brothers andother boys from our neighborhood in the nearby
fields and mountains, under the guise of “exploration.” Likewise, we would often go out to hunt for
insects, such as beetles and cicadas or ask ourmother to prepare lunch boxes for our day long walking expeditions, leaving home early in the mornings
and coming back in the evenings. I also enteredkindergarten, but playing or taking a nap was notin my nature and after a month or so, I dropped out.

I thought it was much more fun for me to play in thefield than to join in activities in the kindergarten.
Thinking back, I don’t think there was any particular precept in our family, but since the Matsubayashi
family had, over generations, been upper-class feudal retainers of the Nabeshima Clan in Hizen-Saga
Domain, I think there may have been some influence
from the ethos of Saga people, such as Hagakure.2)
Before entering an elementary school, my grandmother, born in 1885 and a self-proclaimed discipleof Koda Rohan, 3) had trained me to do Sodoku(reading aloud without comprehension) of Chineseclassics, Utai (the chanting of Noh text), and Sado
(the way of the tea ceremony).
SR: You are also passionate about mountaineering.
Could you tell me what were your reasons to start?
MK: I went to a public primary school in Yokohama,
but my junior high school was a private school,
called Gyosei Gakuen (L’Ecole de l’Etoile du Matin)in Tokyo, which was also my father’s alma mater. The
school had designated French language as a formal
subject and was an integrated missionary school forboys from elementary, junior high, and high school.
Commuting to the school in Kudan, Tokyo from myhome in Yokohama took me two hours one way.
Gyosei Gakuen had encouraged us to join someclub activities when we became second graders injunior high school. As I had enjoyed walking in thefields and mountains since I was a child, I joined
the mountaineering club. I encountered it throughthe club activity at the integrated junior high to seniorhigh schools, and through the mountains, I came tolearn about the relationships between “seniors” and“juniors.”

In the Faculty of Medicine, there were quite a few
splendid lectures by outstanding professors. For abunch of medical students attending such lectures in
the large lecture hall, learning medical biology—asan enormous amount of information—was inspiringin its own way. Learning medical science through listening to lectures and consulting textbooks provided
us, for the first time, with a valuable intellectual experience of encountering mysterious laws and the universality of living organisms.
However, on the other hand, as a person with academic desire to reveal something new, the arena of
medical science was far too specialized. Recognition
obtained through those essential fields for medical
students; anatomy; physiology and biochemistry; aswell as a romanticism for the future; appeared to me(an immature medical student) to not go beyond thepassing on of concepts.
Setting one’s own agenda with an awareness ofproblems, searching literature through my romanticism, organizing teams to actually make explorations, scrutinizing and reporting what was recorded,
then setting the next agenda; I think I was thoroughly
trained with these basic attitudes toward scholarshipwhile I was in the Alpine Club, rather than in the­Faculty of Medicine. What to study and how are theframeworks that make up the basic nature of theresearch. The tradition of inextricable relations
between those frameworks and mountaineering I
largely owe to such people as Dr. Imanishi Kinji, who
had founded Kyoto University Style mountaineeringand the Kyoto Field School (Kyoto Fuirudo Gakuha).
SR: What were the reasons that inspired you to
study medical science?

005

MK: Why did I decide to study medical science?
In my case, the reason was not voluntary. It waslargely because of my grandfather’s last words. He
was born in 1882 and was a man of Choshu.4) At thattime he was in the Yamaguchi Junior High School
under the old system of education, when his adoption into the Matsubayashi family in Saga Domain
was decided. Since his adoptive family had been
operating coal mines for generations, he was tograduate from the Department of Mining at Tokyo
Imperial ­University after studying at the former Daiichi Koto Gakko (the First High School) before being
adopted into the Matsubayashi family and taking on
their mining business. It seems like it was a politicalmarriage, as it was an adoption from Choshu (Yamaguchi) to Hizen (Saga), among the Sacchodohi (Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa, and Hizen), the major domains
during the Meiji Restoration. It appears that my
grandfather originally wanted to be a medical doctor,
but for the sake of the adoption, he had no choice

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Going to the mountains once a month to stayovernight and going to the training camps on summer or winter mountains for skiing were often physically tough, but those days were mentally fulfilling.
Different from various subjects we studied in theclassroom, what we learned on the mountains werepractical techniques, such as how to set up tents,
prepare food, read maps, and draw weather charts.
Through the act of climbing mountains, we could
experience beautiful nature, wonderful outdoor animals, and plants. Yet on the other hand, we could
not avoid placing ourselves in danger posed by natural threats. Occasional reports of alpine accidents
in Mt. Tanigawa (Tanigawa-dake) or in the Northern
Alps during winter times were taken to be social
problems at the time. It was also around this time
when the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of ­Education put
in place a prohibition on high school students climbing winter mountains.
Unlike in the classroom, the one who was to give
instructions as well as those listening to it were bothquite serious on the mountains. What makes amountaineering club different from many other sports
clubs might be the sense of camaraderie as on themountains people share a common destiny of living
together. While finding favor with the seniors frommembers of a society or university students, who
had established the Gyosei Gakuen mountaineeringclub, from time to time, I was introduced to theunique traditions of mountaineering in Kyoto. By thetime I was an upper grader in high school, I wasdetermined to join an alpine club again in university.
On my enrollment at the Faculty of Medicine,
Kyoto University, I quickly joined the Alpine Club.
There were about 10 fresh members from all over thenation who joined the club in the same year, but they
did not necessarily have the experience of climbing
in their high school days. Neither was club policy
concerned with such an issue. Among the university
alpine clubs in the Kanto region, a Spartan style wasquite common to some extent, I was prepared forsome kind of “hazing.” However, there was nothingof the sort. I remember this felt as somewhat unexpected. Nevertheless, they were strict, irrespective of
the seniors or the juniors, when it came to acquiringa philosophy of climbing, party-ship and methods ofresearching literature as well as climbing techniques.
The frequency of going to the mountains had greatly
increased so that it was incomparable with my highschool days. It was possible to climb mountains fornearly 100 days of the year. In club meetings, expe­ iscussed as aditions to the Himalayas were being dreal issue and there were a lot of occasions for me toget close to eminent superiors, represented by Dr.
Imanishi Kinji, who established the Kyoto Exploration
School (Kyoto Tanken Gakuha).

but to major in mining science, as it was their familybusiness. However, it seems to me that my grandfather was not so good at mining engineering. Thoughthe ­Matsubayashi family had been in charge of the
Takashima Coal Mine in Nagasaki, he handed it overto Mitsubishi, and what was more, my grandfather
was likely to have established a coal mine on his
own, but only to ruin their family property. My grandfather passed away from gastric cancer when I was
two years old. I was told that my grandfather, on his
death bed, had asked my father to make sure one of
the children became a physician. By the time I
started to form my own thoughts, I was told about
the last words of my grandfather and it appearedthat I would become a physician in the future overbefore I was in primary school. Earlier than understanding the reality of medical studies, my aspiration
to become a medical student had been congenitally
imprinted on my mind. When I became a senior student in high school and was about to start preparing
for university entrance exams, I was also interested
in the world of physics and philosophy. Yet, I neverdeviated from this “imprint” and went on to takeexams in the faculty of medicine.

of the Kyoto Field School. We were the last generation to be recognized and favored by those people
as their second generation disciples.
Imanishi conducted a survey of Mt. Manaslu in
Nepal in 1952 and led the first Japanese national
party to its summit, the 8,163-meter peak, in 1956 forthe first time, and Imanishi organized anotherresearch expedition to Karakorum in 1955. Nishibori
organized the first winter team for observing theAntarctic area in 1958 and succeeded in spending
a winter there in the same year. Kuwabara, who had
already been famous as a scholar of French literature was also a leader of the first expedition from
Kyoto University to the Himalayas and ­succeeded in

SR: All teachers and researchers have people
who influence them. Could you tell me who were
those who most influenced you?

NEWSLETTER
No. 74006

MK: On selecting a university for a medical department, my teacher, who was an advisor to the Gyosei
mountaineering club and a specialist in biology, recommended that if I was interested in exploration andclimbing, Kyoto University would be a good choice.
These words led me to set my sights on the Facultyof Medicine, Kyoto University. As shown by the
results of my trial examinations, I was expected to beable to enter. However, in 1969, the year of my graduation from high school, entrance exams for the University of Tokyo were suspended due to disturbanceson the campus.5) Many applicants to the Universityof Tokyo, Natural Science III, thus turned to the Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University. Due to my shortcomings, I failed the exam in 1969, but I passed on
my second attempt in 1970.
Although teachers who were advisors to themountaineering club at Gyosei Junior High andSenior High Schools had significantly inspired me bysuggesting I go on to Kyoto University, if I think about
exploration and climbing, the influence of the professors of the Kyoto Field School, including Imanishi
Kinji, was even greater (Fig. 1).
Imanishi Kinji, Nishibori Eizaburo and Kuwabara
Takeo, who graduated from Kyoto Imperial University
in 1928, were the climbing partners at the Third HighSchool and Kyoto University, and were the pioneers

Fig. 1 Matsubayashi Guiding Prof. Imanishi Kinji at Mt. Hotaka in 1982

leading the Chogolisa expedition (Karakoram region,
Pakistan) to the summit for the first time in 1958.
Since then, mountaineering, exploration and fieldwork have been inherited in the indistinctly mixed
and inseparable thoughts of those who aspire toclimb mountains at Kyoto University. Academic
romanticism to pursue undiscovered and untrodden
fields and academic disciplines that place emphasis
on field were thus developed.
For Imanishi, exploration and scholarship wereindistinctive and integral components. The field
workers and founders of respective disciplines today,
including Umesao Tadao, Kawakita Jiro and Nakao
Sasuke used to gather around Imanishi, who was anunpaid lecturer when they were in their 20s, the daysof their youth. Our generation had significantly
learned from them to go beyond the limits ofscholarship.
In this way, the Academic Alpine Club of Kyoto(AACK) had already been equipped with an unbroken academic culture and tradition of strict andempirical fieldwork that went beyond the respective
domains of expertise that operated in tandem withmountaineering. Thus, the ground for inheriting academic romanticism had, more or less, been prepared by our forerunners. I feel that my attitude to life
was critically changed by being a member of the
AACK rather than by being a student of the Faculty

SR: Here in Japan, you are known as a founderof “field medicine.” What opportunities led toestablishment of this field?

007

MK: The establishment of “field medicine” arose
through a number of opportunities. It started throughmountain climbing in the Himalayas, then became
established as geriatric research in Kahoku-cho, andfinally expanded to Southeast Asia.
Let me explain field medicine through mountainclimbing in the Himalayas. After I graduated from the
Kyoto University Alpine Club, I joined AACK. In 1980,
AACK was expecting to celebrate its 50th anniversary
since it had been established by members including
Imanishi.
In the meantime, relations between Japan and
China had gradually improved with a greater degreeof friendship. In the past, AACK had dispatched five
expeditions, to the Southern side of the Himalayan
mountains, including areas in Nepal and Karakorum,with all of them successfully making their way to thesummit for the first time. They were also able to­conduct academic investigations in the surrounding
areas. However, Tibet, as a territory of China, theNorthern side of the Himalayan Mountains, had beenclosed to foreigners since the end of the WW II.
In Kyoto, prior to the diplomatic relations between
Japan and China being restored, members of AACK,
including elder founders such as Kuwabara andNishibori had been making constant efforts throughall possible channels to interact with China so as tobe able to carry out mountaineering and s­ cience
activities in the country.
On October 31, 1979, they heard news of the­Chinese government opening up eight mountains toforeign parties. This made things in Kyoto become alittle more hectic.
In April, 1980, I was transferred from Shizuoka
Rosai Hospital to the Department of Neurology at
Tenri Yorozu Sodanjo Byoin (Tenri Hospital). Meanwhile, I came to receive frequent notifications from
Kyoto that there was the high possibility of dispatching an expedition to Tibet in 1982 and thus those
who wished to join the party had to be prepared.
However, the system at Tenri Hospital does not easily
let their workers take a leave of absence.
In 1981, I made up my mind and got ready toCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto Universityof Medicine.
As such, the climbing tradition of the Kyoto Field
School, indistinctly intertwined with scholarship,
greatly influenced our mentality as club freshmen
who became members in the 1970s. By the time webecame senior students, a number of our peers wereconsidering to make an expedition to the Himalayasa reality.
However, during the time between 1973 to 1974,
we had consecutively lost eight of our precious alpinist friends in the mountains. We once used to be
proud of things we might never have expected without spending life as a member of the Alpine Club in
the university; to interact with nature and our friends,

to discover beautiful aspects to practice, and aromantic pursuit of an unknown Himalayas together.
However, in the face of daily challenges and enduring sorrow and a sense of helplessness at the lossof our friends in the mountains, we came to lean
toward obscurity, which even our romanticism could
not dissipate. During my student days, I didn’t get
the chance to go to the Himalayas.

NEWSLETTER
No. 74008

leave at any time for the expedition by finding a newjob at a private hospital in Kagoshima for a shortperiod of time. Later, I was told that back in thosedays in Kagoshima, there had been some speculations about me that I had drifted to their place as Imight have caused a scandal at Tenri Hospital, which
made me laugh bitterly.
On April 21, 1982, Kyoto University dispatched
their first expedition to Tibet and they succeeded inclimbing to the summit of Gang Ben Chen peaks(7,281 m) for the first time, and I enjoyed the privilege of being one of the first climbers on the summit.
With the opportunity of this expedition, I was ordered
to return to the Department of Neurology at Kyoto
University and started the first four years of my­academic life working on clinical neurology under
Professor Kameyama Masakuni.
Meanwhile, AACK stepped up their efforts to climb
Gurla Mandhata (Chinese name: Naimonanyi: 7,684 m)
in Western Tibet, which had been their ardent wish
since before WW II. Finally, Japan and China reached
an agreement to conduct a joint expedition to
Naimonanyi in 1985 with three parties composed ofDoshisha University, Kyoto University, and the­Chinese Mountaineering Association.
As I was willing to join the climbing team to
Naimonanyi in 1985, I was compelled to complete
my academic dissertation by the end of 1984.
In Kyoto University, there were two simultaneousplans to climb the unscaled peaks of Naimonanyi inthe spring of 1985 and Masa Gang (7,200 m) in
Bhutan, in the autumn of that same year. In 1985, I
resigned from my job as medical staff and got readyby becoming a research student. Hence, I was able tostand on the peaks of Naimonanyi and Masa Gang,respectively on May 26 and October 14, 1985.
From 1982 to 1985, while climbing the three peaks
for the first time, we also conducted research onhigh altitude medicine. Thus, it could be said that I
had finally begun to practice mountaineering andfield science in the Kyoto University Style.
My determination to establish field medicine was
directly triggered by the “Kyoto University Medical
Research Expedition to Himalaya,” which I had
established with my peers in 1990.
A year after my return from the expedition to Masa
Gang peak of Bhutan, i.e., April 1986, I was ordered
to take a new post at the Department of Geriatrics at
Kochi Medical School (Kochi Idai Ronen Byoka).
Led by Professor Ozawa Toshio, the Department ofGeriatrics, Kochi Medical School offered a course of­ illars ofclinical lectures composed of the three p
geriatrics, cardiology, and neurology. For a time, I
dedicated myself to be involved in clinical practice,research and the education of neurology.
Frameworks that define the basic nature ofresearch, such as what to study and how are known
as “paradigms.” When someone who had climbed
various mountains would go to the world of medical
science and review mountains from within that world,
they look quite appealing as a subject of medical
research. Paradigm change in mountain climbing is,
as a matter of course, inextricably linked to that ofour own research. The forefront of research can be
opened up quite drastically by means of creating abrand new paradigm or urging that an existing paradigm be changed. I assume that the clues lie beyond
the frameworks of existing fields of research.
It was at the end of 1987. In one of the dim cornersof Kyoto University’s campus, six persons promised
each other that they would concentrate their efforts
to realize a “plan.”
The pillars of the plan would be to organize a
medical research expedition intended for 8,000
meter peaks by 1989 or 1990 at the latest, in order tocarry out physiological research on the climbing process under a super-high altitude with low oxygen,
while at the same time, conduct epidemiological,
cultural, and social research on highland inhabitants.
Based on the achievements, we would create inter­disciplinary areas of research whose field is theHimalayas. With the area of medicine, we would
make an ultimate goal of looking at problems
through new perspectives to clarify what had beendifficult to solve by means of contemporary
medicine.
The six members, who had been discussing sucha vision that could only be described as a dream inthose days, were Matsuzawa Tetsuro (Associate­Professor at Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University: 36 years old), Kawai Akinobu (Lecturer at
the Faculty of Agriculture, Kyoto University: 38 years
old), Seto Shiro (Assistant at the Department of­Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Shimane University:
36 years old), Hirata Kazuo (Assistant at the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Graduate School of
Medicine, Kyoto University: 35 years old), Furukawa
Akira (Lecturer at the Department of Sociology,­Chukyo University: 35 years old) and myself (Assistant at the Department of Geriatrics at Kochi Medical
School: then 36 years old).
These were all fellow members of the Alpine Clubof Kyoto University during almost the same period,
who had shared the experience of climbing as wellas getting lost in the mountains. Since graduation,
as they had taken their own paths of specialization,
they had always had “mountain climbing” somewherein their hearts. And 10 years on from graduation, they
were to join hands again toward one shared goal.
Each of the six core members was a medical
researcher, psychologist or sociologist and none
were biologists, however, they had inherited an “eco-009

Everest without oxygen—AMREE, the medical expedition was organized. By risking themselves, they
moved on to carry out experiments on problems
relating to their own theory.
Since then however, problems regarding the physiology of high altitude have not been studied in the
Himalayas, but in relatively safer and huge lowpressure laboratories. Despite a lot of knowledge
obtained through experiments in low-pressure laboratories, details of the physiological mechanisms ofhumans adapting to low oxygen was still unclear.
At around 5,000 m above sea level, where levels ofoxygen in the air fall to half of that found at sea level,
many highland residents have been living there for
their entire life, but it was not clear as well, what sortof diseases could have been observed among thoseresiding permanently under chronic low-oxygen
environments.
On one hand, contemporary medicine is facing
difficult problems relating to various adult diseases,
such as cerebrovascular dementia, brain infarction,
cardiac infarction and chronic lung disorders, whose
clinical conditions are based on the hypoxia of internal organs. On the other hand, taking into accountthe actual situation surrounding highland dwellers
leading healthy lives under chronic low-oxygen environments, they thought it was urgent for contemporary
medicine to extend the focus of pathophysiologicalstudies to a global scale.
Those were the historical developments that drove
us to the idea of using medical researchers themselves as subjects to unravel the still unclear parts of
the human mechanism that adapt to chronic lowoxygen from the perspective of respiration, circulation,
brain and nerve functions, as well as behavioral
physiology, at 5,000 mts or higher in Tibet. At the sametime, they also motivated us to make a comparative
review of highland inhabitants in Tibet who had
adapted to highland life over many years.
We used to hold meetings twice a month in Kyoto,
and while making applications for Grants-in-Aid for
Scientific Research to the Ministry of Education, conducting diplomatic negotiations with China, drawing
up a plan of research for high altitude medicine,requesting the then director of Kyoto University
Hospital, Professor Tobe Takayoshi to assume thepost of the expedition leader, selecting candidates
for the team and dispatching the preliminary expedition, three years passed in the blink of an eye. There,
the attempt to go beyond the existing paradigm of
medical studies, evolved into the “Kyoto University
Medical Research Expedition to Himalaya,” which I
had planned with some of my fellows since 1987.
Between May 17 and 21 in 1990, 15 of the 32
members of Kyoto University Medical Research
Expedition to Himalaya succeeded in climbing

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

logical” spirit in the manner of Imanishi Kinji: to lovenature and to place emphasis on the unknown territories and fields through mountaineering in the Kyoto
University Style.
If there was a common point that existed between“mountain climbing” and “scholarship,” I suppose it
would be the way we kept searching for unknown
fields with an endless passion no matter the difficulty.
Though I already mentioned that we have called
such spirit “academic romanticism,” in regards to
medical studies it was to open up the field of medical studies in the Himalayas.
When we travel to places of high altitude, we experience severe headaches, nausea or vomiting:
symptoms of altitude sickness that afflict people ataround 5,000 m. By going further beyond 6,000 m,
there are more than a few occasions that can trigger
fatal cases, such as cerebral edema or pulmonary
edema. Even if we can manage to adjust ourselvessafely, at a height of over 8,000 m, there will be astate in which humans can no longer hold normal
judgment. They are all considered to be influenced
by low oxygen to the human body.
Based on a few cases of alpinists and on observations on the ratio of maximum oxygen intake ofhumans at very limited high altitudes, the American
Physiological Society announced the result of anexperiment in 1964, though it was only according totheir calculations: “on the summit of Mt. Everest(8,848 m), humans can do nothing but quietly lie flaton the ground without oxygen.”“Is it ever possible for the human race to climb Mt.
Everest without oxygen?” is an explorational proposition which had been repeatedly discussed countlesstimes since the prewar period, and was finally given
a conclusion by medical studies, that is, it was physiologically impossible for humans to reach the summitof Mt. Everest without oxygen.
However, in 1978, Reinhold Messner and Peter
Habeler reversed the negative conclusion presented
under the name of the American Physiological Society, by reaching the summit of Mt. Everest without anoxygen supply. Surprised that Messner and the party
had made their way to the summit of Mt. Everest
without oxygen, the American Physiological Society
organized a medical expedition to Mt. Everest, the“American Medical Research Expedition to Everest(AMREE)” in 1981, to substantiate physiological evidence for the fact. As a result of their Exercise Stress
Test under low-pressure, conducted at the camp at
an altitude of 6,300 m, they figured out the physiological possibility of climbing Mt. Everest without
oxygen, though again, it was only based on
calculations.
Therefore, in order to clear up a specific issue inphysiology—the possibility of humans climbing Mt.

NEWSLETTER

Shishapangma peak (8,027 m) located in Tibet.
Among the 15 climbers, 6 persons were doctors and2 of them were 60 years old.
The results of the two-month-long “Medical
Research as Field Work in Himalaya,” carried out
on the peak of Shishapangma, using medical
researchers themselves as subjects, were later published in the Himalayan Study Monographs No. 1–7.
Members who launched the plan of “Academic
Medical Research Project in Himalaya” in 1987 weresome of my close friends, then fellow members of
the Alpine Club of Kyoto University. Since they had
assumed middle-career positions in society, it was
not easy for them to take leave from daily work, butthey accomplished the project in the end. In the process of putting it into practice, each of them devoted
themselves to the project, probably for three years,
as a top priority issue that one could have tackled as
an individual, even at the expense of their positions
in society. Whether it would be possible to immediately connect medical studies to the act of exploration or not, whether we could create a paradigm of
medical studies or not; I was reminded at that time,that at some time in the future, someone would
solely be dependent on our passions and abilities.
Field medicine, which would develop and spreadall over the world, seems to have originated frompioneering work backed by Kyoto University Style
mountain climbing and the spirit of climbers: academic romanticism. That was the background forestablishing the field medicine of visiting aging people (in Japanese Oi wo tazuneru fuirudo igaku).
After having climbed Shishapangma, some of thedoctors including myself spent approximately amonth to conduct epidemiological research on
highlanders living at an altitude of 4,000–5,000 m at
the foot of the Himalayas. In contrast to their strong
body and excellent athletic abilities, all the highland
dwellers looked terribly old. When we asked the ageof a lady who looked like an old woman, it often
turned out that she was in her 30s. It was extremelyrare to encounter elderly persons over 65.
Through epidemiological research, I realized how
differences in an ecosystem would impact upon the
aging processes of a person. “Field medicine” is anacademic method to understand elderly people as
they are; living in different ecosystems and possessing different histories and cultures and to search fora universality and diversity of “aging” shared by different people through the window of medical studies.
It was also around this time when I began to see“field medicine” in a more concrete fashion.

No. 74010

Now let me turn to elderly field medicine in Kahokucho, Kochi Prefecture which became the first focus
of long term geriatric field medicine study. When I

came back from the Himalayas to my post, in the
Kochi Medical School in July 1990, a health checkprogram for elderly residents in the community was
taking shape led by the then Professor Ozawa Toshio
at the Department of Geriatrics of the same university.
Inducers of chronic diseases in elderly persons
such as exercise, smoking, drinking, obesity, sleeping hours, eating breakfasts and snacks every day,when practiced for life, are known to be influential
factors. At the core of the health check program,
there was a recognition that disabilities of the elderly
deriving from aging and chronicle diseases could
not be minimized by traditional curative medicine,but only by preventive medicine. The basic idea wasthat it was impossible to conclude geriatrics throughclinical medicine alone, but it was necessary to
examine it within the framework of the ecosystemand culture of the community (that is the field).
Thus, the Department of Geriatrics of Kochi Medical School set the goal of their geriatric research as
follows. First of all, to establish a way to measure the“comprehensive health degree of the elderly,” which
had previously been difficult to measure, from all
directions including physical and mental aspects aswell as social background, and then to detect factors
from among their daily habits that could bring disorder to their abilities, and at last, to seek “ideal aging”
by preventing those factors.
The idea was realized under the umbrella “Kahoku
Longitudinal Aging Study” (Kahoku-cho Kenko Choju
Keikaku).
There is a town called Kahoku-cho, in KamiDistrict, Kochi Prefecture. It is a beautiful town,
located 30 km northeast of Kochi City, with a population of about 6,000. The Monobe River runs throughthe middle of the town. Stretching in parallel along
both banks of the river were mountain ranges, whichwere the source of six tributaries that formed lovely
gorges. There were plenty of rice terraces dotting
steep hills. According to legends, the Heike Clan used
to live there in a hermitage long time ago. Elderly
persons over 65 years old made up 30% of the population. Considering population aging rates in thosedays, which marked 12% for national average and
16% for all of the Kochi Prefecture, it was one of thenation’s leading towns with an elderly population.
At first, we asked all the residents over 65 years
old in Kahoku-cho to answer a questionnaire toreport their physical and mental health conditions.
For those over 75 years old, doctors, medical staff ormedical students physically went over to Kahoku-cho
to practically check up their health and functional
conditions.
The purpose of the project was to clarify factors,
isolating the “degree of healthiness” of the elderly or
contributing to maintaining their health, in order toprevent a decline in abilities that occurs with aging
by objectively evaluating their degree of healthinessfrom mental, physical, and social relations, and byannual follow-ups. Such a study had yet to be conducted domestically or internationally, and was thefirst of its kind.
The “Kahoku Longitudinal Aging Study” wasmaking steady achievements every year and sincethen, it continued for another 16 years until town andvillage consolidation took place in 2006. Startingwith Kahoku-cho, “field medicine of the elderly,” wasthen to be deployed in Urausu-cho in Hokkaido,
Yogo-cho in Shiga, Sonobe-cho in Kyoto, Tosa-cho
in Kochi and so forth. Since I joined CSEAS, Kyoto
University, it has come to be expanded into different
regions in Southeast Asia.
SR: In 2000 you joined CSEAS as a faculty member. Can you describe your encounter with andcontributions to Area Studies in Southeast Asia?

conducting research on the elderly living in highlands
such as in the Qinghai province in China, Ladakh in
India, the Andes in South America, and revealed that
there is a connection between the amount of hemoglobin in the blood and diabetes.
Since 2010, Research on Building Healthcare
Design for the Elderly in Bhutan (led by Associate
Professor Sakamoto Ryota), has been carried out
and the project has been adopted for the 11th Five
Year Plan by the Ministry of Health of Bhutan. It is
likely to be rolled out all over the nation in the near
future.
Though I was an amateur researcher in area studies, what I felt by encountering area studies on
Southeast Asia was that in order to know the region,
we should not just concentrate on the area alone,
but have a perspective of examining the area incomparison with other surrounding areas includingSouth Asia, East Asia and our own country. Moreover, as a person in the medical field, the greatest
lesson I have learned from area studies on Southeast
Asia, was “historical perspective.” This does not only
refer to the period within some thousand years covered by written literatures, but also to the evolutionary perspective that goes back 200,000 to 7 million
years ago: the history of humans and our 4 billion
years history of life. On this point, I feel appreciation
to my colleagues in the field of liberal arts at theinstitute, as well as to discussions that developed
through a G-COE project (FY 2007–11).
SR: What difficulties did you encounter in developing your academic studies and what kind of
support did you receive from friends and family?

011

MK: As a first step in developing field medicine, it isnecessary to rally comrades who share the sameaspirations. Field medicine, unlike for instance, theCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

MK: In January 2000, I moved from the Kochi Medical School to CSEAS, Kyoto University. Until then, I
used to look at regions through the window of medical studies, however, I began to see geriatric medicine within the framework of area studies. During mydays in Kochi, I had also developed field medicine
in such foreign fields as South Korea, Hunza, Pakistan, the Andes, South America (Fig. 2), Tibet, Yunnan
Province, China, and Mongolia. But, I did not havemuch experience in Southeast Asia. I just knew thatin Irian Jaya, Indonesia, there was a frequent occurrence of intractable neurological diseases, which
was our specialty, so we had already begun probing
into New Guinea. Supported by the efforts of my­colleague, Okumiya Kiyohito, the investigation has
continued almost for 16 years until today, revealing
facts that intractable neurological diseases, such as
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson disease,are occurring more often in some regions, and thatthe patterns of the disease are changing with thetransition of time.
A survey of geriatric field medicine on senior­residents in communities was then developed forSingapore, West Java, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar aswell as in Thailand, producing a picture of the healthof the elderly in Southeast Asia. We could see that
rapid population aging was also taking place in theregion, and that changes in lifestyle had caused a
sharp rise in diabetes among the elderly. The “HighAltitude Project,” represented by Okumiya Kiyohito of
the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature(RIHN), has attracted the attention of not only thosein the field of global health, but also among the fieldof ecological anthropology. Many young graduate
students of field medicine have now collaborated inFig. 2 Dr. Matsubayashi examining a 120 year-old male living in Vilcabamba,
which is a renowned village with long life agenda in Ecuador in 1993

study, conducting tenacious diplomatic negotiations,conducting on-the-spot medical surveys, analyzing
data retrieved from surveys and writing papers. But,
advice from friends, specializing in any kinds of fields
is essential. Medical research in various Southeast
Asian nations was also a collaborative affair witharea studies field workers at CSEAS, Kyoto University. Activities carried out in collaboration with transdisciplinary researchers of area studies in Southeast
Asia expanded the viewpoint of field medicine to go
beyond medical studies. Until then, I had been looking at elderly people from within the framework of
medical studies. Now, I have also learned to redefinethem in cultural, social, political, economic and ecological contexts. The viewpoint of field medicine has
enlarged, mostly owing to inspiration from my colleagues at the Center.
Personally, as I have been away from home forsuch a long period of time, support from my family
was also essential for me. I would also like to express
my profound gratitude to my friends and family.
SR: Finally, do you have any expectations forthe next generation of scholars?

Fig. 3 Recent snap photo at a bed-side

NEWSLETTER
No. 74012

field of anthropology, cannot be conducted alone.
You need company. When planning an oversea academic investigation team, it is definitely necessary tohave young people with flexible minds and endless
dreams. We have organized “the Field Medicine
Research Club of Kochi Medical School” as an inschool group with the aim of conducting fieldwork on
medical studies at home and abroad. Alumni andalumnae of the school have been kindly collaborating in the following projects; a survey from 1990 in
Kahoku-cho, Kochi Prefecture, presently ongoing
research in Tosa-cho of the same prefecture, andfield medicine studies in various Southeast Asian
regions. In Kyoto University, a number of graduate
students have grown through field medicine andafter graduation spread out to various universities
and hospitals all over Japan and are developing“field medicine.”
It is indeed, gratifying to see “field medicine,”
which had originally been nothing but one of the club
activities of the students in Kochi Medical School,taken up in a department of the Faculty of Medicine
at Kyoto University as well as to see many “fieldmedicine” graduate students being fostered andplaying active roles, such as teachers at different
places after their graduation.
In field medicine, various efforts are required, suchas training fellows, carrying out preparative literature

MK: On a final note, I suppose the next generation
will make use of what they have learned so far as
sustenance for developing new fields and for building new paradigms in their own ways. For the next
generation, I would like to dedicate the spirit of thefollowing lyrics from the anthem of the former Daiichi
Koto Gakko (First High School).
“Flowers bloom but never stay,
Like dew that falls and dries,
Constellations pass by, while people are gone,
The boatman could be replaced,
But my ship sails forever,Towards an ideal autonomy.”
References
Himalayan Study Monographs No. 1 (1990)–No. 7 (2000).
(Readers can access Himalayan Study Monographs throughwww.kyoto-bhutan.org)

Notes1) Translated from Japanese by Yoshida Chiharu
2) “The way of the Samurai” as described by Yamamoto
Tsunetomo in Hizen in 1716.
3) A novelist from the Meiji era (1867–1947) famous for thenovel The Pagoda (1891 Gojyu no tou 五重塔) and other works.
4) Choshu was a domain during the Edo period (1603–1867) inwhat is present day Yamaguchi Prefecture. The feudal lordsof the time were the Mori family.
5) In 1969, Japanese students with leftist sentiments were
protesting against perceived US interference in post-WW II
Japan.

Special Feature: Female Researchers in Asia

Fieldwork with Children in Borneo
Sakuma Kyoko
Affiliated Researcher, CSEAS

T

it impossible for us to go out, leaving us without foodand therefore hungry. Although my son pretended tobe okay and tried to stay in the room, he always
cried in the middle of the night from hunger pangs.
I had to keep bananas and other fruits or some biscuits in our room for him.
Bringing children into foreign situations can be
stressful for both children and parents. However,
although he found the dark city life difficult, my son
fortunately acclimatized to village life quickly andhappily. The village was no different from the city forhim because even the villagers had strange appearances and spoke a foreign language. However, thevillagers’ special interest in my son made all the difference because for them, he was a villager with thevillage name Epoi. The return of Epoi was nothing tocasual for them, particularly for my adoptive family.
My adoptive father’s elder brother took time off workand rushed over to see Epoi with his hands filled withsweets. The welcome my son received demonstrated
his place in the village.
The teenage girls and boys in the village, who had
shared village gossip with me and explained villagemanners, had undergone a ceremonious coming ofage in the forest during the period of my dissertation
fieldwork and had now become fully grown adults.
They now enjoyed playing in the river with Epoi, picking low-hanging fruits to give to him, and playing
around with him to make him smile and laugh.
Another of my adoptive father’s brothers showed him
the right way of throttling a chicken at the riverside

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Fig. 1 The Sarawak River after heavy rain in Kuching013

he dichotomy between engaging in fieldwork andraising children has often resulted in the former
being viewed as an individual, solitary life. When afieldworker becomes a parent, he/she has two choices:
either take children on fieldwork assignments orleave them behind. I’m not here to judge which is theright decision as it is a decision that needs to betaken by each parent individually. Here, I describe
my own fieldwork experience with my son, a fouryear-old at the time.
For my doctoral dissertation, I lived and worked ina village in the tropical rainforest of Borneo. I continued working until the seventh month of my pregnancy. During my fieldwork, most of the villagers
were excited at the prospect of my baby and enjoyedguessing its sex using porcupine meat and discussing its “local” name. In fact, my pregnancy was aconstant subject of conversation amongst the villagers. One day, a divination informed us that my baby
would be a boy, which was accurate! My adoptive
father in the village soon gave the unborn baby thename Epoi. Giving a “local” name to an individual
signifies being welcomed into the family there; I also
have a “local” name, Surai. As my pregnancy progressed normally and my unborn baby had alreadybeen accepted as a member of the family and thevillage, after I gave birth, I planned to take my son withme into the field without any hesitation or anxiety.
My fieldwork assignment in Sarawak, Malaysian
Borneo, where my son accompanied me, lasted 17
days. Our trip began and ended in Kuching, the capital city of the state of Sarawak; for the remaining 10days of our visit, we spent valuable time in the rainforest village.
Interestingly, I noticed a striking difference between
my son’s behavior in the city and in the village. We
arrived in Kuching in the middle of the celebrations
for the Chinese New Year and at the height of therainy season, which made for long, barely tolerable
days in the city (Fig. 1). Although we stayed in a
hotel, we had to leave our cozy room for meals at theoutside cafés, where there were no comfortablechairs and no kids’ menus. Furthermore, the people
around us had unfamiliar appearances and werechatting in a strange language, which was difficult for
my son. In addition, it was raining heavily; the paved,
but rough roads and footpaths had turned slippery,
and it was difficult to walk. At times, the weather made

Fig. 2 Epoi and my adoptive father’s brotherFig. 3 Epoi duplicates his action.
Fig. 4 My adoptive father had been working
on repairing a fence with his friends and Epoi.

Fig. 2boat jetty (Figs. 2 and 3). My adoptive mother’s
brother provided special seating that gave us a goodview of the new wooden boat they had built by themselves. In addition, many women loved to feed us
the gluttonous rice from Japan with snacks andfruits. In particular, my adoptive aunt was the first
person to find out that Epoi very much loved longan,
one of the popular tropical fruits in Borneo. She
gathered this and other fruits for us from her own
garden almost every day.
I was surprised that not only had the boy who wasalways so close to tears in Kuching become somuch better that he looked like a different person in
the village, but also that he had an incredible ability
to adapt. When we had just arrived in the village, myadoptive father had been working on repairing afence with his friends. Spotting my son, he stopped
and spoke to him: “Welcome, Epoi! Anyway, handthat stone to me.” Remember, it was the first timethey had met each other and, of course, my adoptive
father spoke in his local language. But, lo andbehold, Epoi picked up the stone and passed it tohim, joining in naturally (Fig. 4). He was no longer
the crybaby from Kuching but a miniature adult. In
addition, he learned a few words and phrases in theunique language spoken in the village, such asləʔoŋ (a general term for the fruit of a tree)laʔɔh (hungry)
kuman (eat)turau (sit)tʃi:+turo (go to sleep)
NEWSLETTERHe also learned to count numbers from 1 to 10 in

Fig. 3Fig. 4the language. Now, I may be a doting mother to myson, but I am sure that had he remained in the village
for an extended period of time, he would have naturally been a better speaker of the language than me,
and I believe he would have become much tougher.
On my return, as the first step of my fieldwork, I
visited a number of houses and caught up with an
old friend in the village. Some people had passed
away, and a new pastor had taken the place of theold one. Most of the students who had been at thevillage primary school when I had stayed here previously moved on to the secondary school farther
away from the village.
People welcomed us warmly wherever we went,and my son felt free to be himself everywhere. Morefortunately, in spite of eating the local food and drinking water from the river, Epoi never got diarrhea or ran
a high fever.
Thus, my first challenge of staying in the rainforest
village with my son ended safely and peacefully. In
fact, the only trouble was itchy skin caused by insect
bites. However, in spite of our uneventful time in thevillage, it was unexpected for me to realize that Epoi
would have an immense fear of the crowded city ofKuching, even considering the torrential rainfall that
hit the city during our stay. After this experience,
although I believe I have learned some lessons, I
know that different “unexpected” troubles and/or­difficulties will lie ahead the next time. But this istrue that fieldwork tends to change as we get older
and move onto the next stage of life, whether wechoose to bring our children along or not.

No. 74014

Special Feature: Female Researchers in Asia

Mobile Phones, Romance and Cooking
for the Host Family: Experiencing Karen
Life in Thailand
Tazaki Ikuko
Post-doctoral Fellow, Shin Buddhist Comprehensive Research Institute, Otani University
Affiliated Researcher, CSEAS

Experiencing Karen Romance

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Fig. 1 Karen teenagers of church youth group015

For the past 10 years I have been studying and livingwith the Karen, a minority group who live in themountainous areas of Northern Thailand. During myfieldwork (2008–10), I noticed that many Karen people were using mobile phones, however, the way
they used their phone surpassed my imagination.
This is one episode I would like to share.
There was a Karen teenager woman called “Nomu”(pseudonym) who wasn’t interesting in studying at
local high school, but just stayed at home about fivemonths already at that time. Though her parents andolder sister went to work in the rice and strawberry
fields, she spent most of the day talking with her
friends, including unknown boys, over her phone.
One day, Nomu said to her parents she’d go down
to Chiang Mai city for one day to register in shorttime class at Karen bible school, but she didn’t comeback for three, never told her parents where she’dbeen, and what she did.
On her return, her parents were so angry and they
tried to persuade her to marry a northern Thai boy.
During her stay in Chiang Mai, she didn’t go to her
Karen bible school but visited a northern Thai boy,
who she only knew by mobile phone. Karen traditions
stipulate that unmarried Karen women have toremain a virgin until marriage. If not, traditionallysuch a woman and parents must perform a ritual. In
my research area, Karen people have been converting to Christianity since the 1950s, and those whohave sex before marriage cannot have a wedding
ceremony at church, but only hold it at their house.
According to arrangements made by her parents,
Nomu was married two weeks later, then moved toher husband’s village in a lowland area.
Surprisingly, Nomu had never met him before thisincident, and they only knew each other over thephone who she got to know by talking to him everyday. When he invited her to come down to the cityand meet together, Nomu didn’t hesitate and went.
Moreover, she submitted to her parents’ suggestion
to get marry with good grace. She is now happily
married and had a baby with the boy.
Nomu’s experience was by no means unique andI also had a similar experience whilst doing fieldwork.
An old Karen friend introduced me a nice Karen man

by mobile, who was supposed to be handsome, tall,
intelligent and working at a local clinic. He saw me ata mountain village, heard about me, became interested in me and then got my number from my friend
and started to call me every day; sometimes two or
three times a day! At first, I was a little bothered andwondered why he would call someone he knew nothing about. Yet, he tried to make “sweet talk” with me(phut wan in Thai) again and again, laughing at me
so I gradually got used to his calls. Finally, after twoor three weeks I began to enjoy waiting for his calls
and make small talk about everyday life, even though
I never actually met him then.
A month later, he came to Chiang Mai where I
studied, and we met each other. We enjoyed talking
for an hour and then he went back to his village.
After that he made no more calls to me and I also
forgot about him over time. Maybe he didn’t like anything about me or just had a new girlfriend.
In Thailand, Japanese women have a high reputation for their “white skin” and their supposed­“tempered obedient character” so they are the targetof men looking for romance (in this sense, I was also
considered “fair game” a number of times). But after
this incident I started to see Karen boys move on
girls without much serious contemplation. In a way, itis their way to slowly familiarize themselves withmany girls. So I just took their advances as jokes orgreetings in my stride and enjoyed seeing the way

Fig. 2 Preparing to cook gathered nuts

Fig. 3 Dinner time with many guests

they approach young girls from the perspective of anunmarried, single woman.
Because of my then status, villagers often told me
not to go anywhere alone; not to go out only withboys; not to have sex and maintain my virginity; andnot to drink alcohol. I sometimes felt so stifled. As I
couldn’t go to any other village without getting on a
motorbike due to very bad roads, I often rode on theback of a bike driven by male drivers (a subject ofgossip). If I went with a boy, villagers quickly gossiped assuming we were a couple. But instead villagers cared for me, especially my host family. They
always asked me where I would be and knew where
I was (and with who) and what I did all the time even
if I was in Chiang Mai. Moreover, most Karen womenare more or less afraid of foreign men, but not of me,a tiny Japanese woman who speaks the Karen
language. They often welcomed me to have dinneror sleep over the night even outside my research
village.

times Mana) went to buy foodstuffs and helped
Mana-Mo. Though it took over one hour in the morning and two in the evening, cooking time was very
useful to get basic villager information and pick up
on gossip (something I really enjoyed).
After three months I gradually made lots of friends
in the village and would visit them both in the morningand evening when they were at home and gradually
started to feel more stress with my cooking duties.
Incidentally, at the time of fieldwork, Nope was pregnant and subsequently gave birth to her son. Nope
couldn’t help cook and Mana-Mo had to take care ofher grandchild, so I put aside research for some timeand decided to cook with Mana-Mo for more than
one month (after that, I often escaped from my duties).
This experience required much patience, but also
—to a certain extent—taught me how to cook in the
Karen style. When I visited other families in the village, I frequently cooked with Karen women there
and they very much welcomed this. It made me all
the more comfortable to visit them. In my research
village, there were many disputes over cooking
duties between newly married women joining households and mothers-in-law. This was, in part, due tothe changing roles in households, working styles,
food orientation, and the influence of Christianity, thislast one an important part of my Ph.D. dissertation. I
think I can understand why newly married womenentering their husbands’ villages have trouble with
their mothers-in-law when their parents-in-law ask
them to cook every day without providing any financial
or physical help. They often have many questions
about tastes, puzzle over new cooking techniquessuch as Thai food (something that is quite new towomen from mountain villages), and especially thedifferent work ethics in a research village heavily
influenced by Christianity. Sometimes this can be
the source of tension between new couples andtheir parents.
During field research, I was prohibited manythings, and instead had many duties as an unmarried woman. These were the things that my statusallowed me to do, see, and hear. I recently married
and will revisit my field site for the first time as amarried woman and look forward to facing a new­situation and see how my informants respond to me
and my married self.

Family Life and the Allocation of Women’s Labor

NEWSLETTER
No. 74016

As a female member of my host family, I was frequently tasked to cook meals, and that bothered meduring the first half of my field research. However,later on in my fieldwork, it also became a source ofideas about how to manage relations and the allocation of labor in the household, especially among
women and their relationships to Christianity.
My host family was made of three adult women
members and me, that is, mother “Mana-Mo” aged
about 50, her daughter “Mana” aged 28 with a
4-year old child and Mana-Mo’s daughter-in-law“Nope” aged 26. Mana-Mo is an excellent cook andlikes to eat delicious food, so she made a great effort
to cook more than three dishes each time (unusual
for Karen). Mana also has good cooking skills andcan prepare many kinds of Thai foods, but unfortunately she wasn’t interested in cooking and always
managed to evade any cooking duties. Nope spent
her childhood in a student residence at a town far
away from her parents, and doesn’t know how to
cook.
Observing cooking practices has long been thepreserve of fieldwork and in itself, was illustrative in
learning about village life. Some mornings Nope andmyself tried to cook following Mana-Mo’s advice,
then in the evening, myself and Nope (and some-Special Feature: Female Researchers in Asia

My Fieldwork as a Medical Doctor
Fujisawa Michiko
Visiting Associate Professor, CSEAS

I

the lives of the elderly, however it is not health itself
that is the most important thing in life. An independent life means we bear responsibility for our own
individual lives. This is meaningful in the westernworld. Until a few decades ago, in Japan, several
generations lived together and the family was nested
in a kind of co-dependent relationship. I wonder
then, if the aim of a dependent life doesn’t fit the­values of traditional Japanese.
Excluding other depopulated aging areas inJapan, what about other places? Dr. Matsubayashi(Emeritus professor of CSEAS), my supervisor,
started research in Asian countries where aging has
rapidly progressed, and Dr. Okumiya (Visiting professor of CSEAS), my senior, started investigations inhigh altitude areas where people are living under
extreme conditions of low oxygen to see how aging
plays out in different environments. To look at issues
from another perspective, I took an opportunity toresearch the aging of chimpanzees in their society
as they are the most closely related animals to us
and possess an advanced social structure.
Generally, the elderly are regarded as people whohave fulfilled their roles and retired from social andeconomic activities. The most important biologicalactivity is reproduction and as with most other animals, survival rates fall with decreasing fertility. In
general, in the animal kingdom, healthy individuals
do not help disabled individuals. However, mosthuman societies acknowledge the elderly as therecipients of care. Through participation in social
activities such as child-rearing, the elderly contributeCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Fig. 1 Fanle, the right chimpanzee, is carrying her son ventrally, and Fana,next to Fanle, is carrying her grandson on her back. (Photographed by
Kimbery J Hockings)

017

write this essay with some trepidation and doubtthat maybe I don’t deserve to comment on fieldwork. This is because I have always looked up to
fieldworkers such as anthropologists who have­mastered language and adapted to the people andcultures they are interested in. However, I do also
work in the field. In fact, when I say that I am a Japanese medical doctor, it is relatively easy to be­accepted at a field site. Yet as a woman, people
seem to feel that I give off a soft impression. Sometimes people may take a threatening attitude toward
me. Yet from the outset, I feel this soft impression
has its advantages in allowing me to be acceptedin the field. For health surveys, it is rather easy to­collect data without speaking any language. If westay for some days, we can see what people are eating and what activities they participate in. We can getdata from blood samples and measuring blood pressure and so on. However, just from this we cannot
know what they are thinking about their lives, health,and diseases. To communicate with people, we needlanguage. Because of my age and because I am adoctor, people always treat me with some kind of respect and I have difficulty understanding their true
intentions. In other words, what I want to say is that itis better to go out and do field research when you
are young.
I specialize in geriatrics and conduct research on
aging in various societies. Diseases are often only apart of aging for the elderly, therefore learning how tolive side-by-side with diseases is often more important than receiving treatment. Even if physical functions decrease, an independent life would support
the elderly to maintain their right to choose their own
lifestyle and maintain their dignity. Based on thisidea, we have done fieldwork in Kahoku, Japan
which has intended to improve the independence ofactivities of daily living (ADL) even if the elderly havediseases or disabilities. I joined this activity as a
medical student, thinking diseases must be treatedcompletely. However, by participating in these activities my eyes were opened to another reality.
Subjective life satisfaction is higher among people
independent in ADL, compared to people dependent
in ADL (this is as expected). However, from fieldresearch we have conducted as a team, we noticed
that the improvement of independency of ADL did
not necessarily increase the quality of life of people
in a community (Matsubayahi et al. 1997). I wasawakened to the fact that health plays a big role inFig. 2 A young man who is using a mobile phone with traditional costume(Photographed by Ebashi Chihiro)

NEWSLETTER
No. 74018

greatly to our prosperity (this is known as the Grandmother effect) (Lahdenperä et al. 2004). Chimpanzees create a paternal society and females movetheir birth groups to others at the age of sexual
maturity. Chimpanzee females have to raise theirchildren only by themselves for about five years untilchildren become independent. There is no evidenceof menopause in chimpanzees and their survivorship
declines with their decline of fertility (Thompson et al.
2007). However, we have observed that there aresome chimpanzees who have already reachedmenopause in their groups. The population of thisgroup is aging and fertile females are extremely rare.
Let me give an example of what I mean. I assume
because of this reason, one very young female,named Fanle, got pregnant before she reached theage to leave the group. Fanle’s mother, named Fana,
was at the end of her reproductive life, and we mademany observations of her persuading or helping her
daughter to care for the infant. In particular, when thesecond son was born before the first son matured
and became independent, I observed that the firstwas taken care of by the grandmother, Fana, and thesecond son by his mother, Fanle (Fig. 1). This observation indicates that when there is an opportunity,
old chimpanzees will take on the role of “grandmother.” We also noticed that old females who reachedmenopause play with children very frequently.
In the past, the elderly were respected for their­wisdom and their experiences. In the chimpanzees
group, there is also an old male, and he seems to be
the most trusted among females. Is this because his
experience is useful in stabilizing the group? Or is it
due to the long length of time spent together creating affinities or feelings of reliance? Maybe it is rea-

sonable to think that both play an important role intrusting the old male.
At present I am investigating how people’s healthstatus changes and how this change influences their
way of life and thinking. In the New Guinea highlandsof Indonesia, people were still continuing their traditional lives on my first visit in 1999 in spite of a rise ofmany tourists visiting from the West. Yet, recent rapid
urbanization and modernization of neighboring areas
triggered by immigrants from other islands of Indonesia have disrupted traditional tribal societies (Fig. 2).
Industrialization first took root in the West before
spreading to other countries including Japan. The
Japanese have maintained their own relationshipwith those around them, however with modernization, a western way of being which we can call individualism, heavily influenced the nation. This may
have led to a decrease in our confidence with ourown way of being. This is by no means unique toJapan and the people I have met, such as New
Guinea highlanders or forest people in Guinea whoare also facing rapid changes to their lifestyles. What
we are seeing is an intense period of transition in ourvalues across the entire world.
We can learn about the different concepts of values from field research because we go to places
and share our lives with people living there. Even if
their worldview is very different from ours, we canunderstand it in the context that it fits the environment or might be based on historical events. The
role of the researcher may be to encourage people
to look at the world with an open mind to understandand respect others, even if we find it hard to sharethe same values.
We are social animals. Chimpanzees also greet
and pay attention to issues or sometimes protest
against others. They don’t use language but theycarefully observe others in order to understand.
Human prosperity is due to our collaborative relationships; thus it is important for us to think about ourselves vis-à-vis others. Subjective happiness of theelderly is also deeply related to a feeling of connection with others. From time immemorial, people havesaid “no man is an island.” Yet, in spite of this
­wisdom, I am appalled at how little we have learned
from our ancestors and primate cousins.
References
Lahdenperä, M.; Lummaa,V.; Helle, S.; Tremblay, M.; and­Russell, A. F. 2004. Fitness Benefits of Prolonged Postreproductive Lifespan in Women. Nature 428: 178–181.
Matsubayashi, K. et al. 1997. Quality of Life of Old People Livingin the Community. Lancet 350: 1521–1522.
Thompson, M. E. et al. 2007. Aging and Fertility Patterns in Wild
Chimpanzees Provide Insights into the Evolution of Menopause. Current Biology 17: 2150–2156.

Special Feature: Female Researchers in Asia

Working in Indonesia’s Secluded
Tropical Forests as a Female Researcher
Shiodera Satomi
Researcher, CSEAS

E

methods are inevitably simple ones. Importantly,
when conducting fieldwork, we also have to pay
attention to the local social situation in regards toforest disturbance and illegal logging. As such, weneed to rethink our approaches when conducting
research outside of Japan in Southeast Asia.
I mainly work in deep secluded forests or mountains, count the number of individuals and species oftrees, and measure their size and biomass andsometimes, collect leaf or soil samples to analyze inthe laboratory. What do we gain from doing this?
Through investigation, we can gain an understandingof the mechanisms inherent in how forests organize
themselves, learn about what kind of environments
tree species like for their habitats, or whether forests
will develop or decline in the future. In recent years,
anthropogenic disturbance has become a major
issue, leading me to carry out research on the damaged forests and their recovery processes after theeffects of environmental destruction. In general, for a
forest survey in the tropics, we set up 1 ha (100 x
100 m) plot to measure the diameter of the stems,
check the position and identify the species name of
all trees within it over a period of two to three weeks(Fig. 2). We also collect stem/branch or soil samples.
From this data, we can develop an understanding ofwhat kinds of characteristics the forests have. Continuous research makes it possible to know how theforests will change in the long term. Generally, mostnatural scientists can conduct their research without
learning the local languages and there are two­principle reasons for this. The first is that we cancommunicate and discuss in English with our local

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

Fig. 1 Peat swamp forest in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

019

cology is a discipline that deals with interactions
between organisms and the environments withthe former affecting our environments, and the latterthe former. One major concern of ecological research is to understand how the characteristics oforganisms such as their distribution or population
size etc. are affected by biotic and abiotic (that is­climate and geology etc.) factors. I focus on forest
ecology in the tropics and have conducted researchin Southeast Asia region, mainly in Indonesia andMalaysia, and work on the validation of anthropogenic forest disturbances and recovery processes intropical forests; conduct impact evaluations on
drainage canal construction in tropical peat swamp
forests; and look at the adaptation of tree and leaf
traits under various environmental stresses (Fig. 1).
Why do I carry out research in tropical forests? Oneanswer can be found close to home. The Japanesearchipelago stretches from north to south and it
covers a wide climate range: from subarctic to­subtropical zones which correspond to subarctic
and subtropical forests. In Japan, a clear seasonal­climate change effects plant seasonality such as thetiming of leaf flush and fall. On the other hand, inequatorial tropical forests, found in Indonesia andMalaysia, seasonal climate change is weak yet there
exists higher species diversity and life forms. As
such, different forests require significant knowledge
to understand varied plant behavior. In addition,
while a large number of forests continue to be lost to
rapid anthropogenic forest disturbance, clarifying themechanisms of remaining forests and recovery systems for degraded forests remains an importanttask. Over the past several years, I have conductedecological research and been involved in projects
that relate to the sustainable use of peat swamp­forests in Indonesia.
When considering tropical forests as a place of
research, there are a number of restrictions in placewhen compared to conducting research in Japan. In
fact, there are many difficulties. Firstly, we cannot
always obtain equipment and chemical reagents touse for research and it can take time to carry samples collected at study sites and bring back to thelaboratory. Secondly, we may not be able to keep
samples refrigerated and frozen (to examine aftercollection) as there is often no power for electricity.
Finally, differences in how researchers think, local
customs and especially laws between countries canprevent research. For these reasons, our researchFig. 4

Fig. 2 Measurement of diameter of trees
Fig. 3 Boys crossing the port (Riau Province,
Sumatra)Fig. 4 Wedding party in a village (Riau
Province, Sumatra)
Fig. 2

Fig. 3collaborative researchers. The second is that the
duration of stay in the study area is short, due to thefact that our main activities are to install equipment
or collect samples and data. As such, our stay may
be no more than a few days. Notwithstanding, ecologists should stay in forests over a relatively long
period of time and work with local people who canspeak their local languages, which means we are
required to learn their languages, cultures and customs. Every time I visit my research site in Indonesia,
I go there with my local counterpart who is a
researcher or technician of the Research Center for
Biology, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (RCB-LIPI)
or local universities. This style of research is one
which is used in the laboratory I graduated from andthe philosophy toward research is that we should
conduct research in collaboration with local counterparts, and not only go there to do our own research.
Doing so means that research is a collaborative
endeavor based on researchers working closely
together.
Working with Other Female Researchersin Indonesia

NEWSLETTER
No. 74In Indonesia, the social advancement of women has
progressed rapidly over the past few decades. Many
women work with government agencies and they
regularly occupy high managerial positions. They
work very hard as other family members or maids
help with housework and childcare for them. Many of
the counterparts whom I work with are women withsmall children who make numerous business trips
for meetings, travel to do field research, and work
well under the help of others. This gives me theimpression that a unique Indonesian lifestyle makes
it possible to work in such a way. When we conduct
research, we camp out in the forests or stay at avillager’s house. Yet, as we often need manpower tofinish our forest research, we hire some villagers to

help us. Although the social advancement of womenis quite developed in Indonesia, such hard work in
the forests is the domain of men. For this reason, we
need to work in the situation where all helpers aremen, and only myself and my counterparts, allresearchers, are women. Under these kinds of circumstances, I always make an effort to become
friends with female local villagers, especially with thehost families I stay with. As Indonesia is a multiethnic­country, there are a myriad of customs thatcan vary from place to place. For example, themother of my host family will advise me how I should
behave and remain safe. I have been taught to “notdrink too much in public,” “not dry laundry outside”
and “not walk alone.” These are similar to what wemight be told in Japan, but it’s stricter in Indonesia.
In addition, when doing fieldwork, I have to makesure that I bathe quickly (due to the fact that all ourteam members stay in one house and both waterand time is very limited), not bring alcohol to theresearch sites (sometimes it is construed to be
impolite) and be alert to possible dangers at all times
and in all places. In everyday life, we must pay attention to the mix of local people. Specifically, I try to
speak the local language (not English), to wear
clothes which fit in there, and to eat local foods inlocal restaurants. In this way, it is possible to reduce
considerably the probability of encountering crimes
that might target us (as foreigners). In my case, I am
often seen and perceived to be a Chinese-Indonesian.
I see Indonesia to be a country that is home tostrong healthy women. It is not unusual for women
who are ordinary mothers to also be researchers
conducting fieldwork and when compared to Japan,
it is easier for them to be able to go on long businesstrips. As a female ecologist who has to commit long
periods of time to working in secluded forests I can
all but envy the environment that exists in Indonesia
for women.

020

Japan-ASEAN Science, Technology andInnovation Platform (JASTIP):
Promotion of Sustainable Development
Research
Takagi Akira
Program Coordinator, JASTIP

On February 26, 2016, Japan-ASEAN Science,
Technology and Innovation Platform (JASTIP)
held its opening ceremony at the residence of theJapanese Ambassador in Bangkok, Thailand (Fig. 1).
In the opening ceremony a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) was signed by four parties; Kyoto University, Japan, National Science and Technology
Development Agency (NSTDA), Thailand, Ministry of
Science and Technology, Indonesian Institute of
Sciences (Lembaga Limu Pengetahuan Indonesia or
LIPI) and Malaysia-Japan International Institute ofTechnology (MJIIT).
In 2015, Kyoto University launched the “JapanASEAN Science, Technology and Innovation Platform(JASTIP): Promotion of Sustainable Development
Research” within the framework of the Collaboration
Hubs for International Research Program (CHIRP)
2015 funded by the Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP) of Japan Scienceand Technology Agency (JST).
JASTIP’s objective is to conduct and produce
innovative research and promote research cooperation between Japan and ASEAN countries. JASTIP

will be more than mere networking for the researchcommunity. It will serve as a platform to connect
research results and feed them back into society.
JASTIP is based at the Kyoto University ASEAN
Center in Bangkok and its focus is on Energy andEnvironment Research in which NSTDA plays a key
role. JASTIP is also engaged in Biological Resource
and Biodiversity Research (coordinated by LIPI) andDisaster Prevention (MJIIT).
This project will accelerate the promotion ofresearch based on Japanese-ASEAN cooperation,and encourage discussions toward building a­c ollaborative system with ASEAN in the areas of­science, technology, and research education thatmoves beyond the walls of institutions or the confines of a particular project. It also aims to contributeto the efficient operation of individual projects, and to
the utilization of effective results. JASTIP will promote
information sharing and the exchange of ideas
regarding the limits to and problems with JapaneseASEAN science and technology and research education projects, and effective support systems. We
aim to broaden discussions on the inclusive Japa-

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University
021

Fig. 1 Group photograph of the opening ceremonynese system that Japan requires and on the goals of
this project.
In December 2015, the ASEAN Economic Community came into formation, compromising a population of over 600 million people. The international
position of Japan within ASEAN is being further
cemented, and the fact that ASEAN growth will be a
driving force in new growth for Japan is substantial
to Japan. In particular, for science and technology,
as well as research education, to assume an important role, the results need to be linked to societal
innovation, and their positive effects on society moreclearly demonstrated.
Prof. Kono Yasuyuki project leader of JASTIP has
noted, on the establishment of JASTIP, that joint
research between Japan and ASEAN countries has
been ongoing for a long time and given rise toremarkable achievements in science and technology.
In addition, joint research has engendered a numberof researchers in leading positions and helped train
researchers who have become subsequent leadersin the field. The goal is to develop a broader under-

standing in Japan and ASEAN societies of the academic achievements for which a community should
be proud, and to accelerate research that will be a
driving force in our shared goal to attain sustainable
development under closer collaboration between
Japan and the ASEAN countries. For this type of
research promotion, we believe that researchers
should not limit themselves to their respective fields
of expertise, but should go beyond their research
fields and countries for collaboration and dedicate
themselves for research and human resource development by working together with various stakeholders
involved in sustainable development. We respectfully
request that all interested parties find a means ofcooperation toward this worthwhile goal.
For more information on JASTIP visit the site below.
http://jastip.org/en/
https://www.facebook.com/jastip/
If you have any inquiries regarding the contents of our
project, please contact us at the following email address:
jastip-contact@kura.kyoto-u.ac.jp

NEWSLETTER
No. 74022

In Memory of Pak Igarashi Tadataka (1945–2014)
Azuma Yoshifumi
Professor, Ritsumeikan University

H023

as a researcher in the Kikai Islands, he obtained atenured post at the National University of Gunma as an
Associate Professor. It was there that he undertook a
new mission to conduct research in a Sundanese­village, West Java, Indonesia through a demographic
survey with his boss and colleagues. Several years
later, he was offered a post at CSEAS, Kyoto University, and directly dispatched to the liaison office inJakarta. Since then, he spent most of his careerdeveloping the office, and devoted his time to building an Indonesian library collection. He was eventually promoted within Kyoto University which offered
him new opportunities to produce publications andfurther his career. However, an increase in administrative tasks and attending to endless visitors fromJapan meant he could not devote himself to his maintask, research. During his stressful assignment, hissole retreat would be purchasing old books for the
library collection. Of course, his contributions in running the liaison office were significant, and hereceived special recognition for his efforts.
I met with Pak Igarashi at the CSEAS Jakarta­liaison office during this period in the mid-1980s, andhe was enthusiastic to contribute to the library collections for CSEAS, which would eventually competewith many prominent libraries as such housed atCenter for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

ow time flies. On June 6, 2015, a memorial
gathering was held at the Center for Southeast
Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University for Pak­Igarashi Tadataka, and was attended by 100 people,
including former colleagues, friends and students,
reminding us of his generous, sober, and decent
character.
Pak Igarashi left behind a substantially large bookcollection (approximately 10,000 books), showing
the wide range of his intellectual as well as academic
capacity. Languages in the collection vary from English, Bahasa Indonesia, Basa Sunda, Japanese,
Korean, and Dutch. Demography, ethnography, andanthropology all figured heavily in the early stages ofhis main research interests. Looking through the collection we can learn something of his intellectual
journey which started with Korean ethnology anddemographic transition near North and South Koreanborder villages. Unfortunately, the results of researchfrom that period did not bear any fruit due to thepolitical and territorial conflicts that existed between
the North and South.
After a bitter departure from Korean studies, his
intellectual journey moved to the Kikai Islands inSouthern Kyushu, Japan. This period was one ofhis most productive as an academic. After working

LIBRARY

Fig. 1 Palolo worms

NEWSLETTER

Leiden, Cornell and Australian National University(ANU). Very frequently, he met with several rare
second-hands book sellers (I do not remember theexact names) from Pasar Senen, Jakarta. His mainpriorities were toward the library collection, but somerare books were taken by him, if two copies wereavailable. It is for this reason that we can find duplicate copies of books in both Pak Igarashi’s and
CSEAS’s library collections. When the book-sellers
offered a price for rare books, he never haggled overthe price. This was because of his lack of awarenessof the cost (or a talent to bargain but I am not sure).
Yet importantly, Pak Igarashi had the ability to defuse
tense situations with a nice smile and by being himself. Therefore, the more he bought without bargaining, the more book-sellers tried to procure rarebooks and periodicals from other book sellers. This
good circulation greatly contributed to the development of the library collection at CSEAS.
In the collection we can find many Dutch books
and periodicals from the United East Indian Company period as well as post-independence Indonesianbooks of great value. When I was a visiting fellow at
ANU in Canberra, he sent emails asking for a photocopy of the Palolo worm (Palola viridis) in the Dutch
periodicals held at the National Library of Australia(Fig. 1). His enthusiasm for old books and periodicals
seemed to border on the obsessive. Pak Igarashi’s
younger brother told me that their father was an odd
collector of rare old stamps. On the surface, a stamp
may have a similar appearance, yet the detail ofprinting colors or lines can vary from version to ver-sion. His father was fascinated by such subtle differences, and his collected stamps could sometimes
trade at extraordinarily good prices. Of course, he
had no intention to invest money in rare books, but
he may have inherited his eccentric behavior to collect books from his father.
His long intellectual journey was nearly completed
through his exploration of the link between astronomy
and the harvest of Palolo worms. The harvest happens
on just one night a year, a week after the first full moon
between the months of October and Novemeber on
the Luna calendar. It triggers a natural phenomenon
and the Palolo worms spawn in the coral reef mainlyin the South Pacific and Northern coastal regions of
the Java and Sunda archipelago, Indonesia. Pak
Igarashi frequently visited to observe Palolo emerging in Bali or Lombok. The local people tried to fishand eat the Palolo, a kind of sea caviar, rich in protein. His last seminar, which dealt with the result of
his long standing research on the links between the
Lunar calendar and the rising of Palolo, was fascinating and held a couple of months before his sudden
and unfortunate death in November 2014.
He never believed in any Christian God, Islamic
Allah or Buddha. However, I hope that Pak Igarashi
is somewhere, carrying on his uncompleted
research using the collections he left behind at
CSEAS, Ritsumeikan, and Nanzan University Libraries. Rest in peace Pak Igarashi, you are now freefrom the short-sighted pressures of “Publish or
Perish.”No. 74024

Publications

http://www.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/edit/

Kyoto CSEAS Series on Asian Studies
Kyoto CSEAS Series
on Asian Studies Vol.15

Kyoto CSEAS Series
on Asian Studies Vol.16

Kyoto CSEAS Series
on Asian Studies Vol.17

Kosuke Mizuno,
Motoko S. Fujita andShuichi Kawai, eds.

Sari K. Ishii, ed.

Yusuke Takagi.

Marriage
Migration in Asia:
Emerging
Minorities at
the Frontiers of
Nation-States

Central Banking asState Building:
Policymakers andTheir Nationalism
in the Philippines,
1933–1964

2016. NUS Press andKyoto University Press.

2016. NUS Press,
Kyoto University Press,
and Ateneo de Manila
University Press.

Catastrophe andRegeneration inIndonesia’s
Peatlands:
Ecology, Economy
and Society
2016. NUS Press andKyoto University Press.

Books by Staff
Hiromu Shimizu and Shuhei Kimura.

Yoshio Akamatsu.

Misaki Iwai, Mikiko Ono, and Shoichi Ota.

New Personhood, New Community:
Re-imaging Alternative Stories of
Rehabilitation from Natural
Disasters

Changes of Livelihood and Its
Contemporary Problems in­Mountainous Villages of Eastern
BhutanThe Birth of “ New Economic Village”
in Vietnam

2015. Kyoto University Press.
(in Japanese)

2016. Rubi Enterprise; Kyoto: Lekhapora
Editing.

Kazuo Ando, Khin Lay Swe, and Mamoru
Kanzaki, eds.

Caroline S. Hau, Katrina P. Tuvera, andIsabelita O. Reyes, eds.

JPaul S. Manzanilla and Caroline S. Hau,
eds.

Paper Collection of Unknown
Contemporary Issues for
Sustainable Environmental and
Rural Development in Myanmar:
Highlighting Collaboration with
Bangladesh, Bhutan and Japan

Elite: An Anthology

Remembering/Rethinking EDSA

2016. Anvil Publishing Inc.

2016. Anvil Publishing Inc.

Kosuke Mizuno and Siti Sugiah­Mugniesyah, eds.

Suzuko Oomoto, Tetsu Sato, and Daisuke
Naito.

Sustainability and Crisis at theVillage: Agroforestry in West Java,
Indonesia

International Certifications for
Sustainable Resource Management:
Eco Labels Linking the Global and theLocal

2016. KUIS Press. (in Japanese)

2016. CSEAS, SEAMEO-CHAT, YAU, and Post-­
graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University

2016. Gadjah Mada University Press.

CSEAS JournalSoutheast Asian Studies
https://englishkyoto-seas.org/
In 2012, we re-launched Southeast Asian Studies as an all-English journal, alongside its Japanese sister journal, Tonan Ajia
Kenkyu. Intended for a regional as well as global readership, Southeast Asian Studies is published three times a year. The newjournal aims to promote excellent, agenda-setting scholarship and provide a forum for dialogue and collaboration both within
and beyond the region. Southeast Asian Studies engages in wide-ranging and in-depth discussions that are attuned to theissues, debates, and imperatives within the region, while affirming the importance of learning and sharing ideas on across-country, global, and historical scale. An integral part of the journal’s mandate is to foster scholarship that is capable ofbridging the continuing divide in area studies between the social sciences and humanities, on the one hand, and the natural­sciences, on the other hand.

Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University

2016. University of Tokyo Press.
(in Japanese)025Fellows
Visiting Research Scholars, Guest Scholars, and Guest Research
Associates at CSEAS

E

ach year CSEAS accepts applicants about 14 positions for scholars and researchers who work on Southeast Asia, or any one of the countries in that region, tospend 3 to 12 months in Kyoto to conduct research, write,or pursue other scholarly activities in connection with theirfield of study. Since 1975, more than 350 distinguishedscholars have availed themselves of the Center’s considerable scholarly r­esources and enjoyed the invigorating­atmosphere of scenic Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japanand the main ­repository of the country’s cultural treasures,to pursue their interests in Southeast Asian area studies.
The Center’s multi-disciplinary character and the diverse
research interests of its faculty offer visiting scholars an
ideal opportunity for the exchange of ideas and the cultivation of comparative perspectives. The highly competitive
selection process has brought to the Center in recent
years researchers from Southeast Asian countries, Bangladesh, China, Korea, and western countries including theUnited States and France. The visiting fellows represent­various basic disciplines in their study of Southeast Asia,and their official posts in their home institutions include

Nameteacher, researcher, librarian, journalist, and NGO worker.
Information and Technology (IT) e­ xperts who conduct­research on Southeast Asia are also joining the Center, notonly to manage various database systems but also to construct academic networks for area study throughout theworld. Successful applicants receive an a
­ ppropriate­stipend to cover international travel, housing, and living­expenses in Kyoto. Research funds will also be provided
to facilitate his/her work. Funds will also be allocated for­domestic travel, subject to government regulations, and anumber of other facilities are available to visiting scholars.
Fellows will be expected to reside in Kyoto for the durationof their fellowship period. F­ ellows are normally i­nvited todeliver a public lecture during their term at the Center andencouraged to submit an article for possible publication in
the Center’s journal, Southeast Asian Studies and to­contribute to the online journal Kyoto Review of Southeast
Asia. CSEAS also received researchers, both Japaneseand foreign, who visit on their own funds or on external
fellowships.

NEWSLETTER
No. 74026

PeriodPosition/Affiliation

Research Title

Yukti Mukdawijitra

2016/1/1–6/30

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Sociology andAnthropology, Thammasat University

From Love Story to Class Consciousness:
Subjectivation of Ethnic Thái (the Tai) in
Vietnam

Lukman Hakim

2016/1/6–4/5

Professor Research, Center for Science andTechnological Development Studies,
Indonesian Institute of ScienceIndonesian Science Technology andInnovation Development under New
Administration Changes

Sivaporn Uthaisa

2016/1/18–4/17

Catalog Librarian, Collection Management
Division, Thammasat University Libraries

Thai Cremation Volumes: A Comparative
Study

Ahmad Najib Burhani

2016/2/1–4/30

Researcher, Research Center for Society andCulture, Indonesian Institute of Sciences

Modernism or Puritanism? A Study of the
Muhammadiyah in Its Post-Centennial Era

Dadang Ahmad Suriamihardja

2016/2/1–7/31

Professor, Department of Physics, Faculty of
Sciences, Hasanuddin University

Study on Environmental Economics
concerning Mining Activities in JeneberangRiver

Adam John Simpson

2016/2/1–7/31

Director, Centre for Peace and Security,
University of South Australia

Ethnicity and Natural Resource Governancein Myanmar

Grace Wong Mun Yee

2016/3/1–8/31

Senior Scientist, Forest and Livelihoods
Portfolio, Center for International Forestry
Research

Assessing Costs, Risks and Incentives
Affecting Forests and Land Use Decisions in
Rural Landscapes of Southeast Asia

Sukanda Luangon

2016/4/11–7/10

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Economics,
Chulalongkorn University

Financial Inclusion in Thailand: Innovations
and Challenges

Ni Ni Naing

2016/5/16–8/15

Librarian, Universities’ Central Library,
University of Yangon

Selective Annotated Bibliography of Books on
Myanmar Ethnic Groups (Shan and Kayin)

Ohn Mar Oo

2016/5/16–8/15

Lecturer, Department of Library andInformation Studies, University of Yangon

Bibliometric Study of PhD Dissertations
Submitted to the History Department of
University of Yangon (2002–07)

Bui The Cuong

2016/7/1–11/30

Full Professor, High Senior Researcher, Center
for Sociology, Southern Institute of Social
Sciences, Vietnam Academy of Social
Sciences

Configuration of Social Stratification in theSouthern Economic Region of Vietnam

Ooi Keat Gin

2016/7/15–10/15

Professor, History Section, School of
Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia

Borneo in the Midst of the Cold War, 1950–70

Kenneth Arthur Samuel MacLean

2016/8/1–12/31

Associate Professor, Department ofInternational Development, Community, andEnvironment, Clark University

The Protection and Care of Sexualized Ethnic
Bodies across the Sino-Vietnamese
Borderlands

Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, 46 Shimoadachi-cho, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
Tel: +81-75-753-7302 Fax: +81-75-753-7350
京都大学東南アジア研究所 〒606-8501 京都市左京区吉田下阿達町46 Tel: 075-753-7302 Fax: 075-753-7350
Editors: Mario Lopez, Shitara Narumi
Date of Issue: Autumn 2016

〈編集〉マリオ・ロペズ

設楽 成実

ISSN 2185-663X